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NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Israeli occupation forces killed a 16-year-old Palestinian in the northern city of Nablus, sources on both sides said. A Palestinian in his twenties was killed in Qalandiya outside Jerusalem, the health ministry said.

Nader Haitham Rayan, 16, died in Balata camp near Nablus after being hit by bullets to the head, chest and hand, the ministry said. It did not give further details on the circumstances of his death.

The Palestinian health ministry said another three people were wounded in the exchange, one of them seriously.

The second death came in the town of Qalandiya on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem.

Alaa Shaham, in his twenties, was killed by a "live round to the head", the ministry said.

Israeli incursions into Palestinian-administered population centres in the West Bank to arrest wanted suspects frequently lead to clashes.

Qalandiya hosts the main checkpoint between occupied East Jerusalem and the northern West Bank.

Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank hosts some 475,000 Israelis who live in settlements regarded as illegal by the international community alongside more than 2.8 million Palestinians.

AL BAGEIR, Sudan- Kandaka the lioness was once sick and emaciated in a rundown zoo in Sudan’s capital, but thanks to wildlife enthusiasts she now thrives in a reserve watching her cubs grow.

She was among five lions suffering from starvation and disease with visibly protruding ribs and flaccid skin, held in grim cages with rusty bars in Khartoum’s Al Qurashi zoo.

Conditions worsened as Sudan’s economic crisis deepened in the wake of months-long protests in 2019 that led to the toppling of Omar Al Bashir.

Of the five lions in the ramshackle zoo, two died.

The animals’ plight shot to public attention two years ago after an online campaign prompted veterinarians, conservationists and animal enthusiasts the world over to rush to their aid.

Along with the two other surviving lions, Kandaka was moved to the Al Bageir reserve.

“Their health has since improved greatly,” said Othman Salih, who founded the reserve in January 2021.

The site, an hour’s drive south of Khartoum, spreads over some four hectares, or about the size of six football pitches.

As a testament to her recovery, the five-year-old lioness was called Kandaka — the name of Sudan’s ancient Nubian queens.

It is a term that has come to be associated with the women who played a vital role in the protests that unseated Bashir.

She is now thriving in Al Bageir, one of 17 lions from across Sudan.

Daily struggle 

But keeping the reserve up and running comes with its own set of steep challenges.

Volunteers, often juggling full-time jobs with their passion for animal welfare, have been struggling with long commutes, soaring prices and limited resources.

The challenges have increased since last year’s military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, which triggered regular mass protests and roadblocks.

“The prices are very high,” said Salih, who travels to the reserve all the way from Khartoum every day.

The reserve’s running costs remain high, including providing more than 100 kilogrammes of meat for the big cats daily.

It has so far been kept afloat by donations and tours for schoolchildren and families.

But Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been reeling from a plunging economy due to decades of international isolation and mismanagement under Bashir.

Almost one third of Sudan’s 45 million people are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2022, according to the United Nations.

“Lots of Sudanese people are hungry,” said Salih. “So all aid is funnelled to the people. It’s only natural.”

But Salih says the government and private businesses have done little to support the reserve.

“We try to get by through charging for entry tickets,” he added, with entrance costing between $2-4.

“But it is still not enough, and we often pay from our own money to cover the cost.”

Source of hope 

But the reserve remains a source of hope for many.

“I still go there every day,” said volunteer Moataz Kamal, who lives in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman. “It’s like the world outside doesn’t exist when I am here.”

He pointed in particular to the survival of a male lion from the eastern city of Port Sudan, after battling years of starvation and severely poor health.

The lion was named Mansour, which translates to the “victor”, for overcoming such conditions.

It is not known how many lions survive in the wild in Sudan.

A population lives in Dinder National Park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve, on the border with Ethiopia.

African lions are classified as a “vulnerable” species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Their population dropped 43 per cent between 1993 and 2014, with an estimated 20,000 left in the wild.

But Salih still hopes that his reserve will push through hardship and rescue more animals, and remind Sudanese of the wildlife that has been lost from the country.

“Perhaps one day, we will be able to have elephants, giraffes and zebras that have disappeared from Sudan,” said Salih.

DUBAI — The number of people in war-torn Yemen starving in famine conditions is projected to increase five-fold this year to 161,000, UN agencies warned Monday, amid fears of a dire shortfall of life-saving aid.

Over 30,000 people are already struggling in famine conditions, a joint statement by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UN children's fund UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) said.

Calling the sharp rise "extremely worrying", the joint UN statement comes two days ahead of a high-level conference to raise aid for Yemen, as fears mount that Russia's invasion of Ukraine threatens global food supplies.

"These harrowing figures confirm that we are on a countdown to catastrophe in Yemen and we are almost out of time to avoid it," WFP chief David Beasley said, warning of "mass starvation and famine" should donors not offer aid to avert it.

Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports, with nearly a third of wheat supplies coming from Ukraine, the UN said.

War in Ukraine following Russia's invasion "is likely to lead to significant import shocks, further driving food prices," the UN said.

