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ANKARA — Turkish authorities have expanded a criminal probe into individuals responsible for buildings levelled by a deadly earthquake with 564 suspects identified, the interior minister has announced.

A 7.8-magnitude tremor on February 6 and its aftershocks have killed more than 43,000 people in Turkey and left millions without homes.

"160 of them have been detained, 18 are in police custody and 175 have been released on bail," Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in an interview on the state-run TRT Haber channel late Wednesday.

"We have banned all of those under investigation from travelling. Nothing is more precious than human life."

"We are being thorough."

Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed without warning following the violent tremor as many people slept.

Turkish media has vocally criticised developers for using shoddy materials and failing to comply with construction codes.

In the face of growing anger, several developers were arrested in the first days following the earthquake.

"1,250,000 buildings were examined in 11 provinces. 164,321 buildings made up of 520,000 independent units have already been destroyed, severely damaged or urgently need to be destroyed," Environment Minister Murat Kurum announced on Thursday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced plans to rebuild 270,000 homes in the devastated provinces within one year.

"We are making plans taking into account the cultural landscape, our children's future and guaranteeing our towns are on safe ground," Kurum added.

"We will build the new housing with this in mind."

WASHINGTON — The United States has returned 77 looted antiquities to Yemen, US authorities said on Tuesday, adding the objects would be housed "temporarily" in a museum in Washington in line with an agreement with the war-torn country's government.

The pieces are "64 relief carved stone heads, 11 Quran manuscript pages, a bronze inscribed bowl, and a Funerary Stele" from Minaean tribal cultures in northwest Yemen's highlands dating back to the 1st century BCE, Breon Peace, the district attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

The announcement was made jointly by the prosecutor's office, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Smithsonian Institution, which includes nearly 20 museums in the United States.

New York state's justice department has been carrying out a vast campaign for several years to restore antiquities looted around the world and which have ended up in museums and galleries in the metropolis.

Between 2020 and 2021, at least 700 pieces were returned to 14 countries, including Cambodia, Egypt, Greece, India, Iraq, Italy and Pakistan.

The 64 carved stone heads had been confiscated in the United States as part of a 2012 plea bargain from an antiquities smuggler named Mousa Khouli, also known as "Morris" Khouli, the DA's statement said.

The antiquities were imported into the US from Dubai using false documentation.

Yemen's ambassador to the United States, Mohammed Al Hadhrami, expressed his "deep gratitude" to New York, according to the statement.

"I also affirm my substantial appreciation to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art for agreeing to temporarily hold these antiquities until they are fully repatriated back to Yemen in the future," Al Hadhrami said.

The Yemeni government and the museum have signed an agreement to preserve the objects for two years, with the option of renewing it at Yemen's request.

Yemen has been devastated by an eight-year civil war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and plunged the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the world's worst humanitarian tragedies.

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — Israeli occupation forces killed six Palestinians on Wednesday in a raid on the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Three men aged 23 to 72 were killed "as a result of the occupation's aggression on Nablus", the ministry said.

At least 36 wounded people had been admitted to hospital, the majority suffering gunshot wounds, the ministry added.

The Israeli occupation military confirmed its forces were operating in the northern West Bank city but when contacted by AFP a spokesperson was unable to provide further details.

The latest deadly Israeli incursion follows an appeal by United Nations Middle East peace envoy, Tor Wennesland, for the violence to be halted as an "urgent priority".

"We have seen ominous signs of what awaits if we fail to address the current instability," he told the UN Security Council on Monday.

Since the start of this year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 51 Palestinian adults and children.

ALEPPO, Syria — Sitting by a bed strewn with rubble in Syria's second biggest city, Umm Mounir refuses to leave her home even though the deadly earthquake has torn a gaping hole into the room.

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February, killing more than 45,000 people across Turkey and Syria and flattening entire neighbourhoods.

The building adjacent to Umm Mounir's collapsed, ripping the rear facade off her own home, but she told AFP that neither natural disasters nor conflict can make her leave.

"Nothing will make me move out of my house except death," said the 55-year-old, who lives by herself on the fourth floor of the heavily damaged seven-storey building.

"I will only leave for the grave."

Her city suffered great losses in the February 6 quake that flattened 54 of its buildings and damaged historic sites.

With at least 432 fatalities, Aleppo accounts for nearly a third of all deaths in government-held parts of Syria, according to state media.

Officials and medics across the war-ravaged country, including in rebel-controlled areas, put the overall Syrian death toll at more than 3,600 people.

'Used to danger' 

The city witnessed brutal battles between rebels based in eastern Aleppo and Russian-backed regime forces from 2012 to 2016.

After a suffocating siege on rebel-held areas and a crushing offensive involving barrel bombs, rockets and shells, the army declared in December 2016 that it was in full control of the city.

