middle-east
Newborn saved from rubble in quake-hit Syria in good health
A baby girl born under the rubble of her family’s home in northern Syria after last week’s devastating earthquake was in good health Monday and being breast-fed by the wife of the director of the hospital where she is being cared for, her doctor said.
The infant, named Aya — Arabic for “a sign from God” — by hospital workers, may be able to leave the hospital as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday, according to her great-uncle, Saleh al-Badran. He said the baby’s paternal aunt, who recently gave birth and survived the quake, will raise her.
The newborn’s mother died after giving birth to her in the aftermath of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. Her father and four siblings were also killed in the quake.
Dr. Hani Maarouf, a pediatrician at Cihan Hospital in the northern Syrian city of Afrin, told The Associated Press that the wife of the hospital’s director has been breast-feeding the baby girl.
Read: Turkey earthquake survivors face despair, as rescues wane
“We have stopped all the medicines that we were giving Aya and now she is being breast-fed when she needs,” Maarouf said by telephone from Afrin.
Maarouf said local policemen were standing guard at the hospital to make sure that no one tries to kidnap the child after a series of people showed up falsely claiming to be her relatives.
Rescue workers in the northern Syrian town of Jinderis discovered the dark-haired baby girl more than 10 hours after the Feb. 6 quake hit, as they were digging through the wreckage of the five-story apartment building where her parents lived.
Buried under the concrete, the baby still was connected by her umbilical cord to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya. The baby was rushed to the hospital in nearby Afrin where she has been cared for since.
Read: As survival window closes, more rescued in quake in Turkey
The devastating quake followed by a series of tremors that struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria reduced much of the towns and cities inhabited by millions to fragments of concrete and twisted metal. More than 35,000 people were killed, a toll expected to rise considerably as search teams find more bodies.
The earthquake destroyed dozens of housing units in the town of Jinderis where Aya’s family had been living since 2018.
Aya’s father, Abdullah Turki Mleihan, was originally from the village of Khsham in eastern Deir el-Zour province, but left in 2014 after the Islamic State group captured their village, said al-Badran, an uncle of Aya’s father.
Search for earthquake survivors enters final hours in Turkey
The desperate search for earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria entered its final hours Monday as rescuers using sniffer dogs and thermal cameras surveyed pulverized apartment blocks for any sign of life a week after the disaster.
Teams in southern Turkey’s Hatay province cheered and clapped when a 13-year-old boy identified only by his first name, Kaan, was pulled from the rubble. In Gaziantep province, rescue workers, including coal miners who secured tunnels with wooden supports, found a woman alive in the wreckage of a five-story building.
Stories of such rescues have flooded the airwaves in recent days. But tens of thousands of dead have been found during the same period, and experts say the window for rescues has nearly closed, given the length of time that has passed, the fact that temperatures have fallen to minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) and the severity of the building collapses.
READ: Newborn saved from rubble in quake-hit Syria in good health
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6, reducing huge swaths of towns and cities to mountains of broken concrete and twisted metal. The death toll has surpassed 35,000.
In some areas, searchers placed signs that read “ses yok,” or “no sound,” in front of buildings they had inspected for any sign that someone was alive inside, HaberTurk television reported.
Associated Press journalists in Adiyaman saw a sign painted on a concrete slab in front of wreckage indicating that an expert had inspected it. In Antakya, people left signs displaying their phone numbers and asking crews to contact them if they found any bodies in the rubble.
The quake’s financial damage in Turkey alone was estimated at $84.1 billion, according to the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation, a non-governmental business organization. Calculated using a statistical comparison with a similarly devastating 1999 quake, the figure was considerably higher than any official estimates so far.
In other developments, Syria’s president agreed to open two new crossing points from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest to deliver desperately needed aid and equipment for millions of earthquake victims, the United Nations announced.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the decision by Syrian leader Bashar Assad to open crossing points at Bab Al-Salam and Al Raée for an initial period of three months. Currently, the U.N. has only been allowed to deliver aid to the northwest Idlib area through a single crossing at Bab Al-Hawa.
