Middle East & North Africa

JERUSALEM, Mar 7 (NNN-MA’AN) – Israel’s Ministry of Health announced that, four more Israelis were diagnosed with the coronavirus, bringing the total number of COVID-19 patients in Israel to 21.

The ministry noted that the four are currently under medical quarantine. In addition, passengers who were on board the same flights with the four were asked to undergo quarantine.

Two of the newly diagnosed patients are around the age of 50, residents of central Israel. One of them returned from Madrid on Feb 27, and the other returned from Zurich on Mar 4.

RIYADH, Mar 7 (NNN-WAM) – Saudi Arabia announced today (Saturday) that, it placed new preventive and precautionary measures, in its fight against COVID-19, by temporarily restricting the entry of Emirati, Kuwaiti and Bahraini nationals into the country.

According to the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, citizens from those countries will only be permitted entry, through the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam.

BEIRUT (AP) — For the first time in three months, Omar Zaqzaq says he and his family slept through the entire night, without an airstrike or artillery shell jolting them out of bed.

Idlib’s skies were completely free of Russian and Syrian government warplanes Friday as a cease-fire deal took hold in Syria’s northwestern province, the last rebel stronghold.

The truce, brokered by Turkey and Russia, halted a terrifying three-month air and ground campaign that killed hundreds and sent 1 million people fleeing toward the Turkish border.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Murad Mahmoud’s 14-year-old son has been detained by Israeli police in his east Jerusalem neighborhood three times in the last two years. His 10-year-old has been interrogated by police in combat gear. These days, he keeps all six of his children inside most of the time, fearing even worse.

“I won’t even let them go to the corner store,” he says. “I’m not just afraid they’ll be arrested, I’m afraid they’ll lose an eye or get shot in the head.”

06 Mar 2020; MEMO: The US State Department on Tuesday approved the sale of up to eight Boeing KC-46 aircraft and related equipment worth an estimated $2.4 billion according to a statement released by the Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).

06 Mar 2020; MEMO: Syrian regime forces violated the ceasefire only half an hour after it came into effect, Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera, local sources and Syrian journalists reported.

“Assad forces continue bombardments in the south of Idlib and west of Aleppo after the cease-fire deal,” Al Jazeera reported in a tweet.

06 Mar 2020; MEMO: At least one militant on a motorbike blew himself up outside the US embassy in Tunisia today, wounding police officers, witnesses said, in the country’s most serious attack in months, Reuters reported.

The explosion took place near the embassy’s main gate, where a Reuters journalist saw a scorched, damaged motorbike and a damaged police vehicle lying amid debris as police gathered around and a helicopter whirled overhead.

DAMASCUS, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Calm has prevailed in the de-escalation zone in Syria's northwestern Idlib province on Friday after a Turkey, Russia-backed cease-fire went into effect at midnight, a war monitor reported.

Friday started with no airstrikes from Russian or Syrian warplanes in Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The observatory added that 150 Turkish military vehicles entered Turkish observation points in Idlib on Friday, apparently as part of the Thursday's agreement with Russia.

ADDIS ABABA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Eritrean government on Thursday disclosed that it has successfully contained a new desert locust invasion that swarmed in excess of 400-hectares-of-land in the country's Northern Red Sea region.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey is sending elite special operations police to the border to stop Greek officers from driving back people who try to cross over to Europe, Turkish authorities said Thursday.

Thousands of refugees and other asylum-seekers have tried to enter Greece from the land and sea in the week since Turkey declared its previously guarded gateways to Europe open.