LONDON: The UAE said it will restrict entry into all government institutions to people vaccinated against coronavirus and those who are exempted from getting the vaccine, state news agency WAM reported on Sunday.
The Ministry of Health and Prevention, in coordination with the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority, made the announcement in line with the UAE’s COVID-19 recovery drive and efforts to ensure public safety.
“All federal government employees and the public seeking federal government services nationwide are required to follow the Green Pass Protocol on Al Hosn app effective Jan. 3, to have access to federal entities,” the statement on WAM said.
Employees and individuals requiring entry into government buildings must take a PCR test every 14 days, to maintain the “green status” in the app. Those who have been exempt from receiving the vaccine must take a PCR test every seven days, while children aged under 16 will not be required to undergo any COVID tests.
The ministry said “unvaccinated individuals and those with ‘grey status’ on the Al Hosn app will not be allowed access to federal government entities.”
It also called on the public to obtain the booster shot to ensure raising societal immunity in light of the spread of new COVID-19 variants.
UAE restricts entry of government buildings to COVID-19 vaccinated from Jan. 3
https://arab.news/w9284
UAE restricts entry of government buildings to COVID-19 vaccinated from Jan. 3
- A negative PCR test every 14 days is needed to maintain the green status in Al Hosn app
- Unvaccinated individuals and those with ‘grey status’ on the Al Hosn app will not be allowed access to federal government entities
Algeria buys milling wheat in tender, traders say
Algeria often buys considerably more than the indicative volume
HAMBURG/PARIS: Algeria’s state grains agency OAIC has bought milling wheat in an international tender which closed on Wednesday, European traders said.
Purchases were initially reported at around $244.50 a metric ton cost and freight (c&f) included, they said.
The precise size of the purchase in tonnage terms was not initially clear. But preliminary trader estimates were of a large purchase of between 600,000 and 700,000 metric tons.
Reports reflect assessments from traders and further estimates of prices and volumes are still possible later.
The tender sought a nominal 50,000 metric tons but Algeria often buys considerably more than the indicative volume. Sellers can supply wheat from a range of approved origins.
The wheat is sought for shipment in two periods from the main supply regions including Europe: July 1-15 and July 16-31. If sourced from South America or Australia, shipment is one month earlier.
Algeria is a vital customer for wheat from the European Union, especially France, but Russian and other Black Sea region exporters have been expanding strongly in the Algerian market.
Traders say a diplomatic rift between France and Algeria led the grains agency to tacitly exclude French wheat and trading companies from its purchase tenders, with relations between the two countries remaining tense.
MSF says Israel creating conditions for ‘eradication of Palestinian lives’ in Gaza
- MSF: ‘We are witnessing, in real time, the creation of conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza’
- MSF: ‘Gaza has become a hell on earth for Palestinians’
GENEVA: Doctors Without Borders slammed Israel Wednesday for creating a “deliberate humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and accused it of trying to make aid conditional on forced displacement of Palestinians.
“We are witnessing, in real time, the creation of conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza,” the medical charity, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement.
“Gaza has become a hell on earth for Palestinians.”
Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2 after talks to prolong a January 19 ceasefire broke down.
The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.
MSF warned that its medical teams on the ground had “seen a 32-percent increase in the number of patients presenting with malnutrition over the past two weeks.”
“Dwindling fuel stocks are limiting the ability to desalinate and distribute water,” it said in its statement.
“Those health facilities that still function — already critically inadequate in number and capacity for the population — are still being attacked and are suffering from rapidly diminishing stocks of medications and other essential supplies.”
MSF highlighted that its “teams in Gaza have received no supplies for 11 weeks and face critical shortages of essential medical items such as sterile compresses and sterile gloves.”
The organization flatly rejected a US proposal, backed by Israel, for the creation of a new foundation to lead aid distribution in Gaza, in an overhaul seen sidelining the UN and existing aid organizations and essentially handing control to Israel.