“We are people of glory and wealth, but the war changed everything,” said Umm Mounir, glancing at the wreckage of her wooden furniture.

“Even in the harshest years of the war we were not displaced,” added the woman, whose home in the Masharika neighbourhood was near the frontline. “We will not be displaced now.”

More than 30 people died in Masharika after the pre-dawn quake brought down two building over sleeping residents.

Seemingly incessant aftershocks spooked traumatised survivors, and a 6.4-magnitude tremor on Monday rocked the same areas of Turkey and Syria.

When the new quake hit, Umm Mounir grabbed her 85-year-old neighbour Amina Raslan, who lives on the first floor, and they rushed out.

“She can’t run, so I held her hand and we walked as fast as we could,” Umm Mounir said.

Raslan’s son, who lives with his mother, said they “got used to the danger because our home used to be on the frontline” where rockets and missiles had rained down.

Puffing a cigarette, 55-year-old Ali Al Bash said he wished they could leave their damaged home, but that “we have nowhere else to go”.

‘Everything collapsed’ 

Raslan’s eyes welled with tears as she recalled the destruction of the home she said her family had lived in for 50 years.

“Everything collapsed,” she told AFP as her grandchildren were playing around her.

The family, like many others, did not want to move to a shelter but could not afford to rent a new home, Raslan said.

“I lost two of my children during the war. I don’t want to leave my house... I don’t want to lose anything else.”

Some Aleppo residents, however, have left ravaged homes for tents.

Mohammed Jawish, 63, now lives in a makeshift camp with dozens of families after his building partially collapsed.

“If I still had a house I wouldn’t be here,” he said, watching his grandchildren, some of them barefoot in the winter cold — play with a worn-out football.

Jawish told AFP the quake cost him his belongings and sent him “back to square one”.

“My chest feels tight when I’m in this small tent,” he said. “I feel I could die from sorrow.”

ANTAKYA, Turkey — A 6.4-magnitude earthquake has rocked Turkey's southern province of Hatay and northern Syria, killing six people and sparking fresh panic after a massive February 6 tremor left nearly 45,000 dead in both countries.

The AFAD disaster response agency reported the deaths, as well as nearly 300 hospitalisations, while in Syria the White Helmets aid group said at least 150 people were injured in the Aleppo region.

The quake hit the Turkish town of Defne on Monday at 8:04 pm (17:04 GMT) and was strongly felt by AFP teams in the nearby city of Antakya. It was also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus.

Turkey's disaster management agency said on Twitter that a 5.8-magnitude quake followed three minutes later, with its epicentre in the Samandag district of Hatay province.

The agency recorded two more tremors with magnitudes of 5.2 around 20 minutes after the first on Monday.

"The road moved like waves. The building moved back and forth, the cars moved left to right. It knocked me off my feet," said Mehmet Irmak, who works at a notary's office in Antakya.

"Hatay is no longer a safe place. We could hear a lot of buildings collapsing," said Irmak, who had been sleeping in his car for two weeks after the first quake.

"We will wait for a new day, but I don't know what I'm going to do," he said.

Among the dead were three people who became trapped after returning to their damaged flats to retrieve belongings, said AFAD, warning people against going back to homes at risk.

On Tuesday the organisation said it was sending 6,000 extra tents to the region to shelter those in need.

'Earth opening up'

Images from DHA news agency showed a hospital in Antakya being evacuated, while broadcaster NTV reported that a hospital was evacuated in the city of Iskenderun.

DHA said patients in an intensive care unit were taken by ambulance to field hospitals to continue their treatment.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said rescue workers were trying to find people trapped under rubble.

An AFP journalist reported scenes of panic in Antakya, with the new tremors raising clouds of dust in the devastated city.

The walls of badly damaged buildings crumbled while several people, apparently injured, called for help.

On a street in Antakya, Ali Mazlum, 18, told AFP: “We were with AFAD who were looking for the bodies of our family when the quake hit.

“You don’t know what to do... we grabbed each other and right in front of us, the walls started to fall. It felt like the earth was opening up to swallow us up.”

Mazlum, who has lived in Antakya for 12 years, was looking for the bodies of his sister and her family as well as his brother-in-law and his family.

The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said five hospitals it supports in northwest Syria received several people who had sustained minor injuries, some when parts of damaged buildings fell on them.

In government-held areas of Syria, Aleppo hospitals also received panic-stricken residents, while six people were injured by falling rubble, the state news agency SANA said.

Al Razi hospital in Aleppo received 47 cases, state media reported.

“We rushed out, we don’t know how we left. I was afraid that we would meet the same fate as those who died under the rubble,” said Khadija Al Khalaf, a 45-year-old mother, in the rebel-held city of Azaz.

