Region

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — From Jamal Hemmou's ramshackle workshop in Nablus's Old City in the occupied West Bank, classic Arabic songs blare into the surrounding cobbled streets.

The 58-year-old is the last of his kind in the city — he runs the only shop in Nablus repairing and selling vinyl records and players.

Like much of the world, Nablus is attuned to digital music, but Hemmou told AFP working with vinyl was about preserving Palestinian "heritage".

Elderly people regularly pass by at the end of the day and, "when I turn on the record player, they start crying", he said.

Hemmou began learning how to repair record players when he was 17, listening to the great Arab artists of the time as he worked.

"I have more experience than the people with the certificates," he joked, adding that he is entirely self-taught, and acquired his passion for music from his father.

"My father was a singer, he used to sing because he loved those old singers... almost everyone in my family is a musician," he said.

He said he enjoys Lebanon's Fairuz and Egyptian superstar Abdel Halim Hafez, but his favourite is Shadia, an Egyptian diva who released a string of hits between the 1940s and 1980s.

"She sang from the heart, she sang with emotion, she told a story," he said.

Strewn throughout his workshop, in various stages of repair, are record players from the 1960s and 1970s. There are even several gramophones from the 1940s.

He estimated that he sells an average of five record players per month.

'You're 

transported back' 

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War in 1967. A surge in violence in 2022 made it the deadliest year in the West Bank since United Nations records began in 2005 — with Nablus having been at the forefront of the bloodshed.

But Hemmou said it's not the military raids that hurt business — it's the strikes regularly called by local authorities in response to Israeli operations.

"We close all the shops when the Israeli raids kill someone in Nablus, especially the Old City," he told AFP.

For Hemmou, the machines and the music they play are more than just songs, they are an essential part of Palestinian and Arab heritage.

"When you play the record, you're transported back 50 years," he said.

"You listen to this music, and you remember what it means to be an Arab or a Palestinian," he added.

Hemmou said that today's artists don't match the emotion of the great Arab singers of the 20th century.

"The modern singers do not know what they sing. The old singers, they summon what is deep within us and they revive our heritage," he said.

Music as resistance 

Known throughout the old city as Abu Shaadi, he has developed a reputation beyond Nablus. Music enthusiasts will travel from afar to buy from him.

"My customers are from all over the West Bank, from Jerusalem, from Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jenin, Qalqiliya," he said.

"They come from all of Palestine to buy from me."

Hemmou said he has tried to bring his two sons, aged 26 and 27, into the business.

"They aren't interested," he told AFP. "They tell me to turn it off, they don't want to listen."

The street on which his shop sits has seen fierce battles during the last year, as Israeli forces conducted raids targeting a nascent militant group called "The Lions' Den", based in Nablus's Old City.

The shop bears reminders of the conflict — plastered on its shutters are the images of Palestinian fighters killed in recent months.

"When there are clashes we have to close the shop, of course, but what can I say, I am still alive, thank God," he said.

"I play some national songs, that is my way of resisting."

DARKUSH, Syria — At a hospital in northwest Syria, Osama Abdel Hamid was holding back tears as he recalled on Monday the massive earthquake that toppled his home just hours earlier.

"We were fast asleep when we felt a huge earthquake," Abdel Hamid told AFP at Al-Rahma hospital in Idlib province, where he was being treated for a head injury.

The 7.8-magnitude pre-dawn quake, whose epicentre was near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, wiped out entire sections of cities in Turkey and war-ravaged Syria, killing more than 1,200 people in their sleep.

When it shook the Abdel Hamid family's home in the village of Azmarin, near Syria's border with Turkey, "I woke up my wife and children and we ran towards the exit door," the man said.

"We opened the door, and suddenly the entire building collapsed."

Within moments, Abdel Hamid found himself under the rubble of the four-storey building.

All of his neighbours died, but the family made it out alive.

