Istanbul: The Hagia Sophia of Istanbul is no stranger to change — through the centuries the city’s architectural jewel has gone from church to mosque to museum, back to mosque again.
But the latest renovation aims not only to restore the wonders of the 1,488-year gem, but to ensure it survives the next earthquake to hit the ancient city.
From afar, its dome, shimmering rock and delicate minarets appear to watch over Istanbul, as they have for centuries.
As visitors get closer however, they see scaffolding covering its eastern facade and one of the minarets.
While “the renovation of course breaks a little bit the atmosphere of the appearance from the outside” and the “scaffolding takes away the aesthetic of the monument... renovation is a must,” said Abdullah Yilmaz, a guide.
Hagia Sophia, a World Heritage Site and Turkiye’s most visited landmark, “constantly has problems,” Hasan Firat Diker, an architecture professor working on the restoration, told AFP.
That is why it has undergone numerous piecemeal reconstructions over the centuries, he added.
'Global’ makeover'
The current makeover is the first time the site will undergo a “global restoration,” including the dome, walls and minarets, he said.
When it was first completed in AD 537, on the same spot where previous churches had stood, the Hagia Sophia became known as a shining example of the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, which ruled the city known as Constantinople at the time.
It served as a church until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453, when it became a mosque.
In 1935, Mustafa Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye who forcibly remade the country into a secular one, turned the building into a museum.
It remained as such until 2020, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a practicing Muslim who came to power at the head of an Islamist-rooted party, turned it back into a mosque.
Next big quake
Like the residents of this historic city, the Hagia Sophia has not only had to contend with the whims of its rulers — it faces the constant danger from earthquakes that have regularly struck the metropolis, the last major one in 1999.
Like many buildings in the city of 16 million, which lies just kilometers from an active seismic fault line, Hagia Sophia does not meet building earthquake standards.
Its dome collapsed in an earthquake in 558 and the building has been damaged in other quakes that have hit the city since.
So the main goal of the restoration under way is to “reinforce the building against the next big earthquake” so that the ancient structure “survives the event with the least damage possible,” said Ahmet Gulec, a member of the scientific committee supervising the works.
For the moment specialists are studying the dome to determine how best to both reinforce and restore it, Diker said.
The interior is for now free of any scaffolding. But eventually four huge pillars will be erected inside to support a platform from where specialists will restore the dome’s paintings and mosaics.
“Once you’re inside... it’s perfect,” marvelled Ana Delgado, a 49-year-old tourist from Mexico as the hum of laughter, conversation and movement filled the building following afternoon prayers.
“It’s magic,” chimed in her friend, Elias Erduran, from the Dominican Republic.
Millions of visitors
Hagia Sophia saw 7.7 million visitors stream through its spacious interior last year.
Around 2.1 million of them are foreign tourists, many of whom pay 25 euros for an entry ticket, generating millions of euros annually.
Officials hope the inside pillars will not deter visitors from coming during the works, which are expected to last for several years. Officials have not said how much the renovation is expected to cost.
“The objective is that the visits and prayers continue” during the works, Gulec said.
And even if some visitors are disappointed not to have witnessed the building in all its glory, the important thing “is that one day my children will also be able to admire Saint Sophia,” said Yana Galitskaya, a 35-year-old visitor from Russia.
Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia prepares for next big quake
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Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia prepares for next big quake
- Hagia Sophia a World Heritage Site and Turkiye’s most visited landmark
Settlers and Palestinians clash in West Bank village
- Several Israeli military jeeps arrived at the scene and soldiers fired a few shots in the air, causing Palestinians to withdraw back to the village
SINJIL, Palestinian Territories: Dozens of Israeli settlers and Palestinians clashed Friday in the occupied West Bank village of Sinjil, where a march against recent settler attacks on nearby farmland was due to take place.
AFP journalists saw local residents and activists begin their march before locals reported that settlers had appeared on a hill belonging to the village.
Palestinian youths marched toward the hill to drive away the settlers, setting a fire at its base while the settlers threw rocks from the high ground.
Local Palestinians told AFP that settlers also started a fire.
Several Israeli military jeeps arrived at the scene and soldiers fired a few shots in the air, causing Palestinians to withdraw back to the village.
Anwar Al-Ghafri, a lawyer and member of Sinjil’s city council, told AFP that such incidents are not new, but have intensified in recent days in the area, just north of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“A group of settlers, with support and approval from the Israeli army, are carrying out organized attacks on citizens’ land,” he told AFP.
“They assault farmers, destroy crops, and prevent people from reaching or trying to reach their land,” he said, describing the events that had prompted Friday’s march.
The settlers involved in Friday’s clashes could not be reached for comment.
Israeli authorities recently erected a high fence cutting off parts of Sinjil from Road 60, which runs through the entire West Bank from north to south, and which both settlers and Palestinians use.
