- ‘Disease catastrophe’ looms in Sudan as health conditions deteriorate, medics warn ABC News
- Bodies pile up without burials in Sudan’s capital, marooned by a relentless conflict The Associated Press
- ‘Thousands of bodies’ left to decompose in Sudan’s capital as morgues reach ‘breaking point’ CNN
- Sudan humanitarian crisis: NGO warns of risk of diseases as bodies litter streets • FRANCE 24 YouTube
- Khartoum: Lack of essential visas for MSF staff threatens lifesaving care in hospital Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Medics
Israeli medics say gunman kills 5 near Jerusalem synagogue
JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing five people and wounding five others in one of the deadliest attacks on Israelis in years, medical officials said. The attack was halted when the gunman was shot by police.
The killings took place a day after Israeli troops killed nine Palestinians in a raid in the West Bank and raised the likelihood of further bloodshed.
The violence posed a challenge for Israel’s new hard-line government and cast a cloud over a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region Sunday. He is likely to discuss the underlying causes of the conflict that continue to fester, the agenda of Israel’s new far-right government and the Palestinian Authority’s decision to halt security coordination with Israel in retaliation for the deadly raid.
The Israeli rescue service MADA confirmed five deaths and said that five people were wounded, including a 70-year-old woman in critical condition and a 14-year-old boy in serious condition.
Police said the gunman was “neutralized,” a term that typically means he was killed. There was no official confirmation, however.
At several locations across the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians gathered in spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate the Jerusalem attack, with some coming out of dessert shops with large trays of sweets to distribute. Similar celebrations were reported in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The attack came amid heightened tensions. Palestinians marched in anger Friday as they buried the last of 10 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire a day earlier.
Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day.
Thursday’s raid in the flashpoint Jenin refugee camp descended into a gunbattle that killed at least nine Palestinians, while clashes elsewhere left a 10th dead. Gaza militants then fired rockets and Israel carried out airstrikes overnight — but the exchange was limited.
The Biden administration has been deeply engaged with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, underscoring the “urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank.”
“We’re certainly deeply concerned by this escalating cycle of violence in the West Bank as well as the rockets that have been apparently fired from Gaza,” Kirby said. “And of course, we condemn all acts that only further escalate tensions.”
Israel’s defense minister, meanwhile, instructed the military to prepare for new strikes in the Gaza Strip “if necessary” — also appearing to leave open the possibility that violence would subside.
While residents of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank remained on edge earlier Friday, midday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, often a catalyst for clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police, passed in relative calm.
At the funeral of the 22-year-old, crowds of Palestinians waved the flags of both Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, and militant Hamas, which rules Gaza. In the streets of the town called al-Ram, masked Palestinians threw stones and set off fireworks at Israeli police, who responded with tear gas.
But both the Palestinian rockets and Israeli airstrikes seemed limited so as to prevent growing into a full-blown war. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Friday night’s shooting, come on the Jewish sabbath, immediately changed the equation.
Israel’s opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, called it “horrific and heartbreaking.”
‘Squid Game’ Reality Show Sees Medics Called for Frozen Players
A small number of contestants on reality show “Squid Game: The Challenge” needed medical attention on Monday after a sprawling game of “Red Light Green Light” played during Britain’s ongoing cold snap proved to be a shock to the system.
Fewer than five players are understood to have required medics on the set of the new Netflix show. While one contestant is believed to have injured their shoulder after accidentally running into a wall, others were treated for mild ailments.
The players were among 456 contestants taking part in “Red Light Green Light,” which is also known as “Statues” depending on where you grew up. In the game, you have to make it across a finish line while remaining completely still when a person who’s “it” turns around to survey the players. If you’re found to be moving, you’re out. The game was a centrepiece in “Squid Game,” where a giant, killer doll swivelled her head around and fired gunshots to eliminate players who were moving. It was the first game on the drama, and particularly effective as unsuspecting players had no idea they’d be killed off if they lost the game.
