Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza
Temperatures have dropped but the sky is clear above Jerusalem, and the Old City should be having a lucrative November, even though the main summer tourism season is over.
Instead, business owners are having a painfully quiet period. Visitors have dried up because of the Israel-Gaza war and many shopowners have long stopped bothering to open their businesses.
The owner of Lebanese Restaurant in the Christian Quarter wondered why he even fired up his stoves. The restaurant got its first and only customer for the day at 1.30pm.
“We’re back in Covid-19,” the manager said. “I can only hope the war ends quicker than the pandemic.”
He sold one sandwich for 25 shekels ($6.70).
The number of people walking along his road, a predominantly Catholic route used by many Christian Quarter residents, was nonetheless relatively high for the Old City on Friday.
On the intersecting Christian Quarter Road, where most of the businesses cater to tourists, perhaps fewer than 10 per cent of shops were open.
It runs parallel to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, whose empty halls make plain quite how clear the hit to tourism and pilgrimage has been.
Not a single person was crouched over the Stone of Anointing, where crowds of hunched, sometimes weeping pilgrims are normally found.
In the Aedicule, thought to be Jesus’s tomb, fencing to manage long queues has been removed.
One Orthodox nun crouched by the shrine uninterrupted for a quarter of an hour, which would have been impossible before October 7. She could have stayed longer.
Eastward in the Muslim Quarter, the 124-bed Austrian Hospice, the oldest and arguably most famous Christian guesthouse in the Old City, would normally be full of the pilgrims that make Holy Sepulchre so busy.
A young volunteer at the hostel told The National that not a single guest was staying there.
The Muslim Quarter was still the busiest area of the Old City. The shops there were serving people streaming out of Al Aqsa Mosque after Friday prayers.
The mood might not have been as resigned as the Christian Quarter, but it was far more tense.
Israeli authorities have placed tough restrictions on worshippers at the mosque – the third holiest site in Islam – since the war began, often only allowing those above the age of 70 to enter.
On the sixth Friday since the war started, scenes around the mosque were the same as in the beginning: largely silent Muslim residents walked past heavy concentrations of Israeli police and border guards, who looked over far smaller crowds of worshippers due to heavier-than-usual restrictions on access from the occupied West Bank and an absence of pilgrims.
It meant that the funeral procession of one woman was far more sparsely populated than it should have been.
Her body was carried from Friday prayers at the mosque by only a handful of mourners, who crossed the flashpoint Al Alam Street, briefly walking past Israeli forces and then up Nun’s Ascent back into the privacy of the narrow side avenues.
The National, after being briefly questioned by a border policeman nearby, asked the group of young Israelis on patrol why the Old City was so empty of visitors.
“It’s quiet because of us,” said one, no older than 20.
He interpreted “quiet” to mean free from violence, and it is true that authorities have managed to quash serious clashes in the city during the past two months.
Whether this near lockdown makes Jerusalem safer in the long run, as its people face an increasingly desperate economic situation, remains to be seen.
Honeymoonish
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
Power: 242bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Price: Dh136,814
MATCH INFO
Europa League final
Who: Marseille v Atletico Madrid
Where: Parc OL, Lyon, France
When: Wednesday, 10.45pm kick off (UAE)
TV: BeIN Sports
Keep it fun and engaging
Stuart Ritchie, director of wealth advice at AES International, says children cannot learn something overnight, so it helps to have a fun routine that keeps them engaged and interested.
“I explain to my daughter that the money I draw from an ATM or the money on my bank card doesn’t just magically appear – it’s money I have earned from my job. I show her how this works by giving her little chores around the house so she can earn pocket money,” says Mr Ritchie.
His daughter is allowed to spend half of her pocket money, while the other half goes into a bank account. When this money hits a certain milestone, Mr Ritchie rewards his daughter with a small lump sum.
He also recommends books that teach the importance of money management for children, such as The Squirrel Manifesto by Ric Edelman and Jean Edelman.
UAE's final round of matches
- Sep 1, 2016 Beat Japan 2-1 (away)
- Sep 6, 2016 Lost to Australia 1-0 (home)
- Oct 6, 2016 Beat Thailand 3-1 (home)
- Oct 11, 2016 Lost to Saudi Arabia 3-0 (away)
- Nov 15, 2016 Beat Iraq 2-0 (home)
- Mar 23, 2017 Lost to Japan 2-0 (home)
- Mar 28, 2017 Lost to Australia 2-0 (away)
- June 13, 2017 Drew 1-1 with Thailand (away)
- Aug 29, 2017 v Saudi Arabia (home)
- Sep 5, 2017 v Iraq (away)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Match info
Manchester United 0-0 Crystal Palace
Man of the match: Cheikhou Kouyate (Crystal Palace)
Key findings
- Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
- Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase.
- People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”.
- Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better.
- But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.
TV: World Cup Qualifier 2018 matches will be aired on on OSN Sports HD Cricket channel
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Freezer tips
- Always make sure food is completely cool before freezing.
- If you’re cooking in large batches, divide into either family-sized or individual portions to freeze.
- Ensure the food is well wrapped in foil or cling film. Even better, store in fully sealable, labelled containers or zip-lock freezer bags.
- The easiest and safest way to defrost items such as the stews and sauces mentioned is to do so in the fridge for several hours or overnight.
Dubai World Cup nominations
UAE: Thunder Snow/Saeed bin Suroor (trainer), North America/Satish Seemar, Drafted/Doug Watson, New Trails/Ahmad bin Harmash, Capezzano, Gronkowski, Axelrod, all trained by Salem bin Ghadayer
USA: Seeking The Soul/Dallas Stewart, Imperial Hunt/Luis Carvajal Jr, Audible/Todd Pletcher, Roy H/Peter Miller, Yoshida/William Mott, Promises Fulfilled/Dale Romans, Gunnevera/Antonio Sano, XY Jet/Jorge Navarro, Pavel/Doug O’Neill, Switzerland/Steve Asmussen.
Japan: Matera Sky/Hideyuki Mori, KT Brace/Haruki Sugiyama. Bahrain: Nine Below Zero/Fawzi Nass. Ireland: Tato Key/David Marnane. Hong Kong: Fight Hero/Me Tsui. South Korea: Dolkong/Simon Foster.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Coming soon
Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura
When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Akira Back Dubai
Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Fixtures
Friday Leganes v Alaves, 10.15pm; Valencia v Las Palmas, 12.15am
Saturday Celta Vigo v Real Sociedad, 8.15pm; Girona v Atletico Madrid, 10.15pm; Sevilla v Espanyol, 12.15am
Sunday Athletic Bilbao v Getafe, 8.15am; Barcelona v Real Betis, 10.15pm; Deportivo v Real Madrid, 12.15am
Monday Levante v Villarreal, 10.15pm; Malaga v Eibar, midnight
MATCH INFO
Manchester United 1 (Greenwood 77')
Everton 1 (Lindelof 36' og)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs: 2019 Mini Cooper
Price, base: Dh141,740 (three-door) / Dh165,900 (five-door)
Engine: 1.5-litre four-cylinder (Cooper) / 2.0-litre four-cylinder (Cooper S)
Power: 136hp @ 4,500rpm (Cooper) / 192hp @ 5,000rpm (Cooper S)
Torque: 220Nm @ 1,480rpm (Cooper) / 280Nm @ 1,350rpm (Cooper S)
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 4.8L to 5.4L / 100km
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
CONFIRMED%20LINE-UP
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