Mohammad Asfour, a 52-year-old resident, told AFP that the fence was isolating his community, like other Palestinian cities and towns that recently had gates erected by Israel to control access to the outside.
“Sinjil is suffering greatly because of this wall. My house is near it, and so are my brothers’ homes. The settler has the right to come to Sinjil — but the sons of Sinjil aren’t allowed to climb up this hill,” Asfour said.
Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since the Hamas attack of October 2023 triggered the Gaza war.
Since then, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 947 Palestinians, including many militants, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Over the same period, at least 35 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to Israeli figures.
Syrian authorities evacuate citizens amid major forest fires
- “Our teams recorded losses in the orchards due to the widespread spread of the forest fire in several areas of the Latakia countryside,” the civil defense added, calling on citizens to report anyone they suspect of starting fires
DAMASCUS: Syrian rescuers evacuated residential areas in Latakia province because of major forest fires, authorities said on Friday.
Fires have spreading across large parts of Syria, particularly on the coast, for several days, with firefighters struggling to control them due to strong winds and a drought.
Abdulkafi Kayyal, director of the Directorate of Disasters and Emergencies in Latakia province, told the state SANA news agency that fires in the Qastal Maaf area had moved close to several villages, prompting the evacuations.
Syria’s civil defense warned residents of “the spread of rising smoke emissions to the northern section of the coastal mountains, the city of Hama, its countryside, and southern Idlib areas.”
“Our teams recorded losses in the orchards due to the widespread spread of the forest fire in several areas of the Latakia countryside,” the civil defense added, calling on citizens to report anyone they suspect of starting fires.
Syrian minister of emergency situations and disasters Raed Al-Saleh said on X that he was following events and “we will exert our utmost efforts to combat these fires.”
With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has been battered by heatwaves, low rainfall and major forest fires.
In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years,” noting that an unprecedented drought was on course to push more than 16 million people into food insecurity.
The country is also reeling from more than a decade of civil war leading up to the end of the iron-fisted rule of Bashar Assad in December.
Kayyal said the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance was hindering the work of rescuers, along with strong winds spreading the fires.
Turkish prosecutors add charges of forging diploma against jailed Istanbul mayor
- Imamoglu denies the allegations against him, which his party says are orchestrated to protect Erdogan in power
- His indictment over his diploma was reported by Milliyet newspaper
ANKARA: Turkish prosecutors charged Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Friday with falsifying his university diploma, a new case threatening more years in prison for President Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival, already jailed pending corruption charges he denies.
Imamoglu, at the center of a sprawling legal crackdown on the main opposition party, has been jailed since March 23 pending trial. He denies the allegations against him, which his party says are orchestrated to protect Erdogan in power.
His indictment over his diploma was reported by Milliyet newspaper, which said prosecutors were seeking eight years and nine months of prison time for the new charges. Reuters could not immediately obtain the document.
On March 18, Istanbul University said it had annulled Imamoglu’s diploma. He was detained a day later on the corruption charges, triggering Turkiye’s largest protests in a decade, and later jailed pending trial.
His detention has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties and some foreign leaders, who call the case politically motivated and anti-democratic. The government denies the case is political.
Imamoglu is the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in any future election. He won re-election as mayor in March last year by a wide margin against a candidate from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.
Gaza’s Nasser Hospital operating as ‘one massive trauma ward’
- 613 killed at aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys, says UN human rights office
GENEVA: Nasser Hospital in Gaza is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients wounded at non-UN food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
The US- and Israeli-backed GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries that the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral. It has repeatedly denied that incidents involving people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred.
The GHF said on Friday that “the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” and said the UN and humanitarian groups should work “collaboratively” with the GHF to “maximize the amount of aid being securely delivered into Gaza.” The UN in Geneva was immediately available for comment.
FASTFACT
Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest, and knees, according to the WHO.
Referring to medical staff at the Nasser Hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries ... (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites. The hospital is now operating as one massive trauma ward.”
Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19.
The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 613 killings, both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys — this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva.
The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 were killed near GHF distribution points. The GHF dismissed these numbers as coming “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” and were being used to “falsely smear” its effort.
The GHF has previously said it has delivered more than 60 million meals to hungry Palestinians in five weeks “safely and without interference,” while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there have been some instances of violent looting and attacks on aid truck drivers, which it described as unacceptable.
Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest, and knees, according to the WHO.
Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser Hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.
Peeperkorn recounted the cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck, which rendered him paraplegic.
“There is no chance for any reversal or any proper treatment. Young lives are being destroyed forever,” Peeperkorn said, urging for the fighting to stop and for more food aid to be allowed into Gaza.
French President Macron and Malaysian PM reaffirm calls for Gaza ceasefire
- “Our two countries are urging, more than ever, for a ceasefire,” said Macron
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reaffirmed on Friday their calls for a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza, as Macron hosted Ibrahim in Paris.
“Our two countries are urging, more than ever, for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages, and for aid to get through,” said Macron, referring to Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