The unscripted game show, which was first announced by Bela Bajaria in June 2022, is based on the streamer’s hit 2021 Korean drama. Filmed across two studios in the U.K., producers Studio Lambert and The Garden have cast 456 contestants from around the world to compete in various challenges based on the Korean children’s games featured on the show, as well as new games. The winner receives a $4.56 million (£3.7 million) cash prize.
Netflix had the misfortune, however, of beginning production during a rare cold snap in the U.K.
On Monday, which was the show’s first day of production at Bedford’s Cardington Studios, north of London, temperatures reached a low of zero degrees Celsius. Although the game was filmed in the former airplane hangar, which is enclosed, the gigantic space was likely to be extremely chilly given the outside temperatures. While the players — many of whom aren’t used to British weather, nor the realities of TV production — are believed to have received hand warmers and thermal underwear for their day of filming, there’s no doubt the cold would have made it even more challenging.
British tabloid The Sun, which first reported the news, spoke to players who had been eliminated from the show. “Some people couldn’t move their feet because it was so cold,” the source told The Sun. “You could hear someone yell ‘medic’ and the crew would rush on. We ended up standing there for 30 minutes between takes.”
In a statement shared with Variety, a spokesperson for Netflix said: “We care deeply about the health and safety of our cast and crew, and invested in all the appropriate safety procedures. While it was very cold on set — and participants were prepared for that — any claims of serious injury are untrue.”
It’s unlikely that producers would have been able to change the show’s production schedule, especially given the vast number of contestants involved. “Red Light Green Light” is also an essential game in the schedule in order to streamline the contestants: Variety understands that only 228 contestants make it past the first hurdle and continue through to the rest of the game, meaning that Monday’s stunt would have been a key day for production.
Elijah McClain died of ketamine shot from medics in 2019, report says
Though it still lists the manner of death as “undetermined” — as opposed to a homicide or an accident — the report could bolster the prosecution of the police and first responders charged in McClain’s death and reignite calls for greater accountability from the city.
McClain, a massage therapist and self-taught musician, was walking home in August 2019 when he was detained by police responding to a 911 call that someone was acting “sketchy.” Officers tackled him and put him in a carotid chokehold, which restricts blood flow to the brain. Paramedics injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died several days later.
In the amended autopsy report, forensic pathologist Stephen Cina said the ketamine injection was excessive for McClain, who stood about 5-f00t-7 and weighed 140 pounds.
A review of body-camera footage that police did not provide during the initial autopsy showed that McClain was “extremely sedated” within minutes, according to Cina. He said he thought McClain was struggling to breathe as he lay on a stretcher and that respiratory arrest was “imminent.”
“Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though his blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ blood concentration,” Cina wrote. “I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine.”
It was not clear whether the carotid hold contributed to his death, Cina said, noting that medical literature suggested it would not have. He said that he saw nothing on McClain’s neck that showed he died of asphyxiation and that McClain could speak after the officers let him up.
Cina also noted that McClain was “alive and responsive to painful stimuli” up to the point that he received the ketamine shot.
“It is my opinion that he likely would have recovered if he did not receive this injection,” he said.
Deaths related to ketamine toxicity are usually classified as accidents, according to the report, but Cina said the manner would remain “undetermined” because other factors could have played a role.
He added: “I acknowledge that other reasonable forensic pathologists who have trained in other places may have developed their own philosophy regarding deaths in custody and that they may consider the manner of death in this type of case to be either homicide or accident.”
In an emailed statement to The Washington Post, an Aurora police spokesman said the department “fully cooperated with the investigation.” A representative for Aurora emergency services did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Saturday morning.
Prosecutors initially declined to charge anyone in McClain’s death, citing the lack of evidence in the original autopsy.
Some officials, medical experts and criminal justice advocates criticized prosecutors for not seeking a second medical opinion to avoid an “undetermined” manner of death.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) appointed a special prosecutor to reopen the case, and a grand jury was empaneled to consider criminal charges.
During the proceedings, the investigation of McClain’s death came under greater scrutiny when Colorado Public Radio reported that the county coroner had met with police before the autopsy was released and that police investigators were present during the examination.
