JENIN, Palestinian Territories: Israeli soldiers on Sunday launched a new raid into the flashpoint West Bank district of Jenin, the home of gunmen who launched recent deadly attacks in the Tel Aviv area.
At least 10 people were wounded in clashes in Jenin as well as in Jericho and Tulkarem, the Palestinian health ministry said Sunday, while the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced 24 arrests in various West Bank cities.
“Troops are currently operating in the city of Jenin,” in the north of the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said in a brief message.
The military operation came after a gunman from Jenin went on a shooting rampage in a popular Tel Aviv nightlife area on Thursday evening, killing three Israelis and wounding more than a dozen others.
Israel said Friday it had killed the alleged attacker, Raad Hazem, 28.
A total of 14 people have been killed in four attacks in Israel since March 22, including another shooting spree in Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city near Tel Aviv.
Some have been carried out by assailants linked to or inspired by the Daesh group.
Over the same period, at least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including assailants.
“We will do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, for however long and wherever needed, until both safety and the sense of security are restored,” army chief Aviv Kochavi told soldiers in a video released by the military.
The Israeli army and border police had previously raided the Jenin refugee camp on Saturday, killing a 25-year-old Palestinian member of Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian armed Islamist movement besides Hamas, in heavy gunbattles.
Israel has also restricted access to Jenin, closed Israeli crossings and stepped up security checks.
The new operation comes ahead of the funerals of the three Israeli civilians killed in Tel Aviv on Thursday night — childhood friends Tomer Morad and Eytam Magini, and father-of-three Barak Lufan — which are expected later on Sunday in the town of Kfar Saba and at the kibbutz of Ginosar.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad welcomed that attack, which was condemned by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
The recent violence has come amid heightened tensions during Ramadan, after violence flared during the Muslim holy month last year leading to 11 days of devastating conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Following Thursday’s attack, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett gave security agencies “full freedom” to end the deadly violence that has surged since March 22 “in order to defeat terror.”
“There are not and will not be limits for this war,” Bennett said.

TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied, facing political and economic crisis and accusations he took power in a coup, announced compensation on Sunday for the families of those killed and wounded in the 2011 revolution that brought democracy to the country.
Saied last month dissolved parliament, imposing one-man rule after governing by decree since the summer. He has said he was trying to save the north African country from collapse.
The Tunisian dinar has fallen to three-year lows and a delegation is to go to Washington this month to seek a deal with the International Monetary Fund
Saied’s decree on Saturday approves compensation for the families of “martyrs” and police and army killed and wounded defending the country from what he called “terrorist attacks” in the years after the revolution that sparked the Arab uprisings around the region.
Dozens of youths were killed and hundreds injured during an uprising against the rule of then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
Saied has promised to uphold rights and freedoms won in the revolution, but his critics say his actions, which also include replacing a body that guaranteed judicial independence, show he is determined to cement one-man rule.

BAGHDAD: A dust storm that has swept through much of Iraq has left dozens of people in hospital with respiratory problems, a health ministry spokesman said Saturday.
The storm erupted in the north of the country on Thursday, prompting the cancelation of flights serving Irbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region.
As the storm swept south, it shrouded Baghdad and cities as far south as Nasiriyah in a ghostly orange.
In the capital, buildings and vehicles were covered in ochre-colored dust, AFP journalists reported.
The storm has caused “dozens of hospitalizations across Iraq due to respiratory problems,” health ministry spokesman Saif Al-Badr told AFP.
The director of Iraq’s meteorological office, Amer Al-Jabri, said that while dust storms were not uncommon in Iraq, they are becoming more frequent “due to drought, desertification and declining rainfall.”
Iraq is particularly vulnerable to climate change, having already witnessed record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.
Experts have said these factors threaten social and economic disaster in the war-scarred country.
In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20 percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

RIYADH: The Iran-backed Houthis on Saturday fired a ballistic missile at Yemen’s central city of Marib, as the country’s new leader pledged to pursue peace with the group and bring stability to war-torn Yemen.

Local authorities and residents in Marib said a large explosion shook the densely populated city after a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis hit it. There has been no information on injuries or loss of life.

Marib hosts more than 2 million internally displaced people who fled war and Houthi repression in their home provinces.

The attack came as fighting between government forces and the Houthis raged on Friday night and Saturday morning at flashpoint sites outside the city of Marib, mainly in Juba district.

“Fighting on Friday was the fiercest. We managed to push back the Houthi attacks and destroyed one of their military vehicles,” a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Arab News by telephone.

Yemen’s army has accused the Houthis of exploiting the UN-brokered humanitarian truce that took effect on April 2, to deploy heavy weapons and new forces as they launch more aggressive attacks on the city of Marib.

The Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen announced a halt in airstrikes on Houthi targets across the country in support of the truce and peace efforts.

The UN Yemen envoy Hans Grundberg on Friday called upon warring factions to stop hostilities in Marib and stick to the truce.

