Qatar flight ban begins, first efforts seen to resolve crisis

June 6, 2017

Riyadh, Jun 6: A ban on Qatari flights imposed by Saudi Arabia and its allies took effect Tuesday as first efforts were made to resolve the biggest feud to hit the Arab world in years.

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Saudi Arabia and allies including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing the Gulf state of supporting extremism.

Gas-rich Qatar has long had strained ties with its neighbours but the move by Riyadh and its supporters shocked observers, raising fears the crisis could destabilise an already volatile region.

The Gulf states and Egypt banned all flights to and from Qatar and ordered Qatari citizens to leave within 14 days.

Countries including Saudi Arabia also banned Qatari flights from their airspace and Riyadh closed its land border with Qatar, sparking panic buying in Doha amid fears of food shortages.

The first concrete effects were being seen on Tuesday morning, with the flight ban causing delays and cancellations.

UAE carriers Emirates, Etihad, flydubai and Air Arabia, as well as Saudi Airlines had all announced the suspension of flights to and from Qatar as of Tuesday morning.

A total of 27 flights from Dubai to Doha had been scheduled for Tuesday and the Dubai Airports website showed all flights to Doha cancelled.

Qatar Airways, for its part, said it had suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt "until further notice".

Saudi Arabia also announced it was revoking Qatar Airways' operating license.

Doha's Hamad International Airport was virtually deserted early on Tuesday. More than 30 flights were shown cancelled on airport television screens and the departures hall was eerily quiet.

On Monday, shoppers had flooded Doha's supermarkets worried that food imports would dry up.

In one store queues were up to 25-people deep as shoppers piled trollies high with supplies from rice to nappies.

"It's a cycle of panic and I needed to get pasta," said Ernest, a Lebanese national pushing two trollies.

Foreign powers including the United States, a key ally of Qatar, made urgent calls for talks to end the crisis.

In a first signal it was open to negotiations, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani called late on Monday for "a dialogue of openness and honesty" to resolve the crisis.

"We believe any issue could be solved through discussion and mutual respect," Sheikh Mohammed told Doha-based news channel Al-Jazeera.

He suggested Kuwait could play a role in mediating the crisis, saying that Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah had called his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Monday.

Kuwait and Oman did not join fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Qatar, in cutting ties with Doha.

Kuwait's state-run news agency KUNA confirmed the phone call and said the Kuwaiti emir had also received a top Saudi envoy in an apparent mediation effort.

"Efforts aimed at containing tensions in the relations between brothers" were discussed in the phone call, KUNA said.

Turkey, which has good relations with Qatar and other Gulf states, also offered to help and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late on Monday spoke to the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait and to Saudi King Salman.

The crisis will have wide-ranging consequences, not just for Qatar and its citizens but across the Middle East and for Western interests.

Qatar hosts the largest US airbase in the region, which is crucial in the fight against Islamic State group jihadists, and is set to host the 2022 football World Cup.

The country has long been accused by its Gulf neighbours and Egypt of supporting extremist groups.

In announcing it was cutting ties, Riyadh accused Doha of harbouring "terrorist and sectarian groups that aim to destabilise the region including the Muslim Brotherhood, Daesh (IS) and Al-Qaeda".

Riyadh also accused Doha of supporting Iran-backed "terrorist activities" in eastern Saudi Arabia and in Shiite-majority Bahrain.

Any suggestion Qatar is backing the agenda of Shiite-dominated Iran -- Sunni Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival -- is especially sensitive.

"The measures are unjustified and are based on false and baseless claims," Qatar said in response to Monday's announcement.

The dispute comes less than a month after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for Muslim nations to unite against extremism.

Gulf countries previously recalled their ambassadors from Qatar in 2014, ostensibly over its support for the Brotherhood, but Monday's moves go much further.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies may have felt emboldened by Trump's visit, which saw the new president clearly align US interests with Riyadh and lash out at Iran.

Qatar has an independent streak that has often angered its neighbours.

The emirate has directly and indirectly supported Islamist groups across the Arab world, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Qatar has also been criticised for supporting Islamist rebels in Syria, and in 2013, the Afghan Taliban opened a Doha office.

Fellow Gulf states are also reported to have been angered by a huge ransom paid by Doha earlier this year to secure the release of a hunting party, which included members of the Qatari royal family, kidnapped in southern Iraq.

