Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say
Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say/node/2608373/middle-east
Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say
"We have compiled a list of 59 victims whose identities have been confirmed, but one body was so badly burned that it has been extremely difficult to identify," a city health official told Reuters. (AFP filephoto)
Short Url
https://arab.news/yzu6f
Updated 5 sec ago
Reuters
Fire at mall in Iraq leaves at least 60 dead, officials say
“We have compiled a list of 59 victims whose identities have been confirmed, but one body was so badly burned that it has been extremely difficult to identify,” a city health official told Reuters
Updated 5 sec ago
Reuters
BAGHDAD: A massive fire in a hypermarket in Al-Kut city in eastern Iraq has left at least 60 people dead and 11 others missing, the city’s health authorities and two police sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Videos circulating on social media showed flames engulfing a five-story building in Al-Kut overnight as firefighters tried to contain the blaze.
Reuters could not independently verify the videos.
“We have compiled a list of 59 victims whose identities have been confirmed, but one body was so badly burned that it has been extremely difficult to identify,” a city health official told Reuters.
“We have more bodies that have not been recovered still under fire debris,” city official Ali Al-Mayahi told Reuters.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but the province’s governor said initial results from an investigation would be announced within 48 hours, the state news agency (INA)reported.
“We have filed lawsuits against the owner of the building and the mall,” INA quoted the governor as saying.
Syria’s Sharaa says protecting Druze citizens is ‘our priority’
Syria’s interim president says does not fear war, will defend our people
Israel vows to protect Druze in southern Syria
Updated 17 July 2025
Reuters
DAMASCUS/CAIRO: Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said on Thursday that protecting Druze citizens and their rights is “our priority,” as Israel vowed to destroy Syrian government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria.
In his first televised statement after powerful Israeli air strikes on Damascus on Wednesday, Sharaa addressed Druze citizens saying “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party.”
“We are not among those who fear the war. We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” he said.
He added that the Syrian people are not afraid of war and are ready to fight if their dignity is threatened. Israel’s airstrikes blew up part of Syria’s defense ministry and hit near the presidential palace as it vowed to destroy government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria and demanded they withdraw. The attacks marked a significant Israeli escalation against Sharaa’s Islamist-led administration. They came despite his warming ties with the US and his administration’s evolving security contacts with Israel. Describing Syria’s new rulers as barely disguised jihadists, Israel has said it will not let them move forces into southern Syria and vowed to shield the area’s Druze community from attack, encouraged by calls from Israel’s own Druze minority.
The US said the fighting would stop soon.
“We have engaged all the parties involved in the clashes in Syria. We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media.
The United Nations Security Council will meet on Thursday to address the conflict, diplomats said.
“The council must condemn the barbaric crimes committed against innocent civilians on Syrian soil,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon. “Israel will continue to act resolutely against any terrorist threat on its borders, anywhere and at any time.”
WARPLANES OVER DAMASCUS
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said 169 people had been killed in this week’s violence. Security sources put the toll at 300. Reuters could not independently verify the tolls.
Reuters reporters heard warplanes swoop low over the capital Damascus and unleash a series of massive strikes on Wednesday afternoon. Columns of smoke rose from the area near the defense ministry. A section of the building was destroyed, the ground strewn with rubble.
An Israeli military official said the entrance to the military headquarters in Damascus was struck, along with a military target near the presidential palace. The official said Syrian forces were not acting to prevent attacks on Druze and were part of the problem.
“We will not allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold,” said Eyal Zamir, Israel’s military chief of staff. Sharaa faces challenges to stitch Syria back together in the face of deep misgivings from groups that fear Islamist rule. In March, mass killings of members of the Alawite minority exacerbated the mistrust.
Druze, followers of a religion that is an offshoot of Islam, are spread between Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Following calls in Israel to help Druze in Syria, scores of Israeli Druze broke through the border fence on Wednesday, linking up with Druze on the Syrian side, a Reuters witness said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli military was working to save the Druze and urged Israeli Druze citizens not to cross the border. The Israeli military said it was working to safely return civilians who had crossed.
Israeli Druze Faez Shkeir said he felt helpless watching the violence in Syria.
“My family is in Syria — my wife is in Syria, my uncles are from Syria, and my family is in Syria, in Sweida, I don’t like to see them being killed. They kicked them out of their homes, they robbed and burned their houses, but I can’t do anything,” he said.
Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council
More than 5,800 children diagnosed with acute malnutrition last month, triple the number compared with February
UNICEF chief Catherine Russell says children are being killed and maimed as they queue for food and medicine
Updated 17 July 2025
Arab News
NEW YORK: Children in Gaza are suffering from the worst starvation rates since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023, aid officials told the UN Security Council on Wednesday, in a devastating assessment of the conditions young Palestinians in the territory face as they try to survive.
“Starvation rates among children hit their highest levels in June, with over 5,800 girls and boys diagnosed as acutely malnourished,” said the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher.
Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on humanitarian aid earlier this year, and has only allowed a trickle of relief supplies to enter the territory since the end of May. The effects on the health of children have been catastrophic, according to the details presented to members of the Security Council. Levels of acute malnutrition have nearly tripled since February, just before the total blockade on aid was imposed.
“Children in Gaza are enduring catastrophic living conditions, including severe food insecurity and malnutrition,” UNICEF’s executive director, Catherine Russell, told the council.
“These severely malnourished children need consistent, supervised treatment, along with safe water and medical care, to survive.”
We’re failing Gaza’s children. Seen through their eyes, our failure is a betrayal of their right to be children.
History will judge this harshly. So will the children.
We call for a ceasefire in Gaza, protection of children and release of all hostages.
— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief)
Yet youngsters in the territory are being killed and maimed as they queue for lifesaving food and medicine, she added. Last week, nine children were among 15 Palestinians killed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah while they waited in line for nutritional supplies from UNICEF.
“Among the survivors was Donia, a mother seeking a lifeline for her family after months of desperation and hunger,” Russell said.
“Donia’s 1-year-old son, Mohammed, was killed in the attack after speaking his first words just hours earlier. When we spoke with Donia, she was lying critically injured in a hospital bed, clutching Mohammed’s tiny shoe.”
Russell painted a bleak picture of desperation for the 1 million Palestinian children in the territory, where more than 58,000 people have been killed during the 21 months of war.
Among the dead are 17,000 children — an average of 28 each day, the equivalent of “a whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” Russell said.
Youngsters also struggle to find clean water supplies, she added, and are therefore forced to drink contaminated water, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks; waterborne diseases now represent 44 per cent of all healthcare consultations.
“Thousands of children urgently need emergency medical support,” Russell said, and many of those suffering from traumatic injuries or severe preexisting medical conditions are at risk of death because medical care is unavailable.
She repeated calls from other UN officials for Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza “at sufficient speed and scale to meet the urgent needs of children and families.”
A new aid-distribution system, introduced and run by Israel and the US, has sidelined traditional UN delivery mechanisms and restricted the flow of humanitarian supplies to a fraction of what was previously available.
Since the new system, run by the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating, hundreds of people, including children, have been shot dead as they gathered to collect aid.
Russell urged the Security Council to push for a return to UN aid-delivery systems so that essentials such as medicine, vaccines, water, food, and nutrition for babies can reach those in need.
Fletcher, the humanitarian chief, told the council that the shattered healthcare system in Gaza meant that in some hospitals, five babies share a single incubator and pregnant women give birth without any medical care.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher speaks to delegates about the situation in Gaza during a United Nations Security Council meeting at UN headquarters in New York City on July 16, 2025. (REUTERS)
He said the International Court of Justice has demanded that Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” and added: “Intentionally using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare would, of course, be a war crime.”
During the meeting, Israel faced strong criticism from permanent Security Council members France and the UK.
The British ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, described the shooting of Palestinians as they attempted to reach food-distribution sites as “abhorrent.”
She called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and said the UK “strongly opposes” the expansion of Israeli military operations.
French envoy Jerome Bonnafont said Israel must end its blockade of humanitarian aid, and denounced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation system as “unacceptable and incompatible” with the requirements of international law.
He said an international conference due to take place on July 28 and 29 at the UN headquarters in New York, co-chaired by France and , would offer a “pathway toward the future” and identify tangible ways in which a two-state solution might be reached to end the wider conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Dorothy Shea, the ambassador to the UN from Israel’s main international ally, the US, said the blame for the situation in Gaza lay with Hamas, which continues to hold hostages taken during the attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the conflict in Gaza.
Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters
Amid threat of Iranian missiles, Bedouin families resorted to building shelters out of available material
The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves
Updated 16 July 2025
AP
BEERSHEBA, Israel: When the sirens wail in the southern Israeli desert to herald an incoming missile, Ahmad Abu Ganima’s family scrambles outside. Down some dirt-hewn steps, one by one, they squeeze through the window of a minibus buried under 10 feet of dirt.
Abu Ganima, a mechanic, got the cast-off bus from his employer after it was stripped for parts. He buried it in his yard to create an ad-hoc bomb shelter for his family. Abu Ganima is part of Israel’s 300,000-strong Bedouin community, a previously nomadic tribe that lives scattered across the arid Negev Desert.
More than two thirds of the Bedouin have no access to shelters, says Huda Abu Obaid, executive director of Negev Coexistence Forum, which lobbies for Bedouin issues in southern Israel. As the threat of missiles became more dire during the 12-day war with Iran last month, many Bedouin families resorted to building DIY shelters out of available material: buried steel containers, buried trucks, repurposed construction debris.
“When there’s a missile, you can see it coming from Gaza, Iran or Yemen,” says Amira Abu Queider, 55, a lawyer for the Shariah, or Islamic court system, pointing to the wide-open sky over Al-Zarnug, a village of squat, haphazardly built cement structures. “We’re not guilty, but we’re the ones getting hurt.”