Some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, almost no houses were left standing in the Turkish village of Polat, where residents salvaged refrigerators, washing machines and other goods from wrecked homes.
Not enough tents have arrived for the homeless, forcing families to share the tents that are available, survivor Zehra Kurukafa said.
“We sleep in the mud, all together with two, three, even four families,” Kurukafa said.
Turkish authorities said Monday that more than 150,000 survivors have been moved to shelters outside the affected provinces. In the city of Adiyaman, Musa Bozkurt waited for a vehicle to bring him and others to western Turkey.
READ: Turkey earthquake survivors face despair, as rescues wane
“We’re going away, but we have no idea what will happen when we get there,” said the 25-year-old. “We have no goal. Even if there was (a plan), what good will it be after this hour? I no longer have my father or my uncle. What do I have left?”
Fuat Ekinci, a 55-year-old farmer, was reluctant to leave his home for western Turkey, saying he did not have the means to live elsewhere and that his fields need to be tended.
“Those who have the means are leaving, but we’re poor,” he said. “The government says, go and live there a month or two. How do I leave my home? My fields are here, this is my home, how do I leave it behind?”
Volunteers from across Turkey have mobilized to help millions of survivors, including a group of chefs and restaurant owners who served traditional food such as beans and rice and lentil soup to survivors who lined up in the streets of downtown Adiyaman.
The widespread damage included heritage sites in places such as Antakya, on the southern coast of Turkey, an important ancient port and early center of Christianity historically known as Antioch. Greek Orthodox churches in the region have started charity drives to assist the relief effort and raise funds to rebuild or repair churches.
In Syria, authorities said a newborn whose mother gave birth while trapped under the rubble of their home was doing well. The baby, Aya, was found hours after the quake, still connected by the umbilical cord to her mother, who was dead. She is being breastfed by the wife of the director of the hospital where she is being treated.
Such accounts have given many hope, but Eduardo Reinoso Angulo, a professor at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the likelihood of finding people alive was “very, very small now.”
David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, agreed. He said the odds were not very good to begin with.
Many of the buildings were so poorly constructed that they collapsed into very small pieces, leaving very few spaces large enough for people to survive in, Alexander said.
“If a frame building of some kind goes over, generally speaking we do find open spaces in a heap of rubble where we can tunnel in,“ Alexander said. “Looking at some of these photographs from Turkey and from Syria, there just aren’t the spaces.”
Winter conditions further reduced the window for survival. In the cold, the body shivers to keep warm, but that burns a lot of calories, meaning that people also deprived of food will die more quickly, said Dr. Stephanie Lareau, a professor of emergency medicine at Virginia Tech in the U.S.
Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities have begun targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed. Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.
As the scale of the disaster has come into view, sorrow and disbelief have turned to rage over the sense that the emergency response was ineffective. That anger could be a political problem for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces a tough reelection battle in May.
Turkey’s death toll has exceeded 31,000, and the health minister said more than 19,000 survivors were being treated in hospitals. Deaths in Syria, split between rebel-held areas and government-held areas, have risen beyond 3,500, although those reported by the government haven’t been updated in days.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths met Monday with Syria’s President Bashar Assad and foreign minister after visiting Aleppo and seeing the devastating damage there.
He stressed that the United Nations doesn’t have heavy equipment for excavations or search-and-rescue efforts “so the international community as a whole needs to step up to get that aid where it’s needed.”
In addition, the U.N.’s humanitarian partners need ambulances, medicine, shelters, heaters and emergency food, water and sanitation and hygiene items, Dujarric said.
Turkey, Syria earthquakes: Thousands of survivors wondering what comes next
Thousands who survived the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria a week ago are pondering what comes next. While many have been evacuated from the devastated region, others are staying by wrecked homes and as the search for missing loved ones continues.
Rescuers found a woman alive 174 hours after the first quake struck, but reports of rescues were coming less often as the time since the quake reaches the limits of the human body's ability to survive without water, especially in freezing temperatures.
The magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6. They killed over 35,000, with the toll expected to rise considerably as search teams find more bodies, and reduced much of towns and cities inhabited by millions to fragments of concrete and twisted metal.
On Monday rescuers from Istanbul pulled a woman named Naide Umay from a collapsed building in the hard-hit city of Antakya. Earlier, a 40-year-old woman was rescued from the wreckage of a 5-story building in the town of Islahiye, in Gaziantep province, while a 60-year old was rescued in Besni, in Adiyaman province.
A week after the quakes hit, many people were still without shelter in the streets. Some survivors were still waiting in front of collapsed buildings for the bodies of their loved ones to be retrieved.
In the village of Polat, in Malatya province, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, almost no houses were left standing. Residents were trying to salvage refrigerators, washing machines and other goods from wrecked homes.
Resident Zehra Kurukafa said not enough tents had arrived, forcing up to four families to share the tents that were available.
“We sleep in the mud, all together with two, three, even four families. There aren’t enough tents,” she said.
In the city of Adiyaman, 25-year-old Musa Bozkurt was waiting for a vehicle to transport him and others to the city of Afyon, in western Turkey.
“We’re going away but we have no idea what will happen when we get there” Bozkurt said. "We have no goal. Even if there was (a plan) what good will it be after this hour? I no longer have my father or my uncle. What do I have left?” he said.
Fuat Ekinci, a 55-year-farmer, was reluctant to leave his home in rural Adiyaman for Afyon despite the destruction, saying he didn’t have the means to live elsewhere and had fields that need to be tended.
“Those who have the means are leaving, but we’re poor,” he said. “The government says, go and live there a month or two. How do I leave my home? My fields are here, this is my home, how do I leave it behind?”
Volunteers from across Turkey have mobilized to help millions of survivors, including a group of volunteer chefs and restaurant owners who served traditional food such as beans and rice and lentil soup for survivors in downtown Adiyaman.
Other volunteers continued with the rescue efforts. But Eduardo Reinoso Angulo, a professor at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said the likelihood of finding people alive was “very, very small now.”
The lead author on a 2017 study involving deaths inside buildings struck by earthquakes, Reinoso said that the odds of survival for people trapped in wreckage fall dramatically after five days, and is near zero after nine days, although there have been exceptions.
David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, agreed, saying the window for pulling people alive from the rubble is “almost at an end.”
But, he said, the odds were not very good to begin with. Many of the buildings were so poorly constructed that they collapsed into very small pieces, leaving very few spaces large enough for people to survive in, Alexander said.
“If a frame building of some kind goes over, generally speaking we do find open spaces in a heap of rubble where we can tunnel in,“ Alexander said. “Looking at some of these photographs from Turkey and from Syria, there just aren’t the spaces.”
Wintery conditions further reduce the window for survival. Temperatures in the region have fallen to minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.
Read more: Turkey probes contractors as earthquake deaths pass 33,000
“The typical way the body compensates for hypothermia is shivering — and shivering requires a lot of calories,” said Dr. Stephanie Lareau, a professor of emergency medicine at Virginia Tech. “So if somebody’s deprived of food for a number of days and exposed to cold temperatures, they’re probably going to succumb to hypothermia more rapidly.”
Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities have begun targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed.
At least 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes, officials said.
Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.
In Syria, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said that the international community has failed to provide aid.
Visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, Griffiths said Syrians are “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
The earthquake death toll in Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of the country hadn’t been updated in days. Turkey’s death toll was 31,643 as of Sunday.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain will ripple forward, calling the disaster an “unfolding tragedy that’s affecting millions.”
“The compounding crises of conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline, and now the earthquake have taken an unbearable toll,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Dubai boom sees Russian cash, high rents and reborn projects
Fourteen years after a financial crisis nearly brought Dubai to its knees, several major abandoned real estate projects are finally showing signs of life as part of a new economic boom in the city-state.
