GAZA CITY: Two rockets fired from Gaza early Saturday fell into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tel Aviv, the Israeli army said, with no injuries reported.

Hamas and Israel exchanged indirect messages through Egypt to prevent the situation from deteriorating.

Hamas military sources said the launch was not deliberate and was caused by a malfunction due to bad weather.

The Israeli army said that two rockets were launched from Gaza toward the sea off Tel Aviv, but the sirens did not go off, nor did the Iron Dome system launch missiles to intercept the rockets.

Israeli police received reports from citizens about hearing an explosion but no damage or injuries were reported, according to the Israeli army statement.

Palestinian and Israeli media said that Egypt immediately rushed to mediate between the two parties in order to prevent an escalation in Gaza.

A website close to the Ezz El Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, quoted an unnamed source as saying that the two missiles were fired due to weather conditions, and that there were no missile tests.

The past few days have witnessed an intensification of Hamas firing experimental rockets toward the sea.

The Egyptian mediator conveyed to Hamas that “Israel is not convinced by these old arguments. They provided evidence that the rockets came out due to the weather,” Israel’s Channel 13 reported.

It was the first time that Israel announced the detection of rockets from Gaza off the coast of Tel Aviv since the last war in May 2021.

In the winter of last year, a similar incident occurred when rockets were launched from Gaza, which Hamas also explained as being the result of bad weather.

The security situation became tense last Wednesday after Israeli tanks bombed Hamas posts in northern Gaza, against the backdrop of Israel’s announcement that an Israeli had been wounded by gunfire from Gaza.

Following the fall of the two missiles, Israel’s security and military level sectors held a “security assessment session” and, according to the military correspondent for Israel’s Walla website Amir Bukhbut, “some Israeli security authorities believe Hamas’s narrative, but the weak response from Israel will show its weakness, and a strong response may lead to another response.”

No Palestinian faction has claimed responsibility for firing the two rockets.

Israel’s Channel 14 said: “This is a test for the (Israeli Prime Minister Naftali) Bennett government. Either it responds, or it continues to ignore, as was the case in the sniper incident last week.”

Palestinian observers said that if Israel decided to respond, its response would be limited.

Ibrahim Abrash, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, said it would be difficult for the Israeli government to give a “big response” in light of the continuation of talks to reach a truce and in light of no approval from Washington for any escalation in Gaza.

He said Israel would find in the failure of any Palestinian faction to take responsibility for the rockets a convincing justification before its people for not responding strongly. On the other hand, the factions in Gaza realized that “the cost of a new war will be very high.”

This incident coincides with the anger of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad over issues related to the siege and the reconstruction process, and the prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Since the end of the last war, the process of rebuilding the Gaza Strip has been faltering, which has increased the frequency of threats by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in an attempt to pressure Israel and donor countries to speed up the reconstruction process.

AMMAN: Hundreds of Palestinians held without charge in Israeli jails are boycotting court hearings over the practice of administrative detention.

Administrative detention orders can last for a maximum of six months, but are often renewed, effectively keeping prisoners in indefinite detention.

The boycott began after Hisham Abu Hawash, a father of five jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, reached the 138th day of a hunger strike. His family and friends say that “his life and health are at risk” and that “the Israeli occupation bears full responsibility for his survival.”

A statement issued by the prisoners’ leadership committee said an agreement was reached to initiate the boycott of Israeli courts from Jan. 1.

Hind Shraydeh, whose husband Obay Aboudi was detained two years ago, told Arab News of the pain of raising three children without their father.

“Administrative detention has nothing to do with law or justice. Your family, your life, your children and your work are affected by the mood of the Israeli military commander who signs the administrative detention order,” she said.

Shraydeh supports the boycott, saying that it “is the only option left.”

She added: “Prisoners have tried hunger strikes, which changed nothing. There is no other option left with the prisoners and their families because we all know the results of the court cases anyway, so why should we give them the facade of claiming to be a democracy when they are not.”

Rami Fadayel’s case is another example of arbitrary detention. He has been administratively detained seven times, his mother, Muna Fadayel, told Arab News.

“With the last arrest, however, they decided to charge him. They confiscated his printing press after finding a receipt at the medical relief committee. They charged him — without proof — with supporting terror,” she said.

The evidence against her son, she added, “is so flimsy” that the Israelis will most likely fail to convict him, but will use administrate detention to keep him behind bars.

“He is 42 and his 14-year-old daughter has barely seen him out of jail due to the successive administrative detention orders that are regularly slapped on Palestinians,” she told Arab News.

Fadayal is “praying that the boycott works,” but is doubtful due to previous unsuccessful attempts. “It is a good idea. although nothing happened in the past. We are all frustrated and feel that no one is standing with us.”

Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset Sami Abu Shehadeh told Arab News that the Joint Arab List believes that the practice of administrative detention is “simply the kidnapping of Palestinians by Israel.”

He said: “By not arresting them for a particular act and not charging them, the Israeli government is putting them in jail without any legal basis. Israel has inherited this act from the British Mandate, which enacted emergency regulations during the Second World War.

“The war is long over, but Israel is still using these war-related laws against Palestinians.”

He added that administrative detention is “an immoral and illegal crime used by Israel to increase the oppression of the Palestinians, with the silence of all the countries that claim to be democratic.”

