Iraqi date farmers fight drought to protect national treasure

Iraqi date farmers fight drought to protect national treasure
Iraq in 2023 exported nearly 650.000 tons of dates, the Minstry of Agriculture said, currently making the fruit the country’s second top export good after oil, bringing in more than 120 million USD yearly according to the World Bank. (AFP)
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Updated 06 September 2024
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Iraqi date farmers fight drought to protect national treasure

Iraqi date farmers fight drought to protect national treasure
  • Dates are Iraq’s second-largest export product after oil, which dominates export revenues and generates more than $120 million
  • The date palm and its bounty are national icons, but they are being battered by drought

Janajah: Bare feet pressed against the rough trunk of a palm tree, his back supported by a metal and fabric harness, Ali Abed begins the climb to the dates above.
In Iraq, the date palm and its bounty are national icons, but they are being battered by drought.
Once known as the country of “30 million palm trees,” Iraq’s ancient date-growing culture had already suffered from upheaval, especially during the 1980-88 war with Iran, before climate change became a major threat.
In the still lush countryside of central Iraq, near Janajah village in Babylon province, hundreds of date palms stand tall and majestic, surrounded by vines and fruit trees.
During harvest season, the branches are heavy with clusters of yellow and red dates.
Rising at dawn to avoid the searing heat, harvesters climb the palms using only their upper body strength, aided by a harness and rope wrapped around the trunk.
“Last year, the orchards and the palm groves were thirsty; we almost lost them. This year, thanks to God, we had good water and a good harvest,” said Abed, a 36-year-old farmer from Biramana, a village a few kilometers (miles) from Janajah.
Once at the top, they pick the ripe dates, filling baskets that are lowered to the ground and emptied into basins, which are then loaded onto lorries.
Abed noted, however, that the harvest is much smaller now — about half of what it used to be. He once collected more than 12 tons but now brings in just four or five.
Abed criticized the lack of government support, saying aerial insecticide campaigns are not enough.
Iraq has spent over a decade trying to revive the date palm, a vital economic asset and national symbol.
Authorities and religious institutions have launched programs and mega-projects to encourage tree planting and growth.
An agriculture ministry spokesperson told the official INA news agency last month that, “for the first time since the 1980s,” the number of date palms had risen to “more than 22 million,” up from a low of just eight million.
During the Iran-Iraq War, palm groves were razed in vast areas along the border to prevent enemy infiltration.
Today, dates are Iraq’s second-largest export product after oil, which dominates export revenues and generates more than $120 million, according to the World Bank.
In 2023, Iraq exported around 650,000 tons of dates, official statistics show.
Yet around Janajah, many palm trees lie dead and decapitated.
“All these palm trees are dead due to the drought; the whole region is suffering,” said 56-year-old farmer Maitham Talib.
“Before, we had water. People irrigated abundantly. Now, we need complicated machinery,” he said, observing the harvest.
The United Nations has labelled Iraq one of the five countries in the world most vulnerable to some of the effects of climate change.
The country has endured four consecutive years of drought, though this year saw some relief with winter rainfall.
Alongside rising temperatures that have hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in summer and declining rainfall, Iraq also faces falling river levels, blamed on dams built upstream by Iran and Turkiye.
Kifah Talib, 42, lamented the slow devastation wrought by the drought.
“It used to be paradise: apple, pomegranate, citrus trees and vines — everything grew here,” he said.


Lebanese fishermen stay ashore after Israeli warning

Lebanese fishermen stay ashore after Israeli warning
Updated 20 sec ago
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Lebanese fishermen stay ashore after Israeli warning

Lebanese fishermen stay ashore after Israeli warning
Commercial vessels and leisure boats were anchored in the harbor, while the city’s ancient fish market fell unusually quiet
“The Lebanese army told us we weren’t allowed to go out, and we’re respecting that,” said Mohammed Bidawi, a member of the local fishermen’s union