"The walls collapsed over us, but my son was able to get out," Abdel Hamid said. "He started screaming and people gathered around, knowing there were survivors, and they pulled us out from under the rubble."

They were taken to the hospital in Darkush, a town several kilometres to the south along the Turkish border.

The facility soon had to take in patients far beyond its capacity and received at least 30 dead bodies.

An AFP photographer saw multiple ambulances arriving at Al Rahma one after the other, carrying casualties including many children.

"The situation is bad," said Majid Ibrahim, general surgeon at the hospital, where by the late morning some 150 people injured in the quake had arrived.

"A lot of people are still under the debris of the buildings," he told AFP.

"We need urgent help for the area, especially medical help."

Many 'still trapped' 

At least 592 people were killed across the war-torn country, the Syrian government and rescue workers said.

The official news agency SANA, citing the health ministry, said at least 371 people were killed and 1,089 injured in government-controlled areas.

The White Helmets rescue group said at least 221 were killed and 419 injured in rebel-held areas, and cautioned "the toll may increase as many families are still trapped".

In one crowded hospital room, injured people were lying on beds, some with bandages on their heads and others treated for fractures and bruises.

On one of the beds, a boy whose head was covered in a bandage was sleeping next to another patient.

And in another room, a young girl was crying as she received an injection, her hand in a cast.

Mohammad Barakat, 24, was being treated for a broken leg.

"I took my children and got out of the house," recalled the father of four, lying in bed with wounds covering parts of his face.

"My house is an old one, and construction is very old," he told AFP.

"So I got scared it might collapse on us. The walls of the neighbouring houses began collapsing when we were out in the street."

Worse than war 

The earthquake hit near Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey at 04:17 am (01:17 GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.

Tremors were also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus, AFP correspondents said.

In the town of Sarmada, in the countryside of Idlib province, a block of buildings had been levelled. The remains of solar panels and water tanks as well as mattresses and blankets were scattered above the ruins.

An AFP photographer saw rescue workers start to clear the rubble and remove big pieces of concrete in the hope of finding survivors.

Anas Habbash said he "ran down the stairs like crazy", carrying his son and ushering his pregnant wife outside of the apartment building in the northern city of Aleppo.

"Once we got to the street, we saw dozens of families in shock and fear," the 37-year-old told AFP.

Some knelt down to pray and other started crying "as if it were judgement day".

"I haven't had that feeling all through the years of the war" in Syria since 2011, Habbash said.

"This was much more difficult than shells and bullets."

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — The most powerful earthquake to strike Turkey and Syria in nearly a century killed over 2,300 people on Monday, sparked frantic rescues and was felt as far away as Greenland.

The 7.8-magnitude early morning quake, followed by dozens of aftershocks, wiped out entire sections of major Turkish cities in a region filled with millions who have fled Syria's civil war and other conflicts.

Rescuers used heavy equipment and their bare hands to peel back rubble in search of survivors, who they could in some cases hear begging for help under the debris.

"Since I live in an earthquake zone, I am used to being shaken," said Melisa Salman, a reporter in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras.

“But that was the first time we have ever experienced anything like that,” the 23-year-old told AFP. “We thought it was the apocalypse.”

The head of Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, Raed Ahmed, called it “the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre”.

At least 810 people died in rebel and government-controlled parts of Syria, state media and medical sources said, while Turkish officials reported another 1,498 fatalities.

The initial quake was followed by dozens of aftershocks, including a 7.5-magnitude tremor that jolted the region in the middle of search and rescue work on Monday afternoon.

Shocked survivors in Turkey rushed out into the snow-covered streets in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes with their hands.

“Seven members of my family are under the debris,” Muhittin Orakci, a stunned survivor in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, told AFP.

“My sister and her three children are there. And also her husband, her father-in-law and her mother-in-law.”

The rescue was being hampered by a winter blizzard that covered major roads in ice and snow. Officials said the quake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating deliveries of vital aid.

