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At least nine killed in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon

At least nine killed in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon

Israel’s military claims it hit a Hezbollah ‘weapons warehouse’ but Lebanese health ministry says residence attacked. An Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon has killed nine people, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health has said, as the Israeli military reported hitting weapons stores of the Hezbollah movement. The death toll from the strike in the Nabatieh area included “a woman and her two children” and left five other people wounded, two critically, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Israel’s military claimed on its Telegram channel that the air force had struck a weapons storage facility of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah overnight “in the area of Nabatieh”, located about 12km (seven miles) from the nearest point to the Israeli border. Earlier, the military posted on social media that its fighter jets attacked “military buildings” in the villages of Maroun al-Ras and Aita al-Shaab, more than 50km (31 miles) south of Nabatieh city. The attacks come as Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of its ally Hamas and in solidarity with the Palestinian people since the October 7 attack on southern Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Israel, Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon exchanged at least 8,533 attacks across the border from October 7 to July 31. Israel conducted about 82 percent of these attacks, totalling 7,033 incidents, killing at least 601 people in Lebanon. Hezbollah and other armed groups were responsible for 1,500 attacks that killed at least 23 Israelis. Tensions have soared after a deadly rocket attack in July killed at least 12 people – many of them children, in a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel blamed on Hezbollah – as well as Israel’s killing of Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in a missile attack in the suburbs of Beirut. Hezbollah has promised to retaliate, as has Iran, for the killing in Tehran of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh. The assassinations by Israel and threats of retaliation have sparked fears of a major regional escalation. Since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006, the Iran-aligned armed group has increased its military strength, according to analysts. On Friday, Hezbollah released a video appearing to show its fighters transporting large missiles through tunnels at an underground facility in what appeared to be Lebanon. Riad Kahwaji, the head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a security consultancy, said it was “the most explicit video Hezbollah has ever released showing the size of its tunnels” and weapons arsenal. Hezbollah likely released the video to “deter” Israel from launching a major operation against it in Lebanon, he said. Hezbollah has repeatedly said that only a Gaza ceasefire deal will stop its attacks on Israeli forces in northern Israel. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is “prepared both defensively and offensively” and “determined” to defend itself against both Hezbollah and Iran. But pressure has been mounting on Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal in Gaza, which would likely avert a wider war involving Lebanon and Iran. Adblock test (Why?)

Sisters divided: How partition ruptured a family in a vanishing community

Sisters divided: How partition ruptured a family in a vanishing community

She walked out of her bedroom a few minutes after I arrived, the pallu of her sari draped, as always, across her right shoulder, Gujarati in style. Shireen* smiled at me as she slowly made her way to the couch, her short grey hair resting on her neck. For the next few hours, we sat in the lounge, amid remnants that each told their own story. An over 60-year-old grandfather clock from England, her father’s rocking chair from old Lahore, a table carved by woodworkers in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) several decades ago. Shireen rested her hands, etched with fine lines, in her lap and I noticed her fingers. I could visualise a young version of her joyfully playing the piano, a career abruptly halted by the partition of British India in 1947. “We really belong to both places,” she began. “We belong to the undivided subcontinent. When I was required here, I was here. When I was required there, I was there and I would keep coming and going.” “Although it wasn’t ever easy to come and go,” Amy*, added from beside her. “No, it has never been,” Shireen agreed softly. It was November 2012 and I was sitting with Shireen and Amy, two sisters, in their home nestled in an affluent neighbourhood in the city of Lahore. I was researching for my first book, The Footprints of Partition. Ever since I had first heard about Shireen and Amy’s story, I had wanted to learn more about their experiences in 1947 and the subsequent decades. Shireen, then in her early 80s, and Amy, 12 years younger, were from the Zoroastrian community, commonly also referred to as the Parsi community (a title specific to South Asian Zoroastrians). I had first met them a year prior, as part of an oral history project for The Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP), a non-profit dedicated to cultural and historical preservation. With a dwindling population in Lahore, Shireen and Amy were two people my colleagues and I interviewed to document the history and traditions of Zoroastrians. Since then, we had kept in touch. They were warm and hospitable, introducing my colleagues and me to other members of the community, inviting us to partake in community festivities and opening their home to us. It was during one of these interactions that I had learned that while Shireen was Indian, her sister, Amy, was Pakistani. Born decades after the partition, amid rising animosity between India and Pakistan, it was difficult for me to imagine two sisters divided by hostile notions of nationality. But such was the reality for families that had been separated in 1947 when the British carved the subcontinent into two, drawing lines haphazardly, slicing villages and towns in half. Partition had led to one of the largest migrations the world had ever witnessed, with approximately 12 million people crossing the newly established borders of India and Pakistan: Muslims moving west and Hindus and Sikhs east. In official history though, little attention was paid to what happened to the communities caught in between. What were the lived implications for people like Shireen and Amy? What did it mean for one to become Indian and the other Pakistani? What did it mean to have a sisterhood partitioned? Muslim refugees are evacuated from areas of unrest in New Delhi, taking shelter in the corners of the ancient walls of Purana Qila, the old fort, in New Delhi, India on September 17, 1947, during the partition of India and Pakistan [Max Desfor/AP] ‘Like sugar in the milk’ As is described in the book, A White Trail: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan’s Religious Communities, by Haroon Khalid: “It is believed that upon the spread of Islam to Persia in the seventh century CE, a small band of Zoroastrians – a dominant religion in the region until then – set out from Persia and found their way to Sanjan, a city in present-day Gujrat, India. Upon arriving, the leader of the community sent a message to the ruler and asked him for permission to live there. When the request was declined, the leader asked for a bowl of milk and some sugar. He mixed a handful of sugar into the milk and sent it back, with a message that the Parsi community would be like sugar in the milk: invisible yet present. He promised that his community would blend in, adopting local customs and culture, while never preaching or converting others to their religion. “The king was impressed and the community was allowed to settle. They were eventually given the title of “Parsi” – the people who came from Persia. Upholding the promise made by their leader, the community took on the Gujarati language and culture, including traditional Gujarati clothes, food and songs.” Shireen’s sari, tied in Gujarati style, with the pallu on the right as opposed to the left, as it is worn in other parts of India, was reminiscent of this promise made far away from Lahore, a long time ago. Back in that room, she told me that at the time of partition, her family was already long settled in Lahore. “Our father would have never shifted anywhere as this was where he had lived, his forefathers had lived; this was his home. He also believed that the politics of the state had nothing to do with us; that whether a Muslim or Hindu government was in place, we Parsis would remain unaffected.” This belief was shared by others from the community too. As violence broke out between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, Parsis remained neutral, and convinced that they would continue to live in Pakistan regardless of who came to power in the region, blending in again as they had once done before. But the events of 1947 and thereafter would soon leave an impact on the community. In the post-partition subcontinent, as religious and national identities blurred – with India being perceived over time as a Hindu nation and Pakistan as