“The US-Israel proposition to control the distribution of supplies under the guise of humanitarian aid raises grave humanitarian, ethical, security and legal concerns,” MSF said.
“Making aid conditional on forced displacement and vetting of the population is another tool in the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population,” it said.
“MSF firmly rejects and condemns any plan that further reduces availability of aid and subjugates it to Israeli military occupation objectives.”
The organization called on the “UN, EU member states, and all those with influence over Israel” to “urgently use their political and economic leverage to stop the instrumentalization of aid.”
“Israeli’s plan to instrumentalize aid is a cynical response to the very humanitarian crisis they created,” it said.
“If they wished, Israel and its allies could lift the blockade today and let humanitarian aid reach all those in Gaza whose survival depends on it.”
What would lifting US sanctions on Syria mean to the war-torn country?
- After Trump’s announcement, Syria’s currency gained 60 percent on Tuesday night
- Experts says the process for lifting the US sanctions is unclear
- Syria needs tens of billions of dollars to restore its battered infrastructure and pull an estimated 90 percent of population out of poverty
BEIRUT: President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will ease sanctions on Syria could eventually facilitate the country’s recovery from years of civil war and transform the lives of everyday Syrians.
But experts say it will take time, and the process for lifting the sanctions — some of which were first introduced 47 years ago — is unclear.
“I think people view sanctions as a switch that you turn on and off,” said Karam Shaar, a Syrian economist who runs the consultancy firm Karam Shaar Advisory Limited. “Far from it.”
Still, the move could bring much-needed investment to the country, which is emerging from decades of autocratic rule by the Assad family as well as the war. It needs tens of billions of dollars to restore its battered infrastructure and pull an estimated 90 percent of population out of poverty.
And Trump’s pledge has already had an effect: Syrians celebrated in streets across the country, and Arab leaders in neighboring nations that host millions of refugees who fled Syria’s war praised the announcement.
What are the US sanctions on Syria?
Washington has imposed three sanctions programs on Syria. In 1979, the country was designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” because its military was involved in neighboring Lebanon’s civil war and had backed armed groups there, and eventually developed strong ties with the powerful militant Hezbollah group.
In 2003, then-President George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act into law, as his administration faced off with Iran and Tehran-backed governments and groups in the Mideast. The legislation focused heavily on Syria’s support of designated terror groups, its military presence in Lebanon, its alleged development of weapons of mass destruction, as well as oil smuggling and the backing of armed groups in Iraq after the US-led invasion.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, he signed the Caesar Act, sanctioning Syrian troops and others responsible for atrocities committed during the civil war.
Caesar is the code name for a Syrian photographer who took thousands of photographs of victims of torture and other abuses and smuggled them out of the country. The images, taken between 2011 and 2013, were turned over to human rights advocates, exposing the scale of the Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on political opponents and dissidents during countrywide protests.
What has been the impact of US sanctions on Syria?
The sanctions — along with similar measures by other countries — have touched every part of the Syrian economy and everyday life in the country.
They have led to shortages of goods from fuel to medicine, and made it difficult for humanitarian agencies responding to receive funding and operate fully.
Companies around the world struggle to export to Syria, and Syrians struggle to import goods of any kind because nearly all financial transactions with the country are banned. That has led to a blossoming black market of smuggled goods.
Simple tasks like updating smartphones are difficult, if not impossible, and many people resort to virtual private networks, or VPNs, which mask online activity, to access the Internet because many websites block users with Syrian IP addresses.
The impact was especially stark after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkiye and northern Syria in February 2023, compounding the destruction and misery that the war had already brought.
Though the US Treasury issued a six-month exemption on all financial transactions related to disaster relief, the measures had limited effect since banks and companies were nervous to take the risk, a phenomenon known as over-compliance.
Interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa — who led the insurgency that ousted President Bashar Assad — has argued the sanctions have outlived their purpose and are now only harming the Syrian people and ultimately preventing the country from any prospect of recovery.
Trump and Al-Sharaa met Wednesday.
Washington eased some restrictions temporarily in January but did not lift the sanctions. Britain and the European Union have eased some of their measures.