Al-Zarnug is not recognized by the Israeli government and does not receive services such as trash collection, electricity or water. Nearly all power comes from solar panels on rooftops, and the community cannot receive construction permits. Residents receive frequent demolition orders.
Around 90,000 Bedouins live in 35 unrecognized villages in southern Israel. Even those Bedouin who live in areas “recognized” by Israel have scant access to shelter. Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in southern Israel, has eight public shelters for 79,000 residents, while nearby Ofakim, a Jewish town, has 150 public shelters for 41,000 residents, Abu Obaid says.
Sometimes, more than 50 people try to squeeze into the 3 square meters of a mobile bomb shelter or buried truck. Others crowded into cement culverts beneath train tracks, meant to channel storm runoff, hanging sheets to try to provide privacy. Shelters are so far away that sometimes families were forced to leave behind the elderly and people with mobility issues, residents say.
Engineering standards for bomb shelters and protected rooms are exhaustive and specific, laying out thickness of walls and types of shockwave-proof windows that must be used. The Bedouins making their own shelters know that they don’t offer much or any protection from a direct hit, but many people say it makes them feel good to go somewhere. Inside the minibus, Abu Ganeima says, the sound of the sirens are deadened, which is comforting to his children.
“Our bomb shelters are not safe,” says Najah Abo Smhan, a medical translator and single mother from Al-Zarnug. Her 9-year-old daughter, terrified, insisted they run to a neighbor’s, where they had repurposed a massive, cast-off truck scale as the roof of a dug-out underground shelter, even though they knew it wouldn’t be enough to protect them from a direct hit. “We’re just doing a lot of praying.”
When sirens blared to warn of incoming missiles, “scene filled with fear and panic” unfolded, says Miada Abukweder, 36, a leader from the village of Al-Zarnug, which is not recognized by Israel. “Children screamed, and mothers feared more for their children than for themselves. They were thinking about their children while they were screaming, feeling stomach pain, scared, and crying out, ‘We are going to die, where will we go?’” says Abukweder, part of a large clan of families in the area.
The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide, many say, is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves.
Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli security services placed around 300 mobile bomb shelters in Bedouin areas, Abu Obaid says. Civil service organizations also donated a handful of mobile shelters. But these mobile bomb shelters are not built to withstand Iran’s ballistic missiles, and are grossly inadequate to meet widespread need. Abu Obaid estimates thousands of mobile shelters are needed across the far-flung Bedouin communities
UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity
Updated 16 July 2025
AFP
BOGOTA: The UN’s unflinching expert on Palestinian affairs Francesca Albanese said Tuesday that Washington’s sanctions following her criticism of the White House’s stance on Gaza are a “violation” of her immunity.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories made the comments while visiting Bogota, nearly a week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, calling her work “biased and malicious.”
“It’s a very serious measure. It’s unprecedented. And I take it very seriously,” Albanese told an audience in the Colombian capital.
Albanese was in Bogota to attend an international summit initiated by leftist President Gustavo Petro to find solutions to the Gaza conflict.
The Italian legal scholar and human rights expert has faced harsh criticism for her long-standing accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“It’s clear violation of the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities that protect UN officials, including independent experts, from words and actions taken in the exercise of their functions,” Albanese said.
Rubio on July 9 announced that Washington was sanctioning Albanese “for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (ICC) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.”
The sanctions are “a warning to anyone who dares to defend international law and human rights, justice and freedom,” Albanese said.
On Thursday, the UN urged the US to reverse the sanctions against Albanese, along with sanctions against judges of the International Criminal Court, with UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman calling the move “a dangerous precedent.”
On Friday, the European Union also spoke out against the sanctions facing Albanese, adding that it “strongly supports the United Nations human rights system.”
Albanese, who assumed her mandate in 2022, released a damning report this month denouncing companies — many of them American — that she said “profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The report provoked a furious Israeli response, while some of the companies also raised objections.
Washington last month slapped sanctions on four ICC judges, in part over the court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, barring them from the United States.
UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN human rights council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties
They cover key areas including protection of classified information; founding of a joint consular committee; and investments in food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, tourism and hospitality
Ministers sign the documents during ceremony at Presidential Palace in Ankara, during state visit by Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan
Updated 16 July 2025
Arab News
LONDON: The president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, witnessed on Wednesday the signing of several agreements and memorandums of understanding between their countries.
The aim of the deals, finalized during Sheikh Mohammed’s state visit to Turkiye, is to expand cooperation, and they reflect the shared commitment of both nations to the advancement of ties across various sectors, officials said.
The agreements covered a number of key areas, including: mutual protection of classified information; the establishment of a joint consular committee; investments in food and agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, and tourism and hospitality; and cooperation in the industrial sector and polar research.
They were signed during a formal ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Ankara by Emirati and Turkish ministers responsible for the industrial, trade, investment and technology sectors.