SIDON, Lebanon: Piles of fishing nets lay on land unused in the southern Lebanese port of Sidon on Tuesday as fishermen stayed ashore after the Israeli military warned of strikes against militants along the coast.
Commercial vessels and leisure boats were anchored in the harbor, while the city’s ancient fish market fell unusually quiet, with traders trying to peddle the catch from earlier in the week.
“The Lebanese army told us we weren’t allowed to go out, and we’re respecting that,” said Mohammed Bidawi, a member of the local fishermen’s union.
“If it continues like this, the market will close too.”
After nearly a year of cross-border clashes, Israel intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon on September 23, killing more than 1,100 people and displacing over a million from their homes, according to official figures.
The Israeli army warned late Monday that it would expand its operations against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to Lebanon’s coast.
It warned people to stay away from the shore in the area south of the Al-Awali river, which flows into the sea to the north of Sidon.
Issam Haboush, another fisherman, said he was worried about his family.
“Fishing is the way we support our children. If we don’t go out to sea, we won’t be able to feed ourselves,” he said, adding that hundreds of families depended on the trade.
Bidawi said the de facto ban on fishing in Sidon had plunged around “5,000 to 6,000 people” into difficulty, the latest blow after a huge financial crisis in the country since 2019.
“The fishermen and traders at the fish market are going to need help,” he said.
Before the war, Lebanon’s fleet of 3,000 fishing boats reaped in between 3,000 and 3,500 tons of fish each year, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said in 2021.
Fisherman Hamza Sonbol said he and his colleagues had become destitute overnight.
“We’ve become like the country’s displaced,” he said.
Freediving instructor Marwan Hariri, 47, also has a boat in the port to take students out on for lessons.
“Since yesterday I’ve been feeling very down,” he said.
He had already lost 70 percent of his students in the past year of border clashes, as they largely came from southern areas under heavy Israeli bombardment, he said.
“I haven’t even been opening the diving center. I’ve just been going down to the sea to go spearfishing,” he said.
Despite the financial crisis and the tensions in the south, he was still enjoying diving with his speargun which he said was a way to temporarily escape from the news.
On Monday, he put his catch up for auction among acquaintances and managed to sell it for $56.
Then the Israeli military issued its warning.
Despite the perfect weather conditions on Monday morning, when he went down to the beach, he saw no fishermen coming back on their boats.
“It was really upsetting,” he said.

Israel says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander as more rockets are fired

Israel says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander as more rockets are fired
Updated 27 min 36 sec ago
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Israel says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander as more rockets are fired

Israel says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander as more rockets are fired
  • The military said the strike killed Suhail Husseini, who it said was responsible for overseeing logistics, budget and management of the group
  • There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah

BEIRUT: The Israeli military said Tuesday it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike on Beirut while the militant group’s acting leader promised more fighting against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and rocket fire into Israel.
The military said the strike killed Suhail Husseini, who it said was responsible for overseeing logistics, budget and management of the group. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Sheikh Naim Kassem, the acting leader of Hezbollah, said in a defiant televised statement that his group’s military capabilities are still intact. He said that Hezbollah has replaced all of its senior commanders after weeks of heavy Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon, including targeted strikes that killed much of its top command in a matter of days.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday, the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, underscoring their resilience in the face of a devastating Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed about 42,000 people, according to local medical officials.
A year ago, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. On Monday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli strike in the country’s south, part of a wider bombardment, killed at least 10 firefighters. Hezbollah fired new barrages despite its recent losses.


Israel’s Gallant says it appears Nasrallah’s replacement has been eliminated

Israel’s Gallant says it appears Nasrallah’s replacement has been eliminated
Updated 51 min 11 sec ago
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Israel’s Gallant says it appears Nasrallah’s replacement has been eliminated

Israel’s Gallant says it appears Nasrallah’s replacement has been eliminated
  • Hashem Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah
  • “Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” said Gallant

JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that it appears that the replacement of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been eliminated.
He did not give further details.
Hashem Safieddine, a top Hezbollah official was widely expected to succeed Nasrallah.
“Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated,” Gallant told officers at the military’s northern command center, in a brief video segment distributed by the military. “There’s no one to make decisions, no one to act,” he said.
Safieddine had been running Hezbollah alongside its deputy secretary general Naim Qassem since Nasrallah’s assassination and was expected to be formally elected as its next secretary general, although no official announcement had yet been made.
Qassem said in a televised statement on Tuesday that the group will elect a new secretary general and will announce it once it has been done.


