Gaza war shatters pilgrimage dream for Palestinian couple/node/2527881/middle-east
Gaza war shatters pilgrimage dream for Palestinian couple
Palestinian couple Mahmoud and Fatima Jarghoun sit inside their damaged home while talking about not being able to make the Hajj pilgrimage due to the closure of the Rafah border crossing, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 3, 2024. (Reuters)
Gaza war shatters pilgrimage dream for Palestinian couple
Palestinians typically wait years for their turn after registering their names with the Palestinian authorities
Updated 10 June 2024
Reuters
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Palestinian couple Mahmoud and Fatima Jarghoun sold their jewelry so they could perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah — a journey they have been yearning to make for years. But with no way out of the Gaza Strip, their dream has been dashed.
“We are living inside a prison. Without the Rafah border, there is no way in and no way out,” said Mahmoud Jarghoun, 67, referring to the crossing to Egypt that has been shut since Israel seized it in May during its Gaza offensive.
Jarghoun said the deep disappointment of being unable to make the pilgrimage had compounded the pain inflicted by the war, speaking at his shattered home in Khan Younis, where the floor was strewn with rubble and masonry.
“Unfortunately, we lost our house,” he said, estimating repair costs at some $20,000. “Then came the closure of the border and we can’t go to Hajj, we can’t go to it. It was two blows at once,” he said.
“The pain of the war, the pain of the destruction, the pain of the siege and the pain of not being able to go to Hajj.”
The Hajj is one of the five basic obligations of a Muslim and every believer who has the means should perform the pilgrimage at least once in his or her lifetime. It begins on Friday.
Palestinians typically wait years for their turn after registering their names with the Palestinian authorities. Jarghoun said they had been waiting almost 18 years.
He said they had “sold everything in our possession, so that we can perform this duty. We are at the end of our lifetime. Unfortunately, the border was closed, closing with it all our hopes to perform this duty.”
Fatima Jarghoun, 65, said the couple had been very happy when their names were approved for the Hajj. But “at the end, all our dreams were gone. We were very, very upset,” she said.
Israel has besieged and laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip since launching an offensive in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, according to the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry.
Mass displacement in Lebanon war revives spectre of sectarian strife
Updated 5 sec ago
Some residents were uneasy, worried that those seeking refuge could include people linked to Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militia and political party at war with Israel Marjayoun had been spared the brunt of Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah during the past year. But residents soon felt that war had arrived
BEIRUT: Marjayoun, a majority Christian town in southern Lebanon, opened its schools and a church last month to house scores of people fleeing Israel’s bombardment of Muslim villages, extending a hand across the country’s sectarian divide. Some residents were uneasy, worried that those seeking refuge could include people linked to Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militia and political party at war with Israel, seven of them told Reuters. But they wanted to uphold local customs of good neighborliness and they knew that those fleeing the widening Israeli offensive had nowhere to go. Marjayoun had been spared the brunt of Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah during the past year. But residents soon felt that war had arrived. On Oct. 6, two locals — a teacher and a police officer — were killed on Marjayoun’s outskirts by Israeli drone strikes targeting a Shiite man on a motorbike, according to two security sources and local residents. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment. Later that day, a displaced man who sought to shelter in Marjayoun’s bishopric fired a gun in the air and threatened staff after he was asked to move to a different location, according to three residents and Philip Okla, the priest of Marjayoun’s Orthodox Church. Marjayoun’s welcoming spirit swiftly evaporated. “You can’t invite fire to your home,” Okla told Reuters, speaking via phone from the town, expressing the fears of some residents that the displaced people would attract violence. Following calls from locals for them to leave, dozens of displaced people departed the village, along with many of the town’s terrified inhabitants, according to Okla and six residents, who asked not to be identified. Lebanon’s population is a mosaic of more than a dozen religious sects, with political representation divided along sectarian lines. Religious divisions fueled the ferocity of a brutal 1975-1990 civil war, which left some 150,000 people dead and drew in neighboring states. Reuters spoke to more than a dozen lawmakers, politicians, residents and analysts who said that Israel’s military offensive across Shiite-majority areas of Lebanon, which has displaced more than a million people into Sunni and Christian areas, has brought sectarian tensions to the fore, posing a threat to Lebanon’s stability. The antipathy is being fueled by repeated Israeli attacks on buildings housing displaced families, giving rise to concerns that hosting them can make you a target, the sources said. “Now, barriers are going up and fears are rising because no-one knows where we are going,” said Okla, who expressed regret for the increasing hostility.