As with previous upturns in Dubai, war is a driving force. But this time it’s Russian investors fleeing Moscow’s war on Ukraine, rather than people escaping Mideast battlefields.
“There’s lots of parts of the world where there are real challenges and people looking for a safe haven,” said Richard Waind, group managing director for Betterhomes, a real estate brokerage in the emirate. “I think that’s a safe haven both for the capital but also for their families.”
While there’s no sign the market could be in similar trouble as in 2009, some concerns have started to surface. Skyrocketing rental costs are worsening a cost-of-living squeeze for the foreign workforce that powers the emirate.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury is worried about the amount of Russian money flowing into the real estate market of the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates.
“In theory, there should be significant reputational risk with the UAE apparently acting as a willing bridge, enabling Russian oligarchs to use the Emirates as a waystation between the Russian financial system and that of the West,” said Jodi Vittori, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has written extensively on Dubai being a money-laundering haven.
“But the reality seems to point otherwise,” she said.
Dubai's government and the UAE's Foreign Ministry did not respond to detailed questions from The Associated Press.
It’s hard to overstate just how much the Emirates has changed over the last half century. Since 1968, the seven sheikdoms that make up the UAE have grown from a British protectorate of some 180,000 people to a federation that’s home to more than 9.2 million. Government statisticians say 3.5 million people live in Dubai alone, with an additional 1.1 million who temporarily live in the city or commute there for work each day.
Oil, much of it from Abu Dhabi’s vast reserves, fueled the UAE’s initial modernization. After Dubai began allowing foreign ownership of “freehold” properties in 2002, the world’s tallest building, cavernous malls and sprawling subdivisions emerged from what once were uninterrupted stretches of windblown sand dunes.
Real estate now represents some 10% of Dubai's overall gross domestic product. After a slump due to COVID-19 restrictions, Dubai saw 86,849 residential sales in 2022, beating a previous record of 80,831 set in 2009.
Buyers and renters have filled exclusive neighborhoods such as the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made archipelago in the shape of a palm tree that juts into the Persian Gulf.
The average asking rent for an apartment there is over $67,600 per year, with a villa renting for $276,000 annually, according to real estate firm CBRE. Analysts attribute growth in the luxury market to the wealthy fleeing pandemic restrictions elsewhere.
That pressure has grown even outside the world of the ultra-wealthy. Rents on average across Dubai are up 26.9% year-on-year, even with anti-price-gouging protections. Families living in villas can expect to pay median rents of $76,000 a year.
The sudden increase in rent prompted Gavin Hill, a 34-year-old car salesman from Essex, England, to move with his partner from a villa in the Dubai Hills neighborhood near downtown to a smaller apartment some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south.
“In terms of looking for a new place, previously it was reasonably easy," said Hill, who has moved four times in the six years he has lived in Dubai. "This time it’s a minefield”
Russian money has helped fuel this.
Betterhomes, which has operated here since 1986, saw Russians lead all other nationalities in purchases by non-residents for the first time last year. Other real estate brokers have also acknowledged anecdotally the influence Russians have had.
“Since the crisis in Eastern Europe, we have seen a lot of Russians, a lot of Ukrainians as well, looking to both move their family and and money out there," Waind said.
Dubai has a history of seeking a business advantage in crises like the Arab Spring, COVID-19 and now Russia's war on Ukraine. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, its new Jebel Ali port repaired ships damaged by explosions and gunfire in the Persian Gulf. The U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq saw wealthy émigrés arrive in Dubai and the wider UAE.
Those booms included what the West would consider dirty money as well. Some of the nearly $1 billion embezzled in the 2010 Kabul Bank scandal in Afghanistan went toward luxury homes on Palm Jumeirah. A cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad tied to Assad's sanctioned business dealings also owned property there.
It remains unclear how many Russians have bought in Dubai — and whether the purchases involve people fleeing potential conscription into the Russian army or mass purchases that can be the work of money launderers. Unlike in the U.S., where property records are public, Dubai does not offer an easily accessible database of transactions.
A team from the U.S. Treasury stopped in the UAE on a Mideast tour in January.