"The resounding takeaway is that we need to act now," said David Gressly, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

UN-backed assessments use a ranking called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which rates hunger levels from one to five.

Under the IPC system, level five is classified as “catastrophe”, and when it applies to 20 per cent of the population is deemed a famine.

IPC results on Monday showed 17.4 million people out of Yemen’s 29 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, and total likely to increase this year to 19 million.

“An extremely worrying new data point is that the number of people experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger... is projected to increase five-fold, from 31,000 currently to 161,000 people over the second half of 2022,” the UN statement read.

The report said 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished in Yemen, including “nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition”.

“More and more children are going to bed hungry in Yemen,” said UNICEF chief Catherine Russell.

Yemen has been devastated by a seven-year-long civil war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly and indirectly in the war, and millions have been displaced.

The UN has repeatedly warned that aid agencies are running out of funds, forcing them to slash “life-saving” programmes. Last year the UN pleaded for $3.85 billion for aid, but raised just $1.7 billion.

AMMAN — The Ramla Project, shedding light on Mamluk Jerusalem, was a major initiative funded by the World of Islam Festival Trust, documenting immensely important mediaeval architecture of the city, according to a British scholar.

 “The Ramla Project started in 1995 and the final report of the project appeared in 2021,” said Director of Research in Islamic Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David Andrew Petersen during a recent lecture titled” Ramla: Forgotten Capital of Palestine”.

He added that Ramla was the new city found by the Arab Muslim armies in 712 AD. 

“The Sulayman Ibn Abd Al Malik found Ramla as the capital of Jund Filastin, the district he governed in the Greater Syria before becoming caliph in 715,” Petersen noted at the event organised by the Council of the British Research in the Levant. 

He added that the city’s strategic and economic value came from its location at the intersection of the Via Maris, connecting Cairo with Damascus and the road linking Jaffa with Jerusalem.

Ramla rapidly overshadowed the city of Lydda and it soon became the commercial centre of Palestine, well-known for its pottery, dyeing, weaving and olive oil, as well as a hub for Muslim theologians, Petersen said, stressing that Ramla was an important town for textile industry.

“As a ruler of Palestine, Sulayman Ibn Abd Al Malik had his palace in Ramla,” he said.

Moreover, Ramla was always short of water, according to the scholar, and a special canal was built to supply the city with the running water, adding that the peak of prosperity occurred after 750 AD.

“Up until 900AD Ramla was a thriving city and many letters written by merchants to traders in Cairo and Damascus attest to its prosperity,” Pertersen said. 

He added that the city’s prosperity is reflected in archaeology by the type of houses and public buildings that have been excavated.

Many of these houses were villas, well- spaced out, and different religious communities coexisted in Ramla at that time, he said.

However, during the Crusades in 11th century AD Ramla was already deserted and without protective walls, Petersen said, noting that among other famous landmark buildings is a white mosque in Ramla with a 14th century tower.

“The mosque was built adjacent to the palace of the Ramla governor,” the scholar said, adding that the glass mosaic tesserae were found in that area.

Another well-known landmark is a church built by the Crusaders which was converted into a mosque as well as a bathhouse, caravanserai and a Moroccan mosque.

“During the Mamluk period, Ramla seems to have gradually recovered some of its former importance and was described by Abu Al Fida [a Mamluk era geographer] as the most populous city in Palestine,” the scholar said.

“Cotton was one of the main products of the city during this period although agriculture and trade were also important,” Peterson said, adding that the city appears to have been important enough for the Venetians to establish a colony there. 

However, by the end of the Mamluk period (1250-1517) the city seems to have declined and mostly in ruins, Peterson noted.

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will head to Moscow on Tuesday, his ministry said, days after negotiations to salvage the Iran nuclear deal stalled amid new Russian demands.

“Russia has made its official demands loud and clear, and this needs to be discussed among all parties to the 2015 agreement, like all the demands that have been presented by other parties,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters on Monday.

“The foreign ministers of the parties [to the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal] are in constant contact” and Amir-Abdollahian “will go to Moscow on Tuesday to continue the discussions”, Khatibzadeh added.

More than 10 months of talks in Vienna have brought major powers close to renewing the landmark 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on regulating Iran’s nuclear programme. But the negotiations were halted after Russia on March 5 demanded guarantees that Western sanctions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine would not damage its trade with Iran.

On March 11, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted that the pause was “due to external factors”, despite the fact that “a final text is essentially ready and on the table”. The United States then put the ball in Iran and Russia’s courts.

“We are confident that we can achieve mutual return to compliance... [if] those decisions are made in places like Tehran and Moscow,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has dismissed as “irrelevant” the Russian demands for guarantees, saying that they “just are not in any way linked together”.

But on Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman repeated Tehran’s position that the move had to come from the US. “The remaining issues and points between us and the United States need political decisions in Washington,” Khatibzadeh said.

“If they [the US] announce that they have made a decision, then all the delegations can return to Vienna” to finalise a deal, he said, adding that for now “we are not at the point of announcing the agreement”.