A FRAGILE FABRIC Lebanese militias linked to religious groups fought a 15-year civil war. The conflict ended with the disarmament of all save Hezbollah, which kept its weapons to resist Israel’s ongoing occupation of the south. Israel withdrew in 2000 but Hezbollah retained its arms. It fought a border war against Israel in 2006 and turned its weapons on political opponents inside Lebanon in 2008 in street battles that cemented its ascendency. A UN-backed court convicted Hezbollah members for the 2005 assassination of Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and opponents blame it for a string of other assassinations of mostly Christian and Sunni politicians. It has always denied responsibility for any of them. With support from Iran, Hezbollah grew into a regional force, fighting in Syria to help quash an uprising against President Bashar Assad, while maintaining effective veto power over decision-making inside Lebanon, including over the presidency, which is reserved for a Maronite Christian by convention. The position has been vacant since 2022. With Hezbollah’s Shiite support base reeling from Israel’s blows, Lebanon’s leaders — including caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, a Sunni Muslim businessman — have stressed the importance of maintaining “civil peace.” Even Hezbollah’s rivals, including the Christian Lebanese Forces party, have largely complied by moderating their political rhetoric and urging supporters not to stoke tensions. But on the ground, those tensions are real, including around schools that have welcomed displaced people in Beirut. Members of Hezbollah-allied parties have seized control of who comes and goes and what enters some of those institutions, according to several residents. Main thoroughfares clogged only during rush hour are now lined day and night with cars belonging to people who fled Israeli bombing, straining the city’s already-crumbling infrastructure. In the Christian Beirut suburb of Boutchay, aggravated residents on Friday stopped a truck from unloading a container into a depot rented to someone from outside the area, suspecting it might contain Hezbollah weapons, mayor Michel Khoury said. “There is tension. Everyone is scared today,” Khoury said, adding that the vehicle was turned away without being searched Druze lawmaker Wael Abu Faour said politicians from all sides needed to work to preserve national unity. “Beirut could explode because of the displaced, because of the friction, because of the disputes over properties — because the South, the Bekaa and the suburbs are all in Beirut,” he said. Lebanon was already reeling from the August 2020 Beirut port blast and a half-decade economic crisis — which has impoverished hundreds of thousands — when Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel the day after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Asked about the risks of sectarian tensions, United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi told Reuters that Lebanon is a “fragile country.” “Any shock, and this is a major shock, can really make the country backtrack... and can cause big problems,” Grandi said
RISKS FOR HEZBOLLAH The displacement crisis also presents a challenge for Hezbollah, which has long prided itself on providing for its community but now faces escalating needs and a lacklustre response from a near-bankrupt state. A Lebanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, told Reuters Hezbollah’s softening stance on a Lebanon ceasefire was in part driven by the pressure created by the mass displacement. Hezbollah did not respond to a request for comment. During a visit to a school hosting displaced people last week, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Moqdad insisted the group’s supporters “are ready for the harshest conditions and most difficult circumstances.” “This calamity brought us closer together,” he said, adding Lebanon had withstood a “test.” But Neamat Harb, a Shiite woman who fled the southern town of Harouf with her extended family, said living in a school was tiring and people there required more support from Hezbollah and the government. “They should be very mindful of their support base,” she said. “They should negotiate as much as possible (for a ceasefire) so people can go home sooner,” she said. Most displaced people who can afford rent have found apartments to stay in, though landlords are often demanding a minimum three-month payment on the spot, according to landlords and prospective tenants. But some residences refuse to house displaced, according to four landlords or prospective tenants. Others sent their tenants notices urging them to “KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOURS” and limit visits “to preserve everyone’s safety,” according to a notice seen by Reuters.
MEMORIES OF CIVIL WAR For some, the mass displacement and demographic tensions have brought back unwelcome memories of state breakdown and mass squatting that took place during Lebanon’s civil war. At least half a dozen apartment blocks and hotels in Beirut’s Hamra district were broken into and turned into shelters by the Hezbollah-allied Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, members of the group and local residents said. The SSNP mobilized dozens of its members in the effort, according to the party officials. A Reuters reporter saw members of the SSNP, identified by party armbands, standing guard at two buildings. One of them, a 14-story hotel put out of commission by Lebanon’s half-decade economic crisis, now hosts 800 people, according to the SSNP member in charge there, Wassim Chantaf. “There is no state. Zero. We are taking the place of the state,” he said, as party members directed traffic and unloaded a truck of donated bottled water. Another Saudi-owned building nearby had only a few years ago managed to relocate squatters dating back to Lebanon’s civil war. Then last month, more than 200 people fleeing Israel’s escalating strikes broke in, said Rebecca Habib, a lawyer who filed a suit to get them out. She succeeded after authorities secured a different place for them to stay. “We’re scared history is repeating itself,” she said.
Second phase of Gaza polio campaign starts well despite Israeli strikes: WHO
Aid groups carried out a first round of vaccinations last month
Updated 15 October 2024
Reuters
GENEVA: The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it had been able to start its polio campaign in central Gaza and vaccinate tens of thousands of children despite Israeli strikes in the designated protected zone hours before.
As part of an agreement between the Israeli military and Palestinian militant group Hamas, humanitarian pauses in the year-long Gaza war had been due to begin early on Monday to reach hundreds of thousands of children.
However, hours before then, the UN humanitarian office said Israeli forces struck tents near al Aqsa hospital, inside in the zone, where it said four people were burned to death.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said one of its schools in the central Gazan city of Nuseirat, intended as a vaccination site, was hit overnight between Sunday and Monday, killing up to 22 people.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević told a Geneva press briefing that over 92,000 children, or around half of the children targeted for polio vaccines in the central area, had been inoculated on Monday.
“What we have received from colleagues is that the vaccination went without a major issue yesterday, and we hope It will continue the same way,” he said.
Other humanitarian agencies have previously voiced concerns about the viability of the polio campaign in northern Gaza, where an Israeli offensive is under way.
Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
Lebanon PM: Beirut airport security tightened to deter Israeli attack
Minister Najib: ‘The government is doing everything in its power to remove any pretexts from the Israelis’ hands’
Updated 31 min 14 sec ago
AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in an interview Tuesday that security had been tightened in the country’s only airport in Beirut, to remove any pretexts for an Israeli attack.
“The government is doing everything in its power to remove any pretexts from the Israelis’ hands,” he said, adding that “tightened security has been in place for a week at the airport,” located near Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that has seen intense Israeli bombardment.
UN agencies urge more funds for ‘increasing’ Lebanon needs
Updated 15 October 2024
AFP
BEIRUT: Two United Nations agencies on Tuesday called for more funding to address "increasing" needs in Lebanon, where the war between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
"We are preparing for the reality that the needs are increasing," said UNICEF deputy executive director Ted Chaiban and World Food Programme deputy executive director Carl Skau in a joint statement, adding: "We need additional funding, without conditionalities".
