Dawn of a new era under King Salman

January 27, 2015

King Salman

Jeddah, Jan 27: A new era dawned in Saudi Arabia on Monday under the leadership of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman as citizens across the country expressed their confidence in the new king’s ability to take the Kingdom to new heights of progress and prosperity.

The three-day mourning period for the late King Abdullah ended Sunday. King Salman, Crown Prince Muqrin, Deputy Crown Prince, Second Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif and other royal family members had received condolences from world leaders and citizens on Saturday and Sunday.

Saudis in the Kingdom and abroad have pledged their allegiance to the country’s new leaders, in personal meetings or through regional governors and ambassadors abroad.

On Sunday, thousands of citizens stood in line in front of Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh to meet King Salman. According to a report carried by Asharq Al-Awsat, there was no blockade in front of the palace to restrict entry.

“There was no discrimination. Everybody, including princes, ministers, Shoura members and ordinary citizens were allowed to meet the king without following any protocol,” the report said.

Citizens from across the Kingdom came in their traditional attire. Sheikh Ibrahim bin Mohammed Al-Khereiji, an elderly man who was imam of the big mosque in Al-Kharj, made his way to the palace in a wheelchair.

The man’s son, Abdul Aziz, said his father had met all the previous six kings. “He was a member of the delegation set up by King Abdul Aziz to receive King Farouk of Egypt when the latter visited the Kingdom on Jan. 24, 1945,” the son said.

Al-Khereiji was appointed by King Abdul Aziz as a secretary in Al-Kharj and was in charge of distributing land among citizens. He established contact with King Salman when he was appointed the governor of Riyadh in 1955, the son said.

The smooth transition in Saudi Arabia following the death of King Abdullah has won applause from Saudis and foreign leaders. Saudi Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz Qattan said the smooth transition has strengthened citizens’ confidence in the new leadership.

Speaking to the Saudi Press Agency after receiving citizens who came to express their condolences and pledge their allegiance to the new leadership, Qattan said Saudis have been impressed by King Salman’s wisdom and administrative expertise.

“King Salman has been in the government for the last 60 years, dedicating his life to the service of the Kingdom and its people. All Saudis will definitely rally behind their wise leadership as usual,” the ambassador said.

In his keynote speech after ascending the throne, King Salman said that his government would follow the straight path, based on the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah, without deviating from the policies of his predecessors.

The new leadership has taken over at a time when Saudi Arabia faces several challenges including falling oil prices — the Kingdom depends on oil for about 90 percent of its revenue — and the threat posed by the so-called Islamic State terrorist group in the north and the Houthis in the south.

“It is no secret that there has been no major change for several decades in Saudi foreign policy. It has always been based on certain basic principles and various geographic, historical, religious, economic, security and political factors,” said Salman Aldossary, editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat.

He said noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries, establishing strong relations with Gulf, Arab and Islamic countries, supporting Arab and Islamic causes and cooperation with other friendly countries, are the hallmarks of Saudi foreign policy. This included the Kingdom’s continuous efforts to ensure stability in the international oil market because it is one of the world’s largest oil producers, he said.

Mohammed bin Daqqas, a former employee at the royal court, said King Salman has always insisted on punctuality and hard work. “When he was the governor of Riyadh, he used to look into the matters of citizens himself. One day when he was outside the Kingdom, he contacted an official at the governorate to attend to the case of a citizen.

The official had left the office 30 minutes before the end of the working day. He then asked the official to return to the office and complete the work for that citizen.”

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 13,2024

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Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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