In September 2021, charges were announced against three Aurora police officers and two paramedics. The defendants are expected to enter pleas in November.
Evidence that emerged during the grand jury proceedings prompted the coroner to alter the original autopsy report, but the changes remained secret for more than a year.
The amended version released Friday was made public under a court order after Colorado Public Radio and several other media outlets sued to get access to it.
McClain’s case drew little interest outside Colorado until the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. McClain’s death became a rallying cry in the months of protests that followed. Friends and family remembered him as a gentle person who would use his lunch break to play violin for animals at a local shelter.
Aurora last year agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit by McClain’s family. The city also banned the chokehold used in his arrest and is considering a ban on ketamine.
Captive medic’s bodycam shows firsthand horror of Mariupol
By VASILISA STEPANENKO and LORI HINNANT
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — A celebrated Ukrainian medic recorded her time in Mariupol on a data card no bigger than a thumbnail, smuggled out to the world in a tampon. Now she is in Russian hands, at a time when Mariupol itself is on the verge of falling.
Yuliia Paievska is known in Ukraine as Taira, a moniker from the nickname she chose in the World of Warcraft video game. Using a body camera, she recorded 256 gigabytes of her team’s frantic efforts over two weeks to bring people back from the brink of death. She got the harrowing clips to an Associated Press team, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, as they left in a rare humanitarian convoy.
Russian soldiers captured Taira and her driver the next day, March 16, one of many forced disappearances in areas of Ukraine now held by Russia. Russia has portrayed Taira as working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, in line with Moscow’s narrative that it is attempting to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no such evidence, and friends and colleagues said she had no links to Azov.
The military hospital where she led evacuations of the wounded is not affiliated with the battalion, whose members have spent weeks defending a sprawling steel plant in Mariupol. The footage Taira recorded itself testifies to the fact that she tried to save wounded Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian civilians.
A clip recorded on March 10 shows two Russian soldiers taken roughly out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, hands bound behind his back, with an obvious leg injury. Their eyes are covered by winter hats, and they wear white armbands.
A Ukrainian soldier curses at one of them. “Calm down, calm down,” Taira tells him.
A woman asks her, “Are you going to treat the Russians?”
“They will not be as kind to us,” she replies. “But I couldn’t do otherwise. They are prisoners of war.”
Taira is now a prisoner of the Russians, one of hundreds of prominent Ukrainians who have been kidnapped or captured, including local officials, journalists, activists and human rights defenders.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 204 cases of enforced disappearances. It said some victims may have been tortured, and five were later found dead. The office of Ukraine’s ombudswoman said it had received reports of thousands of missing people by late April, 528 of whom had probably been captured.
The Russians also are targeting medics and hospitals even though the Geneva Conventions single out both military and civilian medics for protection “in all circumstance.” The World Health Organization has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the war began, a number likely to rise.
More recently, Russian soldiers pulled a woman off a convoy from Mariupol on May 8, accused her of being a military medic and forced her to choose between letting her 4-year-old daughter accompany her to an unknown fate or continuing on to Ukrainian-controlled territory. The mother and child ended up separated, and the little girl made it to the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, U.N. officials said.
“This is not about saving one particular woman,” said Oleksandra Chudna, who volunteered as a medic with Taira in 2014. “Taira will represent those medics and women who went to the front.”
Taira’s situation takes on a new significance as the last defenders in Mariupol are evacuated into Russian territories, in what Russia calls a mass surrender and Ukraine calls a mission accomplished. Russia says more than 1,700 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered this week in Mariupol, bringing new attention to the treatment of prisoners. Ukraine has expressed hope that the fighters can be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, but a Russian official has said without evidence that they should be not exchanged but put on trial.
Ukraine’s government has said it tried to add Taira’s name to a prisoner exchange weeks ago. However, Russia denies holding her, despite her appearance on television networks in the separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine and on the Russian NTV network, handcuffed and with her face bruised. The Ukrainian government declined to speak about the case when asked by the AP.