“I am following very closely the latest developments in #Marib and urge all parties to show restraint and their continued commitment to the truce as promised to Yemenis,” Grundberg said on Twitter.

The raging fighting is happening as the president of the newly formed Presidential Leadership Council in Yemen, Rashad Al-Alimi, on Friday vowed to work on ending the war and achieving a comprehensive peace deal.

In his first speech to the Yemeni people, Al-Alimi said that the new council would adhere to the 2011 GCC initiative, outcomes of the National Dialogue Conferences, resolutions of GCC-brokered Yemeni consultations in Riyadh, international charters and the UN Security Council resolutions.

“The Presidential Leadership Council promises our Yemeni people to work to end the war and establish peace,” he said.

“This council is a peace council, not a war council, but it is also a defense, strength and unity council whose mission is to defend the sovereignty of the nation and protect the citizens.”

He thanked the Saudi-led coalition for its economic, political and humanitarian assistance to Yemen, vowing to fight terrorism and revive and reform state institutions.

He also thanked international mediators, mainly the UN and US Yemen envoys, for their efforts to bring peace to Yemen.

“The Presidential Leadership Council will firmly fight all forms of terrorism and outsider sectarian conflicts.”

On Thursday, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi transferred his presidential powers to the eight-man council, led by Al-Alimi, his adviser and former interior minister. The council has been tasked with running the country and starting peace talks with the Houthis.

BEIRUT: Lebanese hospitals and cancer patients are running out of morphine and its derivatives.

An appeal made by Elsy Aoun through the Al-Nahar newspaper went viral on Friday. The young woman said that her brother, a cancer patient who cannot find the medication he needs anywhere, is running out of the only drug that can relieve some of his pain. “We only have morphine left for 10 days. What are we supposed to do after that?”

According to a March 2021 report by the World Health Organization, Lebanon recorded 28,764 cases of cancer during the last five years, including 11,600 cases in 2020 alone.

Although medicines for incurable and cancerous diseases are still subsidized by the state, most drugs are running out amid the economic collapse that the country has been experiencing over the past couple of years.

The Ministry of Health said on Friday that it had given its approval to subsidize morphine before importing it two months ago, but the next approval to be issued by the central bank was delayed.

“We have contacted the importing company and agreed to start the process without waiting for the central bank’s approval,” the ministry said, adding that morphine should be available in the market within a week.

There are 445 registered cancer drugs in Lebanon. The cost of treating cancer patients “is about $200 million annually, and it may reach $400 million,” according to former Health Minister Jamil Jabak.

Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim, president of the Lebanese Society of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, said: “Every year, between 2,500 and 3,000 new cases of blood cancers are registered, in addition to thousands of patients under treatment and periodic monitoring.

“The various treatments are expensive, but they lead to a cure rate ranging from 60 to 80 percent, which is similar to global results. With the scarcity of necessary treatments, we find ourselves facing the possibility of not being able to treat patients, which may, unfortunately, lead to the death of many.”

A pharmacist in a Beirut hospital, who preferred anonymity, told Arab News: “Not all medicines are available in the hospital pharmacy, and morphine is a daily need in the hospital to relieve the pain of patients with stage four cancer. We need around 150 to 200 needles of morphine per month, and the demand may increase or decrease according to the patients’ conditions. Not all alternatives to this drug are as effective.”

She added: “Patients and their families are having a hard time searching for medicine. Some can be found on the black market, but only the wealthy few can afford them. The patients who are treated at the expense of the Ministry of Health face a real tragedy, especially since you can only get access to medication if you know someone inside nowadays.

“Morphine is classified as a high-risk drug, and every needle given to the patient must be signed by the doctor and two nurses, specifying the volume of the substance that was given and each drop wasted.

“Only one company imports morphine, unlike other drugs. Having one importing company makes it easier to negotiate securing this drug.”

The ministry said it is making all efforts to expedite the process of importing morphine and has asked those concerned to make this issue a top priority.

Doctor and former MP Ismail Sukkarieh, who has been fighting corruption in the health sector through the National Health Authority, which he chairs, said chaos has prevailed in the sector.

“It is true that cancer medicines are still subsidized, but this is rather theoretical now. Medicines are not available, and the key to the solution is with the central bank. It is ridiculous that the bank still subsidizes a type of coffee but cannot provide enough money to subsidize the medicines that people need to recover. Is coffee more important than human life?” Sukkarieh said.

He added: “In addition to the central bank, greedy medicine suppliers are the problem, as these people hide medicines in their warehouses to make illegal profits. No one is confronting them — neither the ministry nor parliament’s health committee.”

Sukkarieh said that doctors see tragic situations every day. “As soon as I enter the hospital, patients or their families stop me to ask for medicine. Even my fellow doctors who treat cancer patients have become helpless in the face of people’s tragedies. What is actually happening is accelerating the death of patients due to irregular treatment. Who has the right to shorten people’s lives like this?”