What could lifting the sanctions mean for Syria?
After Trump’s announcement, Syria’s currency gained 60 percent on Tuesday night — a signal of how transformational the removal of sanctions could be.
Still, it will take time to see any tangible impact on Syria’s economy, experts say, but removing all three sanctions regimes could bring major changes to the lives of Syrians, given how all-encompassing the measures are.
It could mean banks could return to the international financial system or car repair shops could import spare parts from abroad. If the economy improves and reconstruction projects take off, many Syrian refugees who live in crowded tented encampments relying on aid to survive could decide to return home.
“If the situation stabilized and there were reforms, we will then see Syrians returning to their country if they were given opportunities as we expect,” says Lebanese economist Mounis Younes.
The easing of sanctions also has an important symbolic weight because it would signal that Syria is no longer a pariah, said Shaar.
Mathieu Rouquette, Mercy Corps’ country director for Syria, said the move “marks a potentially transformative moment for millions of Syrians who have endured more than 13 years of economic hardship, conflict, and displacement.”
But it all depends on how Washington goes about it.
“Unless enough layers of sanctions are peeled off, you cannot expect the positive impacts on Syria to start to appear,” said Shaar. “Even if you remove some of the top ones, the impact economically would still be nonexistent.”
Air raid sirens sound in Palestinian cities to commemorate 77th anniversary of Nakba
- Commemoration occurs amid ongoing Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, leading to forced displacement and accusations of genocide
- Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a Fatah leader, says what is happening in Gaza is a severe and painful catastrophe
LONDON: Palestinians in the Occupied Territories on Wednesday commemorated the 77th anniversary of the national catastrophe in 1948 known as the Nakba.
Air raid sirens sounded for 77 seconds in various Palestinian cities in the West Bank, marking the anniversary of the Nakba.
The commemoration took place amid ongoing Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, leading to forced displacements and accusations of genocide, with more than 52,000 Palestinians killed since late 2023, according to the Wafa news agency.
Israeli actions in the West Bank have resulted in the displacement of 40,000 people from the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps, an increase in settler attacks, home raids, and the banning of UNRWA, the agency responsible for providing relief to Palestinian refugees.
Wafa reported that thousands of Palestinians participated in a rally in Ramallah on Wednesday, carrying Palestinian flags, black banners, and door keys, symbols of the right of return.
Mahmoud Al-Aloul, deputy chairman of the Fatah Movement, said Palestinians mark the Nakba “under difficult circumstances.”
He said: “There is a more severe and painful catastrophe currently being experienced by our people in the Gaza Strip, where the occupation is claiming the lives of children and women, and is carrying out massacres, siege, and starvation.
“The massacres are extending to the West Bank governorates, and settlers are wreaking terror against citizens, their land, and Islamic and Christian holy sites, under the protection of the occupation forces,” he added. “This is in addition to the abuse of prisoners, which has resulted in the martyrdom of dozens of them in occupation prisons.”
During the Nakba in 1948 Jewish militias drove about 750,000 Palestinians from towns and villages, events that led to the establishment of modern-day Israel. Palestinian refugees were settled in UN-established camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The majority of the families’ towns and villages are in Israeli territory.
Leaders of Israel’s Druze say the state owes it to them to defend Syrian kin
- “The Druze in Israel have forged a bond with the country and with the Jewish people. We are fighting alongside them on all fronts,” said Anwer Amer, a former police officer
- An Arab minority straddling Lebanon, Syria and Israel, the Druze practice a secret religion that is an offshoot of Islam
HURFEISH, Israel: Pained and angered by deadly clashes between Islamist and Druze gunmen in Syria in recent weeks, leaders of Israel’s own Druze minority say the Israeli military was right to intervene to defend the Druze and should do so again if violence restarts.
Close ties between the Israeli state and its 120,000 Druze citizens, strengthened by the fact that Druze men serve in the Israel Defense Forces, are one of the reasons for Israel’s deepening involvement in Syria.