Taira, 53, is known in Ukraine as a star athlete and the person who trained the country’s volunteer medic force. What comes across in her video and in descriptions from her friends is a big, exuberant personality with a telegenic presence, the kind of person to revel in swimming with dolphins.
The video is an intimate record from Feb. 6 to March 10 of a city under siege that has now become a worldwide symbol of the Russian invasion and Ukrainian resistance. In it, Taira is a whirlwind of energy and grief, recording the death of a child and the treatment of wounded soldiers from both sides.
On Feb. 24, the first day of the war, Taira chronicled efforts to bandage a Ukrainian soldier’s open head wound.
Two days later, she ordered colleagues to wrap an injured Russian soldier in a blanket. “Cover him because he is shaking,” she says in the video. She calls the young man “Sunshine” — a favorite nickname for the many soldiers who passed through her hands — and asks why he came to Ukraine.
“You’re taking care of me,” he tells her, almost in wonder. Her response: “We treat everyone equally.”
Later that night, two children — a brother and sister — arrive gravely wounded from a shootout at a checkpoint. Their parents are dead. By the end of the night, despite Taira’s entreaties to “stay with me, little one,” so is the little boy.
Taira turns away from his lifeless body and cries. “I hate (this),” she says. She closes his eyes.
Talking to someone in the dark outside as she smokes, she says, “The boy is gone. The boy has died. They are still giving CPR to the girl. Maybe she will survive.”
At one point, she stares into a bathroom mirror, a shock of blond hair falling over her forehead in stark contrast to the shaved sides of her head. She cuts the camera.
Throughout the video, she complains about chronic pain from back and hip injuries that left her partially disabled. She embraces doctors. She cracks jokes to cheer up discouraged ambulance drivers and patients alike. And always, she wears a stuffed animal attached to her vest to hand to any children she might treat.
With a husband and teenage daughter, she knew what war can do to a family. At one point, an injured Ukrainian soldier asks her to call his mother. She tells him he’ll be able to call her himself, “so don’t make her nervous.”
On March 15, a police officer handed over the small data card to a team of Associated Press journalists who had been documenting atrocities in Mariupol, including a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital. The office contacted Taira on a walkie-talkie, and she asked the journalists to take the card safely out of the city. The card was hidden inside a tampon, and the team passed through 15 Russian checkpoints before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory.
The next day, Taira disappeared with her driver Serhiy. On the same day, a Russian airstrike shattered the Mariupol theater and killed close to 600 people.
A video aired during a March 21 Russian news broadcast announced her capture, accusing her of trying to flee the city in disguise. Taira looks groggy and haggard as she reads a statement positioned below the camera, calling for an end to the fighting. As she talks, a voiceover derides her colleagues as Nazis, using language echoed this week by Russia as it described the fighters from Mariupol.
The broadcast was the last time she was seen.
Both the Russian and Ukrainian governments have publicized interviews with prisoners of war, despite international humanitarian law that describes the practice as inhumane and degrading treatment.
Taira’s husband, Vadim Puzanov, said he has received little news about his wife since her disappearance. Choosing his words carefully, he described a constant worry as well as outrage at how she has been portrayed by Russia.
“Accusing a volunteer medic of all mortal sins, including organ trafficking, is already outrageous propaganda — I don’t even know who it’s for,” he said.
Raed Saleh, the head of Syria’s White Helmets, compared Taira’s situation to what volunteers with his group faced and continue to face in Syria. He said his group also has been accused of organ trafficking and dealing with terrorist groups.
“Tomorrow, they may ask her to make statements and pressure her to say things,” Saleh said.
Taira has outsize importance in Ukraine because of her reputation. She taught aikido martial arts and worked as a medic as a sideline.
She took on her name in 2013, when she joined first aid volunteers at the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that drove out a Russia-backed government. In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Taira went to the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists fought Ukrainian forces. There, she taught tactical medicine and started a group of medics called Taira’s Angels. She also worked as a liaison between the military and civilians in front-line towns where few doctors and hospitals dared operate. In 2019, she left for the Mariupol region, and her medical unit was based there.