A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press that the agency is concerned about the Russian money coming into the Dubai real estate market. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity about discussing sanctions.
Already, the Treasury has issued an alert aimed at U.S. commercial real estate stating that Russian oligarchs and their intermediaries could use “highly complex financing methods and opaque ownership structures" to hide illicit funds.
But it remains unclear what, if any, action Treasury would take, considering the defense and economic ties the U.S. has with the Emirates. A global body focused on fighting money laundering put the UAE on its “gray list” over concerns it isn’t doing enough to stop criminals and militants from hiding wealth there.
Once-abandoned projects that are showing new life include the Dubai Pearl, a planned $4 billion luxury development that was supposed to host multiple hotels and apartments in four, 73-story towers. Those plans collapsed during the 2009 financial crisis, brought on by the Great Recession, that forced Abu Dhabi to provide the city-state a $20 billion bailout.
Demolition crews are now bringing down the concrete husk of the Dubai Pearl, though plans for the site remain unclear.
Plans for the development of Palm Jumeirah's forgotten twin, the Palm Jebel Ali, are also being relaunched.
One practice that helped fuel Dubai's 2009 crisis involved speculators buying yet-to-be built properties. “Off-plan” flipping is growing again as initial buyers “are capitalizing on the current market upswing and cashing out with a premium in hand,” local firm Property Monitor said.
That company and others warn that speculative purchasing could lead to another bubble.
“This does suggest a rise in speculative activity, which is a feature of any market that is seeing price rises,” said Scott Livermore, the chief economist at Oxford Economics Middle East.
Hill — the renter from England — would like to buy a place if the market comes down again. But he's cautious after what he's seen in this boomtown.
Dubai "can eat people out and spit them out quite quickly," Hill said. "I’ve seen too many people go crazy and then go bust very, very fast.”
Iranian President Raisi to visit China to shore up ties
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will meet with his counterpart Xi Jinping during his three-day trip in China starting Tuesday, as the two U.S. rivals seek further cooperation.
China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the announcement Sunday, saying Raisi's visit was at Xi's invitation.
Raisi will meet with Xi and their delegations will sign cooperation documents, according to Iran's state news agency IRNA. Meeting with Iranian and Chinese business leaders and Iranian expatriates in China is also part of his itinerary, the report added.
Raisi's visit is expected to deepen ties between the two political and economic partners that are opposed to the U.S.-led Western domination of international affairs.
The two leaders met last September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, when Xi underscored China's support for Iran.
In December, Raisi pledged to remain committed to deepening the strategic partnership during a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua in Tehran.
China is a major buyer of Iranian oil and an important source of investment in the Mideast country. In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement that covered major economic activities from oil and mining to industry, transportation and agriculture.
Both countries have had tense relations with the United States and have sought to project themselves as a counterweight to American power alongside Russia.
Washington has accused Iran of selling hundreds of attack drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and has sanctioned executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer. At that same time, ties between Moscow and Beijing have grown stronger.
Iran on Saturday celebrated the 44th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution amid nationwide anti-government protests and heightened tensions with the West.
Israeli jets hit militant site in Gaza after rocket attack
Residents of the Gaza Strip said Israeli aircraft launched a series of airstrikes at militant sites in the coastal Palestinian territory early Monday.
The airstrikes appear to be a response to the firing of a rocket by Palestinian militants toward southern Israel Saturday evening. Israeli air defenses intercepted the rocket.
Also Read: Tens of thousands of Israelis join anti-government protests
The Israeli military said the airstrikes targeted an underground rocket manufacturing complex run by Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Gaza-Israel frontier had been largely quiet in recent months, but there have been intermittent rocket fire and airstrikes influenced by soaring violence between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Tens of thousands of Israelis join anti-government protests
Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the street in several cities across the country Saturday, protesting judicial overhaul plans by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Critics say measures introduced by the new hard-line government would weaken the Supreme Court, limit judicial oversight and grant more power to politicians. Protesters say that would undermine democracy.
