King Salman calls for unity and solidarity to solve problems facing Muslim nations

March 1, 2017

Riyadh, Mar 1: King Salman has called on Muslim nations to unify their ranks to solve problems facing Islamic countries in the current volatile situation in regional and international developments.

Salman

The king spoke in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he met a group of senior Malaysian scholars including muftis and Islamic workers.

A day before King Salman wraps up his visit to Malaysia and travels to Indonesia, the king was conferred an honorary doctorate by the premier International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) on Tuesday.

The honorary degree and a “Lifetime Outstanding Achievement Award” were presented to him at a special convocation ceremony at the IIUM Cultural Center by Pahang state ruler Sultan Ahmad Shah, head of the university.

“The Muslim world is confronted by many challenges that require patience, compassion and determination. King Salman is not an ordinary person; his duties and obligations to his country and followers of Islam demand composure and great patience by him,” Sultan Ahmad said. “King Salman represents the qualities that our religion urges us to acquire.”

On meeting senior Islamic scholars in Malaysia, King Salman said the major challenge facing the Muslim nation is how to protect countries from extremism. “The king talked about campaigns against Islam, which are trying to undermine its moderation and tolerance,” said a Saudi Press Agency (SPA) report on Tuesday.

The king noted the challenges facing the Muslim world require more cooperation and solidarity among Islamic countries. He emphasized the Kingdom’s willingness to “provide everything it can do to serve Islam and communicate with Muslims all over the world.”

In another meeting, King Salman received at his residence in Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Minister of Defense Hishammuddin Hussein. They reviewed bilateral relations, prospects of cooperation between the two countries and the latest developments in the region including cooperation in the defense sector.

On the sidelines of the visit, the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Investment organized the Saudi-Malaysian Business Forum in the presence of a large group of Saudi and Malaysian businessmen in the Malaysian capital on Tuesday. The meeting was addressed by Ghassan Ahmed Al-Sulaiman, governor of the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises.

Al-Sulaiman said that the Kingdom wants to attract investments in accordance with the goals of Vision 2030. The forum was also addressed by Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Mustapa bin Mohamed. He said: “The visit of King Salman to Malaysia gives Saudi-Malaysian relations a strong push forward and enhances economic and trade cooperation.”

He also said the two countries have available business opportunities for investment and cooperation. He also noted the volume of trade exchange between the two countries is witnessing quantitative and qualitative growth. Malaysia, he said, hopes to forge closer ties with Saudi Arabia in trade, investment, tourism, and the halal sector and in developing small and medium enterprises.

King Salman also received at his residence in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur a group of Saudi students on scholarships in Malaysia and Malaysian students who graduated from Saudi universities. The king told them: “I’m glad to see you … at the same time you must know that you are from the land of Muslims’ Qiblah, and you should be good models for those who see you in this country.”

On the sidelines of the royal visit, Ali bin Nasser Al-Ghafis, Saudi minister of labor and social development, met in Kuala Lumpur Rohani Abdul Karim, Malaysian minister of women, family and community development.

They discussed ways of strengthening “social development and the exchange of expertise, as well as topics related to the promotion of women’s role in community development.”

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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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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 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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