Taira was a member of the Ukraine Invictus Games for military veterans, where she was set to compete in archery and swimming. Invictus said she was a military medic from 2018 to 2020 but had since been demobilized.
She received the body camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain’s Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.
That footage is now especially poignant, with Mariupol on the brink. In one of the last videos Taira shot, she is seated next to the driver who would disappear with her. It is March 9.
“Two weeks of war. Besieged Mariupol,” she says quietly. Then she curses at no one in particular, and the screen goes dark.
___
Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut, Mstyslav Chernov from Kharkiv, Inna Varenytsia from Kyiv; Elena Becatoros from Zaporizhzhia; and Erika Kinetz from Brussels. Lori Hinnant reported from Paris.
Sudanese forces kill at least seven during anti-coup protests, medics say
More than 100 people were injured amid the gunfire, SCDC added, which broke out as thousands of protesters marched toward the presidential palace in opposition to last October’s military coup.
In videos shared by Sudanese activists on social media, barrages of tear gas were fired at protesters who were blocking main roads leading to the presidential compound. Sounds believed to be gunfire could also be heard in the videos.
This comes as Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council — headed by Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Burhan — said Monday it would establish an anti-terrorism force to counter “multiple potential threats,” according to a statement on Facebook.
There have been several mass demonstrations against military rule since the October 25 coup, and at least 71 people been killed by security forces, the SCDC said Monday.
The Forces of Freedom and Change, an alliance of civilian political parties and movements, called for two days of civil disobedience and a general strike in response to Monday’s violence. “Resistance committees have called on people to barricade neighborhoods and main streets to stop movement,” it wrote on Facebook.
Sudan had been ruled by an uneasy alliance between the military and civilian groups since 2019. But in October, the military effectively took control, dissolving the power-sharing Sovereign Council and transitional government, and temporarily detaining Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister.
Al-Burhan reinstated Hamdok in November as part of a deal between the military and civilian leadership, but Hamdok resigned earlier this January.
Hamdok’s resignation was triggered after the military went back on a “non-interference” agreement struck in November and relaunched the feared national intelligence agency, according to Sudanese political sources speaking to CNN earlier this month.
Previous CNN investigations have implicated the intelligence agency in the deaths of protesters. Its continued influence, sources say, was a “red line” for Hamdok, rendering the relationship with the military untenable.
This week, the US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary Molly Phee are due to visit Khartoum. They are currently in Saudi Arabia, where they intend to “marshal international support for the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission to Sudan (UNITAMS) in its efforts to facilitate a renewed civilian-led transition to democracy,” the State Department wrote in a statement.
Last week, the United Nations began consultations among Sudanese parties and the military to find an end to the crisis.
CNN’s Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
Sudan security forces kill two anti-coup protesters, say medics | Protests News
The two were killed by live bullets in Omdurman as thousands marched towards the presidential palace in Khartoum.
Sudanese security forces have killed two anti-coup protesters in Omdurman, twin city of the capital Khartoum, medics say, as thousands rally against the military.
The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) on Sunday said one of the protesters was shot in the chest while the second suffered a “severe head wound”.
The fatalities came as security forces fired tear gas at thousands of protesters in Khartoum, televised images showed, as demonstrators marched towards the presidential palace in the 12th round of major protests since a coup on October 25.
Internet and mobile services appeared to be disrupted in Khartoum before planned protests against military rule, witnesses told the Reuters news agency. Web monitoring group NetBlocks also said mobile internet services were cut since the morning.
As with previous demonstrations, which have become regular since the coup, authorities have erected roadblocks, with shipping containers blocking Nile River bridges between the capital and outlying areas.
Rallies have been repeatedly broken up by security forces firing rounds of tear gas, as well as charges by police wielding batons.
Sunday’s protests came after six people died and hundreds were injured in nationwide demonstrations against the military rule on Thursday. The death toll since the security forces’ crackdown began in October is now 56, the CCSD said.
