Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Dozens gathered near an area roped off by the Lebanese army late into the night, waiting for news of loved ones believed to be trapped under the rubble following an Israeli missile attack that leveled a residential building in Beirut’s suburb of Dahieh on Friday.
Israel's strike killed at least 31 people, including three children and seven women, and wounded 68, Lebanon's health ministry said. The Israeli army said the target of the strike was senior Hezbollah commander Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was meeting underneath the building along with other commanders of the group's elite Radwan Force.
The death toll was expected to rise as rescue workers continued their efforts well into the next day. By afternoon, 23 people remained missing under the rubble. On the evening of the strike, a teary-eyed woman in a black hijab asked Red Crescent workers for news of her daughter.
“I went to St George hospital and St Therese and no one knows where my daughter is. There has to be some way you can find out,” she implored the group of paramedics. “Where is my daughter?”
By morning, videos and photos of the four-year-old Naya and numerous others would be all over Lebanese social media, listed as “still missing”.
"If you have information about any of these people, please call the following phone number," the caption under the photos said.
A civil defence medic, who identified himself only as Hassan, told The National there was nothing they could do in many of these cases.
"Most of the time we don’t know if the person has been rescued yet, if they're alive or dead, or still under the rubble, or what hospital they went to,” he said, adding he had been working at the rescue site for hours.
The exhausted paramedic proudly told The National he was part of a team who had pulled a young man out of the rubble, still alive. In the next second he remembered the moments following the rescue and his face fell again. “We pulled his wife out too…. But she was already dead.”
By Hassan’s assessment, many may still be trapped under the rubble of what was once a 10-storey apartment building situated on a busy street.
The exhausted medic said he had been running on adrenaline for four days, starting when communication devices, typically used by Hezbollah members to by-pass Israeli interception, simultaneously exploded across Lebanon in an unprecedented operation attributed to Israel’s Mossad agency. First they collected people whose fingers and eyes were ripped away by exploding pagers, he told The National. Then, somehow more absurdly, the same thing happened with walky-talkies. Now paramedics are digging through concrete to find survivors from the Israeli assassination that killed numerous civilians.
“This is a difficult time for Lebanon. For all of us. We haven’t caught a break,” Hassan said, sipping a quick coffee with other colleagues inside an ambulance.
Near the vehicle, dazed residents and other rescue workers sat in a restaurant, seeking a brief moment of respite.
Dahieh residents, some covered in blood or swathed in bandages, sat in plastic chairs near the security cordon. Others, some of them sobbing, paced up and down the street, caressing their prayer beads. They stepped over a pile of shattered glass mixed with blood on the pavement.
At times, the crowd grew agitated as rescuers carrying stretchers rushed into the closed-off area.
An old man speaking under a pseudonym, Ahmad, said he had been waiting hours to know whether his relatives – including four children under 10 years old – had survived.
“I called them as soon as I heard the news,” he told The National, his eyes reddened by exhaustion. “They never answered.”
He condemned the Israeli strike attack as a “war crime”. “This is not a battlefield. This building houses families, women, and children. This is not a fair war. Only our faith makes it bearable to pay this price.”
Another resident told The National defiantly that “victory will come”. He was waiting to see if his son's friend would be found under the rubble. The whole family was missing. The children are between two and 19 years of age.
Company Profile
Company name: Yeepeey
Started: Soft launch in November, 2020
Founders: Sagar Chandiramani, Jatin Sharma and Monish Chandiramani
Based: Dubai
Industry: E-grocery
Initial investment: $150,000
Future plan: Raise $1.5m and enter Saudi Arabia next year
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White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Fixture: Liechtenstein v Italy, Tuesday, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match is shown on BeIN Sports
How does ToTok work?
The calling app is available to download on Google Play and Apple App Store
To successfully install ToTok, users are asked to enter their phone number and then create a nickname.
The app then gives users the option add their existing phone contacts, allowing them to immediately contact people also using the application by video or voice call or via message.
Users can also invite other contacts to download ToTok to allow them to make contact through the app.
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Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, John Oliver
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
The most expensive investment mistake you will ever make
When is the best time to start saving in a pension? The answer is simple – at the earliest possible moment. The first pound, euro, dollar or dirham you invest is the most valuable, as it has so much longer to grow in value. If you start in your twenties, it could be invested for 40 years or more, which means you have decades for compound interest to work its magic.
“You get growth upon growth upon growth, followed by more growth. The earlier you start the process, the more it will all roll up,” says Chris Davies, chartered financial planner at The Fry Group in Dubai.
This table shows how much you would have in your pension at age 65, depending on when you start and how much you pay in (it assumes your investments grow 7 per cent a year after charges and you have no other savings).
|
Age
|
$250 a month
|
$500 a month
|
$1,000 a month
|
|
25
|
$640,829
|
$1,281,657
|
$2,563,315
|
|
35
|
$303,219
|
$606,439
|
$1,212,877
|
|
45
|
$131,596
|
$263,191
|
$526,382
|
|
55
|
$44,351
|
$88,702
|
$177,403
|
'Ghostbusters: From Beyond'
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace
Rating: 2/5
What is cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying or online bullying could take many forms such as sending unkind or rude messages to someone, socially isolating people from groups, sharing embarrassing pictures of them, or spreading rumors about them.
Cyberbullying can take place on various platforms such as messages, on social media, on group chats, or games.
Parents should watch out for behavioural changes in their children.
When children are being bullied they they may be feel embarrassed and isolated, so parents should watch out for signs of signs of depression and anxiety
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
EPL's youngest
- Ethan Nwaneri (Arsenal)
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