Russian demands

Russia and Iran have seen relations improve in recent years, and Moscow plays a central role in enforcing the 2015 pact, in particular by receiving excess enriched uranium from Tehran. Iranian analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi said it was “normal” for Amir-Abdollahian to go to Moscow to ask “about the reasons behind the Russian demands”.

“Either he will try to persuade the Russians to make balanced demands, or he will support their position if he finds the reasons convincing.” The JCPOA aimed to ensure Iran would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon, which it has always denied seeking.

On Saturday, Britain, France and Germany warned against moves to “exploit” the JCPOA, seen as a tacit warning to Russia. “Nobody should seek to exploit JCPOA negotiations to obtain assurances that are separate to the JCPOA,” the British, French and German foreign ministries said in a statement.

“This risks the collapse of the deal, depriving the Iranian people of sanctions lifting and the international community of the assurance needed on Iran’s nuclear programme,” they added.

The 2105 deal gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. But the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump and imposed tough economic sanctions on different sectors, including oil exports.

The current round of negotiations started in late November in the Austrian capital between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, with the US taking part indirectly.

ANKARA — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Turkey on Monday for talks on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who hopes to facilitate a solution via direct talks with Moscow.

The meeting in the capital Ankara will be the first between the leaders of the two NATO member states since Scholz replaced Angela Merkel, with whom Erdogan forged a special relationship. 

“@olafscholz is in Turkey for the first time as German chancellor,” the German embassy wrote on its Instagram account, sharing a picture of Scholz walking down his aircraft steps wearing a mask. 

Ankara is playing a mediating role and has direct links to the two warring sides. 

Turkey is a traditional ally of Kyiv’s but relies heavily on Russia for gas imports and tourist revenue. Erdogan has called Moscow’s attacks on its pro-Western neighbour “unacceptable” but shied away from Western sanctions targeting the Russian economy. 

For his part, the German chancellor visited Moscow before the start of hostilities and has spoken several times to Russian President Vladimir Putin since, while providing Ukraine with arms. 

For Guenter Seufert, researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Scholz’s visit aims to keep Ankara on side. “Nobody is demanding Turkey to comply with the Western sanctions but Turkey should not try to open extra channels to curve around sanctions,” he told AFP in English. 

The Europeans, according to Seufert, are carefully monitoring the arrival in Istanbul of thousands of Russian citizens fleeing their country, via direct flights. Among them, he said, could be businessmen who might try to transfer their companies in order to continue their operations from Turkish soil. 

“As Turkey is relocating in its region, and is trying to fix things with the West, Germany comes to say it’s ready to help but it will be an offer under condition — Turkey should not try to undermine sanctions,” Seufert said. 

Scholz’s visit comes as Ankara seeks to mend fences with its regional rivals. Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited last week and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis followed on Sunday. Last Thursday, Turkey hosted the first talks between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers since the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. 

KHARTOUM — Sudanese security forces opened fire Monday as protesters in several cities across the northeast African nation marched against military rule and a worsening economic situation, witnesses told AFP.

Costs of bread and transport have soared in recent days, and protesters marched to demand a return to civilian rule and protest the rising cost of living. Regular protests calling for civilian rule have taken place since a military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan on October 25, with heavy-handed crackdowns leaving 87 dead, according to medics.

“Down with military rule”, protesters chanted in Damazin, a city some 450 kilometres southeast of the capital Khartoum. Security forces opened fire to disperse protesters, witness Mohamed Abdel Qader said.

On Sunday, the price of bread shot up over 40 percent, from 35 to 50 Sudanese pounds, or from five to eight US cents. Sudan has been especially vulnerable to fears of global supply shortages in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As costs of fuel spike, the cost of transport has also jumped 50 per cent across Sudan. In Nyala, state capital of South Darfur in the west, security forces fired a barrage of tear gas canisters to stop crowds.

“No to rising costs,” people shouted, according to resident Abdel Moneim Mohamed. “No to military rule.”

‘Intolerable’

Protesters in Nyala also included residents of the vast camps set up when people were forced from their homes during the conflict that broke out in Darfur in 2003. “The situation has become intolerable,” said Hamad Bashir from Atbara, a city 280 kilometres northeast of Khartoum, a traditional centre of the country’s railway industry.

Bashir said that railway workers have not been paid for two months. Rail workers began a strike on Sunday, said Hasham Khedr, the head of the Railway Workers’ Union. Food insecurity is a major issue in the impoverished country, where one in every three people are dependent on aid, according to the United Nations. 

The situation was exacerbated when October’s military coup triggered broad international condemnation and punitive measures that included a suspension of $700 million in US aid.

In Khartoum, local “resistance committees” have called for protests to demand a return to civilian rule and the release of detainees. Authorities have rounded up hundreds of pro-democracy protesters since the coup, many of whom have been released in recent weeks.

On Monday, three protesters were detained in Nyala, activists said. The October coup derailed a fragile power-sharing agreement between the army and civilians that had been painstakingly negotiated after the 2019 ouster of Omar Al Bashir.