The military took power in an October 25 coup that ended a power-sharing deal with civilian political forces. That deal, agreed in 2019, was supposed to pave the way for a transitional government and eventually elections following the overthrow of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.
Year of ‘resistance’
Protests against military rule have continued even after Abdallah Hamdok was reinstated as prime minister in November.
The demonstrators have demanded the military play no role in government during a transition to free elections.
Some people managed to post images on social media showing protests in several other cities, including Ad-Damazin and Port Sudan.
Al Hadath TV quoted an adviser to military leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan as saying the military would not allow anyone to pull the country into chaos and that continued protests were a “physical, psychological, and mental drain on the country” and “would not achieve a political solution”.
In a televised speech on Friday, Burhan said disputes about power and the loss of lives meant everyone “should use the voice of reason”.
“The only way to rule is by popular mandate through elections,” Burhan said.
Sudan’s Sovereign Council, which Burhan leads, denounced on Friday the violence that accompanied Thursday’s protests, adding it had ordered authorities to take all legal and military measures to avoid a recurrence and “nobody will go unpunished”.
Last week, the council reinstated powers of arrest and detention to the intelligence service.
Activists have said 2022 will be “the year of the continuation of the resistance” in posts on social media.
They demand justice for those killed since the coup as well as the more than 250 who died during the mass protests that began in 2019 and paved the way for the toppling of Bashir.
Activists have also condemned sexual attacks during December 19 protests, in which the UN said at least 13 women and girls were victims of rape or gang rape.
The European Union and the United States issued a joint statement condemning the use of sexual violence “as a weapon to drive women away from demonstrations and silence their voices”.
Nearly 70 ICU medics at Spanish hospital COVID-19 positive after Christmas party
MADRID, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Nearly 70 nurses and doctors working in the intensive care unit at a Spanish hospital have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Christmas party, health authorities said on Monday.
Sixty-eight medics at the University Regional Hospital in Malaga had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, the Andalusian regional government said.
Health authorities said they were investigating the source of the infection but added all 68 attended a Christmas party on Dec. 1 at which 173 people were present.
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Those who contracted COVID-19 all had antigen tests or the third booster vaccinations before attending the party, health authorities said.
Another possible source of the infection could have been a large meal for hospital staff, authorities said.
Those infected have shown mild symptoms.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned people to remain vigilant against the coronavirus over Christmas.
“We must not lower our guard,” he told journalists in Madrid.
Health authorities in Andalusia have recommended staff at other public and private hospitals do not attend Christmas parties.
Four cases of the Omicron variant have meanwhile been confirmed in Spain’s Balearic Islands, health authorities there said.
A father arrived in the Balearic islands recently and infected two members of his family and a fourth person recently arrived in Spain from South Africa, authorities said.
Spain had earlier confirmed a total of five cases of the Omicron variant.
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Reporting by Graham Keeley, Elena Rodriguez; Editing by Nick Macfie
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Medics: 80 Palestinians hospitalized in Jerusalem clashes
Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site on Monday, the latest in a series of confrontations that is pushing the contested city to the brink of eruption.
Palestinian medics said at least 180 Palestinians were hurt in the violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, including 80 who were hospitalized.
Amateur video footage posted on social media showed police firing tear gas and stun grenades, some of them landing inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
MORE THAN 200 PALESTINIANS HURT IN AL-AQSA CLASHES WITH POLICE
Israeli police officers clash with Palestinian protesters near Damascus Gate just outside Jerusalem’s Old City, Sunday, May 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Police said protesters hurled stones at officers and onto an adjoining roadway near the Western Wall, where thousands of Israeli Jews had gathered to pray.
In a statement, police alleged extremists were behind the violence and said it would “not allow extremists to harm the safety and security of the public.”
The latest clashes in the sacred compound came after days of mounting tensions between Palestinians and Israeli authorities in the Old City of Jerusalem, the emotional ground zero of the conflict. Hundreds of Palestinians and about two dozen police officers have been hurt over the past few days.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said at least 80 people injured in the skirmishes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound required hospitalization. One was in serious condition. Amateur video footage posted on social media showed police stun grenades and tear gas inside the mosque during skirmishes between officers and Palestinian protesters.
