Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Twin babies have been killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza while their father went to collect their birth certificates in another tragic day of war, as the death toll in Gaza approaches 40,000.
Video purportedly taken at a hospital in the central city of Deir Al Balah shows Mohammad Al Qumsan in shock, holding the laminated birth certificates for four-day-old Aysal and Aser.
Mr Al Qumsan had been to register his newborns' births when an air strike killed his wife and babies, as well as their maternal grandmother. A neighbour called him at a local government office to inform him of the tragedy.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. "I am told it was a shell that hit the house.”
The twins' mother, pharmacist Joumana Arafa, had just announced the birth of her baby boy and girl on Facebook. Now her husband will be obtaining death certificates for their family.
The family had already fled their home in Gaza city on instructions from the Israeli military, taking shelter in a temporary home in Deir Al Balah.
The Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which began after a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 which killed 1,200 Israelis and resulted in 250 Israeli hostages being taken, is taking a heavy toll on the strip's children. The Health Ministry in Gaza said 115 newborns have been killed in the territory since the war began.
Gaza's Health Ministry announced on Tuesday the death toll had reached more than 39,900, with more than 92,000 injured. Deaths in the occupied West Bank take the total number of Palestinians killed since October 7 to more than 40,000.
Many who survive the bombing are left without parents or any family members. All are at risk of disease, for which there is little treatment as aid continues to be blocked by Israel.
"A child with a disease in the Gaza Strip has been handed a sentence of a slow death because he cannot receive the treatment he needs, and he is unlikely to survive long enough to make it out," Unicef communications officer Salim Oweis said last week.
"Their only hope of survival is a ceasefire. The children of Gaza are still clinging to the belief that this day will come, and Unicef shares this hope. Achieving a ceasefire is still possible, more necessary now than ever and way overdue, and everyone must do everything in their power to advocate for it."
Ceasefire talks planned for this week will likely not include Hamas, who demanded Israel pause military action in Gaza during the length of any negotiations, sources told The National on Monday.
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Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
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'Avengers: Infinity War'
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Starring: Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Robert Downey Junior, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen
Four stars
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Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Power: 650hp at 6,750rpm
Torque: 800Nm from 2,500-4,000rpm
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
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- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
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The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
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Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
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Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
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Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany
- At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people
- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed
- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest
- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
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