The rift over the power of courts is deepening as the government is set to introduce some of the legislations in parliament Monday amid calls for partial strikes by businesses and professional groups.
For the sixth week, protesters pressed on with large rallies, with the main one in the central city of Tel Aviv and several smaller gatherings in other cities.
Arab leaders warn Israeli actions threaten regional turmoil
Dozens of leaders and senior officials from Arab and Islamic countries warned on Sunday Israeli actions in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank could worsen regional turmoil, as violence surges between Israel and the Palestinians.
The meeting in Cairo was hosted by the Arab League and attended by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas along with many foreign ministers and senior officials.
The high-level gathering came amid one of the deadliest periods of fighting in years in Jerusalem and the neighboring Israeli-occupied territory. Forty-five Palestinians have been killed so far this year, according to a count by The Associated Press. Palestinians have killed 10 people on the Israeli side during that time.
Speakers at the meeting condemned Israel’s “unilateral measures” in Jerusalem and the West Bank in statements, including home demolitions and expanding settlements.
They also condemned visits by Israeli officials to the city’s contested holy site, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims and has often been the epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian unrest.
There was no immediate comment from Israel's government.
The officials also voiced support for Jordan's role as custodian of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. The mosque is built on a hilltop in Jerusalem’s Old City that is the most sacred site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the site of the Jewish temples in antiquity.
Since Israel captured the site in the 1967 Mideast War, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Calling Jerusalem "the backbone of the Palestinian cause," el-Sissi warned of dire repercussions of any Israeli move to change the status quo of the holy site, saying they would “negatively impact” future negotiations to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Also Read: Palestinian man, Israeli child die as bloodshed rises
He said such measures would impede the long-sought after two-state solution to the conflict, which would leave “both parties and the whole Middle East with difficult and grave options.”
El-Sissi, whose country was the first Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, called on the international community to “reinforce the two-state solution and create conducive conditions for the resumption of the peace process.”
King Abdullah II also called for Israel to cease its violations and incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“The region cannot live in peace, stability, and prosperity without any progress made on the Palestinian cause,” he warned.
Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, the secretary-general of the pan-Arab organization, also warned that attempts to partition the Al-Aqsa Mosque and obliterate its Arab and Islamic identity “would fuel endless unrest and violence.”
Abbas, the Palestinian president, said his administration would resort to the United Nations and its agencies and demand a resolution to protect the two-state solution to the conflict.
“The State of Palestine will continue going to international courts and organizations to protect our people’s legitimate rights,” he said.
The ongoing bout of violence has put the region on edge. Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian leaders and urged them to ease tensions.
Israel is run by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government. Many politicians in Netanyahu’s administration oppose Palestinian independence.
Sunday's meeting in Cairo issued a final statement that condemned what it called “Israeli's systemic policy” that aims at “distorting and changing” Jerusalem’s “Arab and Islamic culture and identity.”
The communique also urged the International Criminal Court to pursue its investigation and hold those responsible for Israel’s alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity accountable.
Turkey detains building contractors as quake deaths pass 33,000
Turkish justice officials targeted more than 130 people allegedly involved in shoddy and illegal construction methods as rescuers extricated more survivors, including a pregnant woman and two small children, six days after a pair of earthquakes collapsed thousands of buildings.
The death toll from Monday’s quakes that hit southeastern Turkey and northern Syria stood at 33,179 on Sunday and was certain to rise as search teams locate more bodies in the rubble. Authorities said more than 92,600 other people were injured in the disaster.
As despair also bred rage at the agonizingly slow rescue efforts, the focus turned to who was to blame for not better preparing people in the earthquake-prone region that includes an area of Syria that was already suffering from years of civil war.
Even though Turkey has, on paper, construction codes that meet current earthquake-engineering standards, they are too rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings slumped onto their side or pancaked downward onto residents.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said Sunday that 134 people were being investigated for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. He said that three had been arrested pending trial, seven people were detained and seven other were barred from leaving the country.