On Monday morning, officers fired tear gas and stun grenades and protesters hurled stones and other objects at police. Police said protesters threw stones from the mosque compound onto an adjoining roadway near the Western Wall, where thousands of Israeli Jews had gathered to pray. Palestinians said police fired stun grenades into the compound.
The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. The compound is the epicenter of the conflict and has been the trigger for rounds of Israel-Palestinian violence in the past.
Earlier, police barred Jews from visiting the Al-Aqsa compound on Monday, which Israelis mark as Jerusalem Day with a flag-waving parade through the Old City and its Muslim Quarter to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. The marchers celebrate Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 war. It later annexed east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, and considers the entire city its capital. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital.
The police decision to ban Jewish visitors temporarily from the holy site came hours before the start of the Jerusalem Day march which is widely perceived by Palestinians as a provocative display of Jewish hegemony over the contested city.
Police have allowed the parade to take place despite growing concerns that it could further inflame the tension.
This year the march coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a time of heightened religious sensitivities, and follows weeks of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Violence has occurred almost nightly throughout Ramadan, beginning when Israel blocked off a popular spot where Muslims traditionally gather each night at the end of their daylong fast. Israel later removed the restrictions, but clashes quickly resumed amid tensions over the eviction plan in Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab neighborhood where settlers have waged a lengthy legal battle to take over properties.
PALESTINIANS, ISRAEL POLICE CLASH AT AL-AQSA MOSQUE; DOZENS HURT
Israel’s Supreme Court postponed a key ruling Monday that could have led to the evictions of dozens of Palestinians from their homes, citing the “circumstances.”
The Israeli crackdown and planned evictions have drawn harsh condemnations from Israel’s Arab allies and expressions of concern from the U.S., European Union and United Nations.
The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed consultations Monday on the soaring tensions in Jerusalem. Diplomats said the meeting was requested by Tunisia, the Arab representative on the council.
Late Sunday, the U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, and urged calm.
A White House statement said that Sullivan called on Israel to “pursue appropriate measures to ensure calm” and expressed the U.S.’s “serious concerns” about the ongoing violence and planned evictions.
The tensions in Jerusalem have threatened to reverberate throughout the region.
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have fired several barrages of rockets into Israel, and protesters allied with the ruling Hamas militant group have launched dozens of incendiary balloons into Israel, setting off fires across the southern part of the country.
“The occupier plays with fire, and tampering with Jerusalem is very dangerous,” Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official, told the militant group’s Al-Aqsa TV station.
In response, COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry organ responsible for crossings with the Gaza Strip, announced Monday that it was closing the Erez crossing to all but humanitarian and exceptional cases until further notice.
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“This measure follows the decision to close the fishing zone yesterday, and following rocket fire and the continued launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip toward the State of Israel, which constitute a violation of the Israeli sovereignty,” COGAT said in a statement.
Medics despair as France’s ‘third way’ virus strategy flails
AMIENS, France (AP) — As France battles a new virus surge that many believe was avoidable, intensive care nurse Stephanie Sannier manages her stress and sorrow by climbing into her car after a 12-hour shift, blasting music and singing as loud as she can.
“It allows me to breathe,” she says, “and to cry.”
People with COVID-19 occupy all the beds in her ICU ward in President Emmanuel Macron’s hometown hospital in the medieval northern city of Amiens. Three have died in the past three days. The vast medical complex is turning away critically ill patients from smaller towns nearby for lack of space.
With France now Europe’s latest virus danger zone, Macron on Wednesday ordered temporary school closures nationwide and new travel restrictions. But he resisted calls for a strict lockdown, instead sticking broadly to his strategy, a “third way” between freedom and confinement meant to keep both infections and a restless populace under control until mass vaccinations take over.