Turkey’s last 7.8-magnitude tremor was in 1939, when 33,000 died in the eastern Erzincan province.

‘Ran for the door’ 

Monday’s first quake struck at 4:17am (01:17 GMT) at a depth of about 18 kilometres near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to around two million people, the US Geological Survey said.

Denmark’s geological institute said tremors from the main quake reached the east coast of Greenland about eight minutes after the tremor struck Turkey.

Osama Abdel Hamid, a quake survivor in Syria, said his family was sleeping when the shaking began.

“I woke up my wife and my children and we ran towards the door,” he said. “We opened it and suddenly all the building collapsed.”

A spokesman for Syria’s civil defence said teams were scrambling to rescue trapped people.

“Many buildings in different cities and villages in northwestern Syria collapsed... Even now, many families are under the rubble,” said Ismail Alabdallah.

The United States, the European Union and Russia all immediately sent condolences and offers of help.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered to provide “the necessary assistance” to Turkey, whose combat drones are helping Kyiv fight the Russian invasion.

‘People under rubble’ 

Images on Turkish television showed rescuers digging through rubble across city centres and residential neighbourhoods of almost all the big cities running along the border with Syria.

Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake’s epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, where entire city blocks lay in ruins under the gathering snow.

A famous mosque dating back to the 13th century partially collapsed in the province of Maltaya, where a 14-story building with 28 apartments that housed 92 people also collapsed.

In other cities, social media posts showed a 2,200-year-old hilltop castle built by Roman armies in Gaziantep lying in ruins, its walls partially turned to rubble.

“We hear voices here — and over there, too,” one rescuer was overheard as saying on NTV television in front of a flattened building in the city of Diyarbakir.

“There may be 200 people under the rubble.”

Power outages 

The Syrian health ministry reported damage across the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus, where Russia is leasing a naval facility.

AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the ground shook.

Even before the tragedy, buildings in Aleppo — Syria’s pre-war commercial hub — often collapsed due to the dilapidated infrastructure, which has suffered from lack of war-time oversight.

Officials cut off natural gas and power supplies across the region as a precaution, also closing schools for two weeks.

“The size of the aftershocks, which may continue for days although mostly decreasing in energy, brings a risk of collapse of structures already weakened by the earlier events,” David Rothery, an earthquake expert at the Open University in Britain.

“This makes search and rescue efforts dangerous.”

Turkey is in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.

The Turkish region of Duzce suffered a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in 1999, when more than 17,000 people died — including about 1,000 in Istanbul.

Experts have long warned a large quake could devastate Istanbul, a megalopolis of 16 million people filled with rickety homes.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi activists protested on Sunday to demand a law against domestic violence, days after a YouTuber was strangled by her father in a killing that sparked outrage in the conservative country.

Tiba Al Ali, 22, was killed by her father on January 31 in the southern province of Diwaniyah, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan had said on Twitter on Friday.

Maan said there had been an attempt to mediate between the young woman and her relatives to resolve a “family dispute”. The father later surrendered to the police and confessed to murdering his daughter.

On Sunday, security forces prevented some 20 activists from demonstrating outside the country’s Supreme Judicial Council, and they gathered instead at a road leading to the building, an AFP journalist said.

Some held placards saying “Stop killing women” and “Tiba’s killer must be held to account”.

“We demand laws to protect women, especially laws against domestic violence,” 22-year-old protester Rose Hamid told AFP.

“We came here to protest against Tiba’s murder and against all others. Who will be the next victim?”

Another demonstrator, Lina Ali, said: “We will keep mobilising because of rising domestic violence and killings of women.”

On the sidelines of Sunday’s demonstration, human rights activist Hanaa Edwar was received by a magistrate from the supreme judicial Council to whom she presented the protesters’ grievances.

The United Nations mission in Iraq in a statement on Sunday condemned Ali’s “abhorrent killing” and called on the Baghdad government to enact “a law that explicitly criminalises gender-based violence”.