The ransom, which Iraqi officials said was in the "hundreds of millions of dollars", was believed to have been paid to militias with close ties to Tehran.

Signs of an impending Gulf crisis emerged last month.

Doha said hackers were behind the release of false remarks attributed to the emir published on the website of its national news agency.

The stories quoted him questioning US hostility towards Iran, speaking of "tensions" between Doha and Washington and speculating that Trump might not remain in power for long.

Doha denied the comments and denounced a "shameful cybercrime".

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News Network
March 29,2024

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Dozens of people have lost their lives and sustained injuries when Israeli military aircraft carried out a string of aerial assaults on targets near the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo, according to Syrian officials.

Citing an unnamed military source, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that “the Israeli enemy launched an aerial attack at approximately 1:45 a.m. local time on Friday (March 29) from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo.”

It added that “civilians and military personnel” had been killed and wounded in the strikes.

SANA noted that Israeli drone strikes had targeted civilians in Aleppo and its suburbs. It did not give an exact number for the casualties.

Two security sources said the strikes on Aleppo early on Friday killed 33 civilians and military personnel.

There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once its commercial center, has come under such attacks in the past that led to the closure of its international airport. Friday's strike did not affect the airport.

On Thursday evening, Syrian media outlets reported Israeli airstrikes near the capital Damascus saying it wounded two civilians.

The Israeli regime often conducts airstrikes on military installations in Syria, particularly those belonging to the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been instrumental in supporting the Syrian army in its battle against terrorists backed by foreign entities.

The Tel Aviv regime does not acknowledge its military actions within Syrian territories, which is widely interpreted as a knee-jerk reaction to the Syrian government’s triumph over terrorism.

Since the onset of foreign-backed militancy in Syria in 2011, the Israeli regime has stood as a staunch supporter of terrorist factions that are in opposition to the democratically-elected leadership of President Bashar al-Assad.

The recent strikes also come amid an upsurge in Israel’s acts of aggression against Syria and its ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip which has killed at least 32,552 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

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News Network
March 26,2024

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There is no let-up in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”

Israel carried out air raids and artillery strikes on several parts of Gaza on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings and gatherings of displaced people, “killing and wounding hundreds of people”, the Palestinian Information Center said.

Among the victims are 15 people, including four women and children, who were killed in an attack on a house in the neighborhood of Mosbeh, north of Rafah.

Media reports also said that fighting on the ground continued unabated.

That’s while the UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution for an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The resolution was put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favor of it.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on social media platform X that failing to implement the resolution “would be unforgivable.”

Palestinian resistance movements have welcomed the resolution, but Israel’s minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant said Israel will not stop its attacks in Gaza. 

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been,” Gallant said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also said in a post on X that the attacks will continue until all the captives taken by Hamas during its October 7 blitz are released.

Israel unleashed its war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 32,300 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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The Israeli military has attacked desperate Palestinians lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, killing at least 19 people and injuring 23 others in a new massacre against aid seekers. 

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement that the carnage took place on Saturday near the al-Kuwait roundabout, southeast of Gaza City.

“The occupation army and tanks opened fire with machine guns at the hungry people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a remote place that did not pose a threat to the occupation,” the statement said.

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense Department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” looking for food to help their families and children.

“There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult, and challenging,” he added, saying the victims were taken to the nearby al-Ahli Arab hospital.

Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV network, Alaa al-Khudary, a witness at the scene, said that Israeli forces shot at the crowd, leaving “many dead” and injuring others while they tried to get “a bite to eat” for their children.

However, the Israeli army claimed that the reports of its troops firing on a Gaza aid queue are “incorrect.”

In recent weeks, Israeli soldiers have conducted several deadly attacks on crowds of aid seekers in the besieged Gaza.

In mid-March the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinian civilians who had gathered in Gaza to obtain humanitarian aid, targeting them with gunfire from helicopters, tanks, and drones near the Kuwait roundabout on the outskirts of Gaza City, killing over 60 people and injuring 160 others.

In what is known as the “flour massacre”, the occupation forces killed 118 people and wounded 760 others as they opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street on February 29.

Earlier this month, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that a total of 400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid seekers since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression against the Palestinian territory.

Israel waged its US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,142 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 74,412 others.

Israel is intentionally starving the people in Gaza by blocking their access to food, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

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