The government refuses to acknowledge failure and blames delayed vaccine deliveries and a disobedient public for soaring infections and saturated hospitals. Macron’s critics blame arrogance at the highest levels. They say France’s leaders ignored warning signs and favored political and economic calculations over public health — and lives.
“We feel this wave coming very strongly,” said Romain Beal, a blood oxygen specialist at the Amiens-Picardie Hospital. “We had families where we had the mother and her son die at the same time in two different ICU rooms here. It’s unbearable.”
The hospital’s doctors watched as the variant ravaging Britain jumped the Channel and forged south across France. Just as in Britain, the variant is now driving ever-younger, ever-healthier patients into French emergency rooms and ICUs. Amiens medics did their best to prepare, bringing in reinforcements and setting up a temporary ICU in a pediatric wing.
After Britain’s death toll shot higher in January, after new variants slammed European countries from the Czech Republic to Portugal, France continued vaunting its “third way.”
French scientists’ projections — including from the government’s own virus advisory body — predicted trouble ahead. Charts from national research institute Inserm in January and again in February forecast climbing virus hospitalization rates in March or April. Worried doctors urged preventative measures beyond those that were already in place — a 6 p.m. nationwide curfew and the closure of all restaurants and many businesses.
Week after week, the government refused to impose a new lockdown, citing France’s stable infection and hospitalization rates, and hoping that they would stay that way. Ministers stressed the importance of keeping the economy afloat and protecting the mental health of a populace worn down by a year of uncertainty. A relieved public granted Macron a boost in the polls.
But the virus wasn’t finished. The nationwide infection rate has now doubled over the past three weeks, and Paris hospitals are bracing for what could be their worst battle yet, with ICU overcrowding forecast to surpass what happened when the pandemic first crashed over Europe.
Acknowledging the challenges, Macron on Wednesday announced a three-week nationwide school closure, a month-long domestic travel ban and the creation of thousands of temporary ICU beds. He also promised personnel reinforcements.
While other European countries imposed their third lockdowns in recent months, Macron said that by refusing to do so in France, “we gained precious days of liberty and weeks of schooling for our children, and we allowed hundreds of thousands of workers to keep their heads above water.”
At the same time, France has lost another 30,000 lives to the virus this year. It has also reported more virus infections overall than any country in Europe, and it has one of the world’s highest death tolls — 95,640 lives lost.
Macron’s refusal to order a lockdown frustrates people like Sarah Amhah, visiting her 67-year-old mother in the Amiens ICU.
“They’ve managed this badly all along,” she said, recalling government missteps a year ago around masks and tests and decrying logistical challenges around getting a vaccine for elderly relatives. While she’s still proud of France’s world-renowned health care system, she’s ashamed of her government. “How can we trust them?”
Pollsters note growing public frustration in recent days with the government’s hesitancy to crack down, and the potential impact of Macron’s current decisions on next year’s presidential campaign landscape.
Macron last week defended his decision not to confine the country Jan. 29, a moment epidemiologists say could have been a turning point in France’s battle to prevent surge No. 3. “There won’t be a mea culpa from me. I don’t have remorse and won’t acknowledge failure,” he said.
Instead of emulating European neighbors whose strategies are bringing infections down — like Britain, which is now starting to open up after a firm three-month lockdown — French government officials dodge questions about the growing death toll by comparing their country to places where the situation is even worse.
At the Amiens ICU, things are already bad enough.
“We have the impression that the population is doing the opposite of what they should be doing,” nurse Sannier said, before heading off on her rounds. “And we have the feeling we are working for nothing.”
Intern Oussama Nanai acknowledged that the drumbeat of grim virus numbers has left many people feeling numb, and he urged everyone to visit an ICU to put a human face to the figures.
“There are ups and downs every day … Yesterday afternoon I couldn’t do it anymore. The patient in (room) 52 died, and the patient in (room) 54,” he said.
But sometimes their work pays off. “Two people who were in the most serious condition for 60 days left on their own two feet, and they sent us photos,” he said. “That boosts our morale and makes us realize that what we are doing is useful.”
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Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.
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