How far has mpox spread and how can you protect yourself?

How far has mpox spread and how can you protect yourself?

At least two countries outside of Africa have reported mpox cases after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the virus had become a “public health emergency” earlier this week. A relatively new strain of the virus known as clade 1 has been spreading in African countries since 2022. Earlier this year, it was reported that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was experiencing the biggest outbreak of the disease ever recorded, with tens of thousands of people infected as of June. The government of DRC had declared it an epidemic in December 2022. Last week, the Africa CDC reported that mpox has now been detected in at least 13 African countries. Compared with the same period last year, the agency said cases are up 160 percent and deaths have increased by 19 percent. Here is what we know so far about where the disease has spread, how it affects the human body and how to protect yourself from infection. To which other countries has the new strain of mpox virus spread? The Pakistan Ministry of National Health Services confirmed its first case of the virus on Friday, saying the person had come from Saudi Arabia. Health officials said sequencing is underway to determine the exact strain of the virus the person had been infected with. On Thursday, Swedish health officials reported the country’s first case of mpox, confirming that it was the clade 1 strain, and said the person had become infected in Africa and is now receiving treatment. Clade 1 tends to cause a higher number of severe infections and appears to be more easily spread through routine close contact, including sexual contact. On Friday, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) raised its risk alert level to “moderate” from “low” and asked countries to maintain high levels of awareness among travellers visiting from affected areas. How does the virus attack the human body? Mpox mainly affects humans and animals. It belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms, such as fever, chills, and body aches. It can cause severe illness, and even death in some cases, however. The virus enters the human body through broken skin or via the airways. It then spreads through the blood causing a person to experience flu-like symptoms and develop lesions on the skin. According to Michael Marks at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, scientists “don’t think that mpox has direct effects on the immune system”. “Beyond the fact that all infections obviously transiently cause responses in the immune system, we don’t believe there are long-term impacts on the immune system from mpox,” he said. Dr Ngashi Ngongo, chief of staff at Africa CDC, also told Al Jazeera that the virus only causes symptoms that last “two to four weeks”. “It’s a disease. Whether you get the severe form – then it leads to death – or you just recover [in] two to four weeks. Everything goes back to normal,” he said. How does the virus spread? The virus is spread by close contact with an infected person or animal. For human-to-human infection, the virus can be passed on through contact with skin lesions, skin-to-skin contact, and talking or breathing too close to an infected person. It can also be spread via contaminated objects such as surfaces, bedding, clothing and towels, as the virus enters the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the eyes, nose, and mouth. Marks told Al Jazeera that the most important form of transmission is through skin-to-skin contact as the virus remains detectable on skin lesions for “three weeks or so”, rather than via the respiratory system since in “most people the virus is cleared from the throat by seven to 10 days”. For human-to-animal transmission, the virus typically enters the body through bites, scratches or contact with the wounds on an infected animal. What are the symptoms? The disease causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild but can be severe enough to kill. Marks explained that most people have a “relatively mild illness” where they could have a fever, muscle aches and a rash with “five to 25 lesions”. “Some people become much more unwell and they may develop a more severe illness with hundreds of lesions all over the body,” he said. What variables can cause more severe symptoms? While Marks explained that the illness presents mild symptoms in most people, some people are at higher risk of experiencing severe symptoms. “For example, people with untreated HIV [a sexually transmitted illness] or a weak immune system are at still higher risk of severe disease. Children also seem to be at higher risk of severe disease,” he said. Children, he explained, are likely affected by mpox more than adults for “several reasons”. “A lot of the transmission is in densely populated areas with many children, and children are probably more prone to running around and coming into direct skin-to-skin contact with others – so that then causes transmission. Whereas adults have less direct contact with others,” he said. Ngongo added that children are also at higher risk as their “defence mechanism” – the immune system – is still developing. What treatment is available for this strain of mpox? There is no current treatment for mpox but some antiviral drugs are being tested, Marks said. “There is, however, vaccination, which is effective at reducing risk. The priority needs to be getting an adequate supply of vaccine to those populations most at risk in DRC and surrounding countries,” he said. “If we can vaccinate individuals at risk they will be protected from infection and this will help control the epidemic – so both benefit the person vaccinated and the broader population,” he added. A vaccine for mpox, which was used in the 2022 outbreak by many Western countries, is not accessible by poorer African nations, Ngongo explained. “There is no vaccine in Africa. Whatever is left of that vaccine is stockpiled in the