“The Druze in Israel have forged a bond with the country and with the Jewish people. We are fighting alongside them on all fronts,” said Anwer Amer, a former police officer who is now the mayor of Hurfeish, a Druze town in the Galilee, northern Israel.
“I expect my state and the Jewish people to reciprocate for everything we’ve done for it and defend our brothers in Syria,” he told Reuters at his office.
An Arab minority straddling Lebanon, Syria and Israel, the Druze practice a secret religion that is an offshoot of Islam. Loyal to their culture and to each other, they also seek good relations with the countries where they live.
Druze solidarity is not Israel’s only concern in Syria, which has been run by an Islamist group that was once an Al-Qaeda affiliate since Bashar Assad was ousted in December.
Israel sees the Islamists as a threat and has sought to keep their armed forces out of regions close to its border, such as Sweida province where the majority are Druze.
Regional geopolitics are shifting. Israel frequently bombed Syria during Assad’s rule to counter his backer, Iran, but now worries about Türkiye, a close ally of the Islamists, becoming stronger in Syria and gaining a foothold near Israel’s border.
In a major policy change, US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, setting aside deep Israeli suspicion of the new administration there.
In this transformed landscape, defending the Syrian Druze is in Israel’s interest because they help keep the Islamists at bay, said Sarit Zehavi, founder of the Alma Center, a security research and teaching organization in the Galilee.
“Building relationships with the Druze of Syria that are living a few tens of kilometers from the border could help ensure the Islamist monster is not growing next to our border,” she said, adding that this was a lesson learned from the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
She said Israel was also duty bound to help the Druze because of its “special relationship” with its own Druze.
That relationship was strained in 2018, when tens of thousands of Druze protested against a new law stating that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country.
Yet in the Galilee’s Druze villages, perched on steep slopes lush with oak and olive trees,
Israeli flags and Druze flags — a green triangle with red, yellow, blue and white stripes — are equally ubiquitous on flagpoles and public buildings.
In March, a delegation of Syrian Druze religious elders was allowed into Israel to visit a holy shrine for the first time in 50 years, sparking huge celebrations among Israeli Druze.
’NO OTHER CHOICES’
The fighting in Druze areas of Syria started on April 29 and left more than 100 Druze dead, mostly gunmen, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which also reported 32 Islamist deaths.
Coming after hundreds of Alawites, another Syrian minority, were slaughtered by pro-government fighters in March, the violence was viewed as an existential threat by many Druze.
“It’s not easy to see the pictures and to hear them turning to us to help,” said Anan Wahabi, a Druze former IDF officer, now a university lecturer in political science.
The spiritual leader of the Israeli Druze, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to press for military action. Some Druze soldiers signed a letter volunteering to go and fight in Syria. Druze protesters blocked roads to pressure the government into intervening.
Israel responded with air strikes, including one near the presidential palace in Damascus which it called a warning to the Syrian government not to deploy forces south of the capital or threaten the Druze. It also said it had sent ground troops to protect Druze villages and had evacuated some casualties.
“The IDF continues to monitor developments and remains at peak readiness for defense and
various scenarios,” it said last week.
Syria accused Israel of a dangerous escalation and rejected any foreign intervention. The government has made concessions to ease tensions with the Druze, such as hiring security forces locally rather than bringing them in from elsewhere.
Some Druze say Israel should keep quieter about its actions to shield the Syrian Druze from being seen as Israeli proxies.
“We expect a country that we die for to protect our brothers, but it’s better if they tone it down,” Salim Barik, a political scientist, was quoted as saying by Israeli newspaper Calcalist.
But Wahabi said the Syrian Druze needed Israel’s support regardless of optics.
“In this chaos in Syria the Druze have no other choices,” he said.
In the Galilee village of Yanuh-Jat, local religious elder Sheikh Kamal Hatib, speaking at the shrine of a Druze saint, said Israeli Druze would keep pushing for their government to protect their Syrian brethren.
“If something happens, we’re going to be there,” he said.