Bozdag has vowed to punish anyone responsible, and prosecutors have begun gathering samples of buildings for evidence on materials used in constructions. The quakes were powerful, but victims, experts and people across Turkey are blaming bad construction for multiplying the devastation.
Authorities at Istanbul Airport on Sunday detained two contractors held responsible for the destruction of several buildings in Adiyaman, the private DHA news agency and other media reported. The pair were reportedly on their way to Georgia.
One of the arrested contractors, Yavuz Karakus, told reporters Sunday: “My conscience is clear. I built 44 buildings. Four of them were demolished. I did everything according to the rules,” the DHA news agency reported.
Two more people were arrested in the province of Gaziantep suspected of having cut down columns to make extra room in a building that collapsed, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.
A day earlier, Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced the planned establishment of “Earthquake Crimes Investigation” bureaus. The bureaus would aim to identify contractors and others responsible for building works, gather evidence, instruct experts including architects, geologists and engineers, and check building permits and occupation permits.
A building contractor was detained by authorities on Friday at Istanbul airport before he could board a flight out of the country. He had built a luxury 12-story building called Ronesans Rezidans in the historic city of Antakya, in Hatay province. When it went down, it left an untold number of dead. He was formally arrested Saturday.
In leaked testimony published by Anadolu, the man said the building followed regulations and he did not know the building didn’t withstand the quakes. His lawyer suggested the public was looking for a scapegoat.
The detentions could help direct public anger toward builders and contractors, deflecting attention away from local and state officials who allowed the apparently sub-standard constructions to go ahead. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, already burdened by an economic downturn and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
Survivors, many of whom lost loved ones, have turned their frustration and anger also at authorities. Rescue crews have been overwhelmed by the widespread damage which has impacted roads and airports, making it even more difficult to race against the clock.
Erdogan acknowledged earlier in the week that the initial response has been hampered by the extensive damage. He said the worst-affected area was 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and was home to 13.5 million people in Turkey. During a tour of quake-damaged cities Saturday, Erdogan said a disaster of this scope was rare, and again referred to it as the “disaster of the century.”
Rescuers, including crews from other countries, continued to probe the rubble in hope of finding additional survivors who could yet beat the increasingly long odds. Thermal cameras were used to probe the piles of concrete and metal, while rescuers demanded silence so that they could hear the voices of the trapped.
A pregnant woman was rescued Sunday 157 hours after the quake in the hard-hit province of Hatay, State-broadcaster TRT said.
HaberTurk television broadcast the live rescue of a 6-year-old boy removed from the debris of his home in Adiyaman. The child was wrapped in a space blanket and put into an ambulance. An exhausted rescuer removed his surgical mask and took deep breaths as a group of women could be heard crying in joy.
Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, posted a video of a young girl in a navy blue jumper who was rescued. “Good news at the 150th hour. Rescued a little while ago by crews. There is always hope!” he tweeted.
Rescue workers pulled out a man in Antakya, hours after hearing voices from beneath the rubble. Workers said the man, who appeared to be in his late 20s or 30s, was one of nine still trapped in the building. But when asked whether he knew of any other survivors, he said he hadn’t heard any voices for three days.
The man weakly waved his hand as he was passed hand to hand on a stretcher as workers applauded and chanted, “God is great!”
A team of German and Turkish relief workers rescued an 88-year-old woman alive from rubble in Kirikhan, German news agency dpa reported. The efforts of a team of Italian and Turkish rescuers also paid off when they removed a 35-year-old man from the wreckage in the hard-hit city of Antakya. He appeared to be unscathed as he was transported on a stretcher to an ambulance, private NTV television reported.
Overnight, a child was also freed in the town of Nizip, in Gaziantep, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, while a 32-year woman, was rescued from the ruins of a eight-story building in the city of Antakya. The woman asked for tea as soon as she emerged, according to NTV.
In Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the first 7.8 quake that struck early Monday morning, efforts were underway to reach a survivor detected by sniffer dogs beneath a now-pancaked seven-story building, NTV reported.