Ali had lived in Turkey since 2017 and was visiting Iraq when she was killed, a security official in Diwaniyah told AFP.

In Turkey, she had gained a following on YouTube, posting videos of her daily life in which her fiance often appeared.

Recordings have been shared on social media by a friend of Ali, and picked up by activists, reportedly of conversations with the father, angry because she was living in Turkey.

In the recordings, she also accuses her brother of sexual assault.

AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the voice recordings.

CAIRO — Thousands of Egyptian bibliophiles weave through a labyrinthine display of books, reviving an annual tradition at the Arab world’s largest book fair, but this year it comes at a steep cost.

The 54th Cairo International Book Fair was overshadowed by a punishing economic crisis that has seen Egypt’s currency, the pound, halve in value and prices skyrocket in the past year.

Organisers say the fair lured more than half a million visitors on its opening weekend alone — but with publishing houses already struggling to cover the rising cost of printing, many fear this will not translate to sales.

“We expected a much smaller turnout this year than we had,” said Wael Al Mulla, one of more than 800 publishers at the fair.

Budgets are tight in Egypt, where inflation hit 21.9 per cent in December, forcing many to dip into their savings to cover ever-rising daily costs.

“Books are a luxury product,” said Mulla, who heads the Masr El Arabia publishing house. “They’ll inevitably be less of a priority when people need to budget for the basics.”

A steep currency devaluation has compounded costs for import-dependent publishers, leading many to hike the price of books by up to double.

“You could once come with 2,000 pounds [now $66] and fill a suitcase with books,” Mohamed El Masry, chief executive of El Rasm Bel Kalemat Publishing, told AFP.

“You can’t do that any more,” the 38-year-old lamented.

‘Bare minimum’ 

To incentivise readers, Egypt’s publishers’ association has encouraged sellers to give the option of buying books in instalments through popular buy-now-pay-later services.

State-owned publishers have also offered heavily discounted Arabic classics for under 30 pounds, or $1.

According to sellers, readers — eager for their annual haul despite the crisis — are deploying new methods to lessen the burden.

“We see most people coming with their friends as a group. They’ll decide what they want, divide the books among themselves and then pass them around,” said Abdallah Sakr, 33, a publishing manager at El Mahrousa.

“Everyone’s surprised when they see the prices, but there’s still a desire to read. So instead of buying five books they’ll get two, or one instead of two,” he added.

To survive the crisis, publishing houses have grown more selective.

As the pound plummeted, the price of basic paper stock — all imported — quadrupled, forcing publishers to “decrease commissions and print fewer books per edition”, Mulla said.

“I have to be very careful with my choice of books, only picking the titles I’m really sure will be popular.”

Egypt’s robust publishing industry — historically a key exporter of Arabic literature, to which readers would flock for the region’s cheapest volumes — has already shown signs of trouble.

“Some publishing houses have had to downsize to the bare minimum, or halt activities until the economic landscape is a little clearer,” Mulla said, noting some had already had to shut down their presses permanently.

Second-hand lifeline 

In a corner of the fair, vendors from the city’s well-known Azbakeya second-hand book market appeared unfazed by the economic downturn.

Nestled against the walls of the historic Azbakeya Garden, the stalls have for over a century sold used books, as well as pirated prints, for a fraction of the prices elsewhere.

As in past years, the booksellers have carted their innumerable volumes from the bustling market in central Cairo to the polished new exhibition centre on the city’s outskirts.

Like hundreds of thousands of loyal readers, 39-year-old Mohamed Shahin “made a beeline” for the Azbakeya booksellers with his family in tow, he told AFP.

“This is the most popular place at the fair, even though the good books sell out quick because there aren’t a lot of copies,” 18-year-old engineering student and volunteer Malak Farid said.

Mohamed Attia, an imam in his 40s, travels to Cairo for the fair every year from his hometown of Dakahlia, some 150 kilometres north of the capital.