Shahwan Jabarin, director of the Al-Haq human rights organization, told Arab News that Israel has transformed the procedure, which was previously limited to “extremely exceptional cases,” into “punishment, a political weapon and a method of political intervention into Palestinian lives.”

MANAMA: Bahrain’s health authorities authorized Pfizer’s Paxlovid COVID-19 drug for emergency use in adults aged 18 and over on Saturday.
It will be used to treat adults suffering from mild to moderate symptoms who are at an increased risk of developing severe COVID-19 that may lead to death, Bahrain News Agency said.
The decision by the National Health Regulatory Authority was based on the review and evaluation of data provided by Pfizer.
The NHRA said the Health Ministry has begun importing procedures in accordance with the relevant standards and requirements, and that the medication was expected to arrive in January.
Meanwhile, new figures from Britain’s official statistics body estimate that about 1 in 25 people in private households in England had COVID-19 in the week before Christmas, as the highly transmissible omicron variant spread rapidly across the country.
The number jumped from 1 in 45 in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday. One in 25 is the equivalent of about 2 million people with coronavirus in England, the highest number since the statistics body began estimating infection levels in May 2020.

The figure was even higher in London, the British capital, where officials said around 1 in 15 people was likely to test positive for the coronavirus in the week to Dec. 23.
In another development, Turkey’s Health Ministry is allowing a fifth dose as a booster for people who’ve received two doses each of Sinovac and BioNTech vaccines.
Healthcare workers and people above 65 started off their inoculation early this year with China’s Sinovac’s inactivated vaccine. They became eligible for a third and fourth doses with Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine in response to the highly contagious delta variant.
The fifth “reminder” dose would be available for people who had their fourth shot three months prior and appointments were opened on Friday.

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s interior minister dismissed the police chief of Babylon province on Friday and several officers were called for questioning following an operation that reportedly led to the deaths of 20 members of the same family.

The operation, details of which remain unclear, took place Thursday when rapid intervention units and intelligence forces sought to storm a house in the village of Al-Rashayed in the central Iraqi province.

In a brief initial statement, security forces said they had “pursued two individuals accused of terrorism” who “opened fire indiscriminately” once surrounded.

An investigation was opened “after the discovery of a number of dead bodies of citizens in a house,” the statement added.

On Friday, Interior Minister Othman Al-Ghanemi traveled to Al-Rashayed where he sacked the police chief and announced the formation of a commission to investigate “the unit that carried out the operation.”

The official Iraqi News Agency gave a death toll of 20 civilians from the same family, and said that the owner of the property had opened fire and “refused to surrender.”

A separate statement from the security forces said a “number of officers and individuals” had been called in for questioning in connection with the incident, without providing details on their identities.

Interior ministry official Saad Maan posted a video of the premises on Twitter, showing a house with a blackened facade and gutted doors and windows.

He denounced a “crime on all levels,” without identifying those to blame, and said the investigation was ongoing to “understand all the circumstances of the incident.”

On Thursday evening, security sources and media outlets had suggested a suspect linked with the Daesh group or drug trafficking rings had been involved.

TUNIS: Plainclothes officers in Tunisia’s capital on Friday arrested a senior official of the Ennahdha party which played a central role in the country’s politics until a power grab by President Kais Saied.
Tunisia was the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring revolts of a decade ago but civil society groups and Saied’s opponents have expressed fear of a slide back to authoritarianism a decade after the revolution that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Ennahdha condemned the arrest of Noureddine Bhiri, a former justice minister and deputy president of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, as a “dangerous precedent”.
“Plainclothes agents in two cars arrested Noureddine Bhiri when he was leaving home with his wife,” Samir Dilou, a lawyer and former legislator, told AFP.
No official was available to explain the reason for Bhiri’s arrest.
But in a statement issued late Friday, the interior ministry said it had ordered two people, whom it did not identify, to be placed under house arrest.
This “preventive measure was dictated by the need to safeguard national security,” it said, without elaborating.
Saied on July 25 sacked the Ennahdha-supported government and suspended parliament, presenting himself as the ultimate interpreter of the constitution.
He later took steps to rule by decree, and in early December vowed to press on with reforms to the political system.
The former law professor announced an 11-week “popular consultation” to produce “draft constitutional and other reforms” ahead of a referendum set for July 25.
His opponents have denounced a “coup” and warned against what they see as Saied’s wish to settle scores with those he has called “enemies” but never names.
A Tunisian court last week sentenced in absentia exiled former president Moncef Marzouki, a fierce critic of Saied, to four years in prison.
Bhiri was “arrested brutally and taken to an unknown destination”, Dilou said.
Agents also seized the mobile phone of Bhiri’s wife Saida Akremi, who is a lawyer, he added.
In a statement, Ennahdha said that Bhiri was being questioned by authorities and denounced “a kidnapping and dangerous precedent marking the country’s entry into a tunnel to dictatorship.”
Party official Mohamed Goumani told a press conference that Saied and the interior minister “bear responsibility” and decried the “intimidation” of those opposed to the president’s moves.
Ennahdha was the largest party in the parliament suspended by Saied.
But political rivalries had blocked ministerial appointments and diverted resources from tackling Tunisia’s mounting economic and social problems, leading many in the country to initially welcome the president’s power grab.
Without commenting on Bhiri’s arrest, the presidency on Friday announced a New Year’s amnesty for 1,300 prisoners.