Those found alive, however, remained the rare exception.
A large makeshift graveyard was under construction in Antakya’s outskirts on Saturday. Backhoes and bulldozers dug pits in the field as trucks and ambulances loaded with black body bags arrived continuously. The hundreds of graves, spaced no more than 3 feet (a meter) apart, were marked with simple wooden planks set vertically in the ground.
Hatay’s airport, whose runway was damaged in the quake, was reopened on Sunday, the transportation ministry announced. That should help somewhat getting help into the region.
The picture is less clear of the plight across the border in Syria.
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, said in a statement that Syrians have been left “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
The first U.N convoy to reach northwest Syria from Turkey was on Thursday, three days after the earthquake.
Before that, the only cargo coming across the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkey-Syria border was a steady stream of bodies of earthquake victims — Syrian refugees who had fled the war in their country and settled in Turkey but perished in Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake — coming home for burial.
Political disputes have also held up aid convoys sent from areas of northeast Syria controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish groups to those controlled by the Syrian government and by Turkish-backed rebels who have fought with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces over the years.
The death toll in Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue worker group the White Helmets. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, though the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of the country hadn’t been updated in days.
Palestinian man, Israeli child die as bloodshed rises
An Israeli settler shot and killed a Palestinian in the northern West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, while an 8-year-old child died of injuries suffered a day before in a car-ramming attack in Jerusalem.
As night fell, warning sirens sounded in southern Israel when Palestinian militants fired a rocket from the Gaza Strip that was intercepted by Israeli aerial defenses, the Israeli military said. There was no immediate statement from Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza.
Saturday's events were the latest escalation in months of surging violence in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
In the northern West Bank, near Salfit, a farming village of olive groves, video footage showed Israeli settlers racing down the hills and tearing into the town. As Palestinians poured into the streets to see what was going on, an Israeli settler opened fire, killing a 27-year-old villager, said Ghassan Douglas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlements in the Nablus region. The settlers dispersed when the Israeli military arrived, he said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the villager who was killed as Methqal Rayan and said he was shot in the head. Video shared by the village council shows the settlers firing at least 10 gunshots toward the residents.
Douglas said that the northern West Bank has seen an intense wave of settler violence in recent days. On Friday, he said, just after the car-ramming attack in Jerusalem that killed three Israelis, settlers similarly streamed into the village and stole several sheep from a farmer. Settlers attacked and wounded Palestinians who tried to defend the farmer, he said.
Israeli police opened an investigation into the shooting of the Palestinian, the military said. It said Israeli security forces de-escalated the situation after the Palestinian was taken to the hospital.
In Jerusalem, Asher Menahem Paley, 8, died a day after a Palestinain man rammed a car into a bus stop in an Israeli settlement in the eastern half of the contested capital, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem announced his death Saturday. His 6-year-old brother was killed in the car-ramming, along with a man in his 20s.
After the attack, Israel's new hard-line government vowed a harsh response. Almost immediately, Israeli police arrested and interrogated the relatives of the suspected assailant, 32-year-old Hussein Qaraqa from the gritty east Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.
Qaraqa’s family said he was born in Jerusalem but has family in Bethlehem. His uncle, 63-year-old Adnan Qaraqa in Bethlehem, told The Associated Press that his nephew had been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.
Qaraqa said Hussein's mental problems started in 2008, when he was arrested for the first of several minor offenses. He alleged that Israeli interrogators badly beat Hussein in detention, from which he emerged “irrevocably changed.”
A few years later, Hussein fell from a crane at a construction site, his uncle said, sustaining a severe injury that worsened his mental condition. Hussein bounced between psychiatric wards for years, Qaraqa added, and was released from a hospital just two days before plowing into the crowded bus stop on Friday.
The West Bank has been on edge since Israel stepped up raids in the territory last spring, following a series of deadly Palestinian attacks inside Israel.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
The pace of death has quickened this year. So far, 45 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press. Palestinians have killed 10 people on the Israeli side during that time.
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Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Hamilton, Ontario, contributed to this report.