With most volumes going for less than one dollar, the Azbakeya market has long been a treasure for Attia, and now it has become a necessity.

“Books are so much more expensive this year,” he told AFP.

But, he added with relief, “prices in Azbakeya have remained the same” — a rare boon in today’s economic climate.

GHADAMES, Libya — Young girls in colourful dress and traditional jewellery sing at a festival in Libya’s Ghadames, an oasis city that was relatively unscathed by the past decade’s chaos and is seeking to attract visitors.

Under tents strung up with red and ochre patterned material, baskets were on display as a woman sat weaving one together with a large wooden needle, silver rings tracing the movements of her hands as she worked.

Ghadames, known as the “pearl of the desert”, is located nearly 500 kilometres southwest of the capital Tripoli.

The UNESCO-listed oasis city, a pre-Roman Berber settlement and a key stop on Saharan trade routes, has unique multilevel architecture with whitewashed, covered alleyways.

In 2016, it was one of five Libyan sites added to the UN cultural body’s list of World Heritage in Danger after Libya plunged into lawlessness and armed conflict following the 2011 toppling of Muammar Qadhafi.

The crafts festival, which also highlights Tuareg traditions, aims to bring visitors to the desert gem near the border with Tunisia and Algeria.

“It’s a great honour for Ghadames to host this shopping and heritage festival,” said Mayor Qasem Mohammed al-Manea, 74, highlighting the “traditional industries and handicrafts made by Libyan hands”.

He noted the presence of “people from various parts of Libya and even from abroad like Tunisia”, expressing hope to see tourists from Algeria if a nearby border crossing is re-opened.

A United Nations-guided peace process following the last major fighting in 2020 led to the appointment the following year of a prime minister heading a Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, now contested by an administration in the east.

Clashes between the two camps repeatedly shook Libya last year, notably Tripoli.

Since July 2021, the country has been trying to have Ghadames removed from the UNESCO danger list, arguing that it has been largely sheltered from fighting.

Authorities say the only relatively recent damage to traditional houses was due to heavy rain — a new climate phenomenon in the region.

BAGHDAD — The death of a young YouTube star at the hands of her father has sparked outrage in Iraq, where so-called “honour killings” continue to take place in the conservative country.

Tiba Al Ali, 22, was killed by her father on January 31 in the southern province of Diwaniya, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan said on Twitter on Friday.

Police had attempted to mediate between Ali — who resided in Turkey and was visiting Iraq — and her relatives to “resolve the family dispute in a definitive manner”, Maan said.

Unverified recordings of conversations between Ali and her father appeared to indicate that he was unhappy about her decision to live alone in Turkey.

Maan said that after the police’s initial encounter with the family “we were surprised the next day... with the news of her killing at the hands of her father, as he admitted in his initial confessions”.

He did not give further details on the nature of the dispute.

Ali had gained a following on YouTube, where she posted videos of her daily life and in which her fiance often appeared.

A police source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity meanwhile confirmed that the “family dispute” dated back to 2015.

She had travelled to Turkey with her family in 2017, but upon their return, she refused to join them, choosing instead to stay in Turkey where she resided since, the police source said.

Her death has sparked uproar among Iraqis on social media, who have called for protests in Baghdad on Sunday to demand justice in response to her death.

“Women in our societies are hostage to backward customs due to the absence of legal deterrents and government measures — which currently are not commensurate with the size of domestic violence crimes,” wrote veteran politician Ala Talabani on Twitter.

Human rights defender Hanaa Edwar told AFP that, according to voice recordings attributed to the young woman, “she left her family... because she was sexually assaulted by her brother”.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights too reported the allegation. AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the voice recordings.

Amnesty International condemned the “horrific” killing, saying “the Iraqi penal code still treats leniently so called ‘honour crimes’ comprising violent acts such as assault and even murder”.

“Until the Iraqi authorities adopt robust legislation to protect women and girls... we will inevitably continue to witness horrific murders,” Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Aya Majzoub, said.