According to AFAD, more than 6,200 aftershocks have been recorded since the 7.8-magnitude hit Turkey and Syria on February 6, leaving millions homeless.

Officials said following the quake that aftershocks would be felt for a year because of the force of the first tremor.

Officials have set the death toll from that quake at 41,156 people in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria, but experts say the number will rise as the rubble is cleared and rescue operations end.

Eleven provinces in Turkey were hit by the previous tremors and on Sunday, officials said rescue operations would continue in only two: Hatay and Kahramanmaras.

“My thoughts continue to be with the people of Turkiye and Syria, as they face the impact of new earthquakes striking the region this evening,” wrote UN chief Antonio Guterres on Twitter.

UN teams there “are assessing the situation, and we stand ready to provide additional support as needed”, he said.

Earlier on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, as he wrapped up a visit during which he pledged solidarity after the tremors.

The United States has contributed $185 million in assistance to Turkey and Syria.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s former parliamentary speaker Rached Ghannouchi appeared in court on Tuesday on new terror-related charges after being accused of calling police officers “tyrants”, his party said.

Ghannouchi, who leads President Kais Saied’s arch-foes the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, had already faced court in late November over allegations his party helped extremists travel to Iraq and Syria.

The latest hearing comes amid a series of arrests of high profile figures that have prompted criticism from rights groups in the North African country and abroad.

The judge ordered Ghannouchi’s release following Tuesday’s hearing session, his lawyer Sami Triki said, adding that the charges relate to remarks made by his client in early 2022 that had been interpreted as “inciting” Tunisians to kill each other.

The former speaker is also due to be questioned on Thursday after another complaint from a policeman claiming to be in possession of a compromising telephone recording of Ghannouchi, Ennahdha said.

“These charges have been fabricated out of nothing... [and] target the opposition” without evidence, Ghannouchi said on Tuesday upon arriving at the anti-terrorism court.

He accused the authorities of “instrumentalising justice” and seeking to “cover up Tunisia’s real problems”.

The leader of Tunisia’s main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, meanwhile denounced the “judicial relentlessness” targeting Ghannouchi.

“It is a short-sighted policy in the face of economic and social failures and the international isolation” of the authorities, Ahmed Nejib Chebbi told AFP outside the court.

“Repression has never stemmed the flow of freedom,” he added.

In addition to his previous hearing in November, Ghannouchi also appeared in court that month as part of a case involving alleged money-laundering and “incitement to violence”.

He is still awaiting sentencing in those cases.

Ghannouchi was the speaker of Tunisia’s parliament before Saied dissolved it in July 2021, and went on to seize wide-reaching powers through a series of moves dubbed by opponents as a “coup”.

At least 10 public figures have been arrested since the start of February in the country — the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

TUNIS — The head of Tunisia’s dissolved parliament is facing a new police inquiry, his Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party said on Monday, days after a string of arrests mainly targeting opposition political figures.

Rached Ghannouchi, President Kais Saied’s 81-year-old arch-rival, was ordered to appear at a police station in the capital on Tuesday, Ennahdha spokesman Imed Khemiri told journalists, calling it “a new attack on political leaders”.

Khemiri said the party “does not know the reasons for this summons, but it is part of an enquiry after a complaint was lodged by an unknown person”.

A party official who asked not to be named said the complaint came from a member of Tunisia’s powerful police unions, who “claimed to have a recording of a telephone call” involving Ghannouchi.

The latest in a string of legal woes facing Ghannouchi comes a year-and-a-half after Saied launched a dramatic power grab in the birthplace of the Arab Spring, freezing and later scrapping the legislature Ghannouchi headed.

Several prominent Saied critics have since faced trial in military courts and the president’s rivals have accused him of trying to reinstall one-man rule, over a decade after the pro-democracy revolt that toppled dictator Zine Al  Abidine Ben Ali.

Many of the enquiries have targeted Ennahdha, which has been a major political force in Tunisia’s parliament and most governments since the 2011 revolution.

Ghannouchi was questioned by an anti-terror judge in November over alleged involvement in helping Tunisians travelling to fight for terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.

Prior to that he was interrogated over alleged money laundering in relation to foreign donations for an Ennahdha-linked charity.

Zeineb Brahmi, the party’s legal chief, quipped that “we don’t know whether the investigation this time will be over plotting against state security, financial corruption or ‘terrorism’”.

Khemiri accused authorities of “harassing” Saied’s rivals saying it had become “very easy” for authorities to prosecute politicians.

“All it needs is a complaint to be lodged for the police to open an investigation, with zero verification of its basis,” he said.

At least 10 public figures have been arrested in the past 10 days, mainly critics of Saied, including members of Ennahdha and the head of a major private radio station.