UN warns Lebanon could face same ‘spiral of doom’ as Gaza

UN warns Lebanon could face same ‘spiral of doom’ as Gaza
Updated 08 October 2024
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UN warns Lebanon could face same ‘spiral of doom’ as Gaza

UN warns Lebanon could face same ‘spiral of doom’ as Gaza
  • “We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for WFP
  • “It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom,”

GENEVA: UN humanitarian officials called Tuesday for urgent action to stop the escalating conflict in Lebanon from spiralling into a similar scene of devastation as seen in Gaza.
“We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” said Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
Speaking from Beirut, he told a press briefing in Geneva that he spent the first half of the year coordinating WFP’s operations in Gaza before taking the helm of its Lebanon office, and was deeply concerned by the similarities.
“It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom... We shouldn’t allow that to happen,” he said.
Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack inside Israel, has killed more than 41,900 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The UN has said the figures are reliable.
The October 7 attack left 1,206 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
The resulting conflict has spilled into Lebanon, with intensifying airstrikes and Israeli troops battling Hezbollah militants on the ground.
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 1,100 people and displaced upwards of a million in less than two weeks.
Hollingworth said many people were fleeing because they “have watched over the last year as the war in Gaza has continued and neighborhoods have been decimated and pounded, and that is deep in their gut, in their hearts, in their minds.”
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, warned that “the commonalities are unfortunately absolutely there to be seen, whether it is displacement on the ground, impact upon children or language being used ... (to) soften the realities on the ground.”
“We are seeing the same patterns that we saw in Gaza,” added Jeremy Laurence of the UN rights office.
“The devastation is beyond belief for all people in Lebanon as it is in Gaza. We can’t let this happen again.”
Humanitarians are working to address the soaring needs, but Hollingworth insisted that what was needed was to “de-escalate.”
While WFP is currently able to reach around 150,000 people a day, they “need to be reaching, at this point, almost a million people per day,” he said.
At the same time, he highlighted that 1,900 hectares of agricultural land had been burned in southern Lebanon over the past year, mainly in the past couple of weeks, while 12,000 hectares of productive farmland had been abandoned.
“We have very significant needs moving forward,” Hollingworth said, lamenting that the WFP was facing a $115 million funding gap to cover the towering needs over the next three months.
The World Health Organization meanwhile said it had registered 16 attacks on health care in Lebanon since mid-September, leaving 65 health care workers dead and 40 injured.
At the same time five of the country’s hospitals were now non-functional and four were only partially functional, Ian Clarke, WHO’s deputy incident manager in the country, told reporters, speaking via video link from Beirut.
Nearly 100 primary health care facilities had also been forced to close, he said, warning that with limited access to care, “we are facing a situation where there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks.”


Turkiye says exports to Palestinians surge after halting trade with Israel over Gaza war

Turkiye says exports to Palestinians surge after halting trade with Israel over Gaza war
Updated 08 October 2024
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Turkiye says exports to Palestinians surge after halting trade with Israel over Gaza war

Turkiye says exports to Palestinians surge after halting trade with Israel over Gaza war
  • The 526 percent rise in exports occurred largely after the ban went into effect
  • Turkish opposition lawmaker Mustafa Yeneroglu on Monday submitted questions to parliament about the sharp increase in exports to Palestinian areas

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s exports to Palestinian territories leapt sixfold in the first nine months of the year to $571.2 million, data showed on Tuesday, five months after the country halted trade with Israel in protest over its war in Gaza.
The 526 percent rise in exports occurred largely after the ban went into effect. In the first four months of the year, Turkish exports to Palestinian territories were up 35 percent to $49.4 million, according to data from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM).
Turkish opposition lawmaker Mustafa Yeneroglu on Monday submitted questions to parliament about the sharp increase in exports to Palestinian areas and ongoing ship traffic from Turkiye to Israel, despite the trade ban.
Yeneroglu asked Trade Minister Omer Bolat to respond to local media reports that trade with Israel was quietly continuing through Palestinian companies, with shipping documents describing goods as going to Palestinian territories when they were actually going to Israel.
Asked for comment by Reuters, the Trade Ministry pointed to previous statements on the issue. On Sept. 18, it denied trade with Israel was continuing, reiterating that it ended on May 2.
It said Palestinian authorities had declared several times that Turkish goods were used exclusively in Palestinian areas.
These territories encompass the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Arab East Jerusalem.
The trade ministry imposed export restrictions on 54 categories of products to Israel in April before completely halting exports and imports in early May.
At the time, Turkiye said it would not resume trade with Israel, worth $7 billion a year, until a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid were secured in Gaza, becoming the first of Israel’s key commercial partners to take such a step.
Israel launched a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza a year ago after the Palestinian Islamist group’s deadly cross-border attack.