JUBA — Pope Francis is making a long-awaited "peace pilgrimage" to conflict-torn South Sudan, but whether his plea for reconciliation is heard by the country's battle-hardened leaders remains an open question.

It is the first visit by a Pope since the mostly Christian south achieved independence in 2011 following a decades-long struggle against Muslim-majority Sudan that was sometimes cast as a religious war.

But statehood has not brought peace to the world's newest country, and Francis arrives on Friday in a nation mired in violence.

President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar are no strangers to the papacy, as they were implored by Francis to silence their guns after a civil war that left 380,000 dead and the young country in ruins.

In jaw-dropping scenes at the Vatican in 2019, Francis knelt before Kiir and Machar and kissed the feet of two foes whose personal armies had been accused of horrific war crimes.

"Your people today are yearning for a better future, which can only come about through reconciliation and peace," Francis told the rival leaders, who stood stunned by the gesture.

Four years later, South Sudan's civil war may be technically over, but armed conflict stoked by political elites and their proxies has only escalated the bloodshed and suffering that Francis sought to end.

"People are still being killed, all across the country," Ferenc David Marko, a researcher at the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, told AFP.

"If you see how widespread the violence is... you can claim that actually things are worse than they were at the peak of the conflict."

'A turning point' 

Some with a front row seat to South Sudan's perennial chaos hope the 86-year-old Pontiff can breathe life back into a neglected peace process that has barely moved since that extraordinary moment in Rome.

"I want to believe that this visit will be the turning point," Father James Oyet Latansio, the general secretary of the South Sudan Council of Churches, told AFP.

The international community, which fears the country's fragile transition could collapse entirely this year if it's ignored any longer, hopes Francis has better luck getting the message across.

"He's also in a unique capacity to, I think, engage with the leadership of the country and what is required for the country to experience lasting peace," Nicholas Haysom, the UN special envoy to South Sudan, told reporters in January.

Amnesy International urged Francis to press South Sudan's leaders to prosecute those responsible for war-time atrocities, and deliver justice as they promised under the peace agreement.

Observers said the high-profile visit would underscore the difficult work done by the church on the ground in areas where there are no government services and aid workers are often attacked or killed.

It would also turn the spotlight on suffering in a country where nine million people — three-quarters of the entire population — need charity, and remind those in desperate straits that they are not forgotten.

"This visit will show that everything is possible. Change is possible, and transformation is possible," Latansio said.

The church in South Sudan is broad in character, and Francis will be joined on his three-day visit by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields.

Moral authority 

Church leaders have "tremendous credibility and moral authority" in devout South Sudan, said John Ashworth, a retired missionary with over 40 years' experience in Sudan and South Sudan.

During the darkest moments of the liberation wars, the church negotiated peace and fed, protected and healed civilians on all sides, in the total absence of government or international assistance.

"The only institution which remained on the ground with the people was the church," Ashworth told AFP.

When civil war erupted in 2013, the clergy again defended civilians and spoke out against brutality, taking great risk in a country with little space for critical voices.

But churches sheltering civilians were attacked and priests murdered, in a "shocking" turn against a sacrosanct institution, said Christopher Tounsel, associate professor of history at the University of Washington and a scholar of Christianity in South Sudan.

Church leaders were also excluded from peace talks, diminishing their political influence and historic role as trusted peacemakers.

"The church is still a voice to be respected," said Ashworth, "but it is not as respected as it was".

Some observers believe Francis stands a better chance than most at getting through to Kiir, a devout Catholic and churchgoer who was deeply moved by the intervention at the Vatican.

But analysts said the president was looking inwards, preoccupied with consolidating power and outmanoeuvring rivals, while Machar's ranks were splintered and warring — a complex situation for any diplomat to navigate.

"I wonder how much of an impact Pope Francis' visit will actually make in terms of spurring actual real change, or if it will just be a more symbolic trip," Tounsel told AFP.