Al-Khobar Municipality cracks down on expatriate street vendors

Agencies

September 10, 2017

Al-Khobar, Sep 10: Municipal inspectors here have imposed a total of SR180,000 in fines on expatriate workers who sold miscellaneous items on streets and confiscated 24,000 vegetable and fruit boxes, a large amount of clothes and foodstuffs, Al-Yaum daily reported.

Al-Khobar Municipal Office head Sultan Al-Zayedi said all expatriate workers who had been fined turned out to have legal residence status and they worked for the private sector. He pointed out that it was illegal for expatriate workers to sell items on streets and the municipality did not grant them licenses to engage in such activities.

Municipal regulations stipulate that heavy fines should be imposed on violators, he said, stressing that inspectors will crack down rigorously on violators.

“We are going to pay surprise inspection visits all over Al-Khobar and crack down on this practice,” Al-Zayedi said.

Most of the workers sell items at Al-Subaikha neighborhood where many expatriate workers work and live.

Eastern Province Municipality spokesman Muhammad Al-Sofian said the confiscated fruit and vegetables were sent to charitable foundations while the inedible ones were destroyed. Some fruit and vegetables rot quickly due to sun exposure.

The campaign came in response to complaints filed by citizens who noticed an increasing number of expatriate workers selling miscellaneous stuff on streets including fried fish, clothes, contact lenses, hearing aid devices, etc.

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

Israel killing Palestinian children in Gaza every day despite ceasefire: UNICEF

News Network

November 22,2025

The Israeli regime’s forces have killed two Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip every day since the ceasefire began in early October, UNICEF has warned.

The UN children’s agency said on Friday that Israeli forces continue to attack Palestinians in Gaza even though the agreement was meant to stop the killing.

“Since 11 October, while the ceasefire has been in effect, at least 67 children have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the Gaza Strip. Dozens more have been injured. That is an average of almost two children killed every day since the ceasefire took effect,” UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said in Geneva, reminding that each number in the statistics represents a child whose life had ended violently.

“These are not statistics,” he said. “Each child had a story, a family, and a future that was stolen from them.”

Data from Palestinian factions, human rights groups, and government bodies recorded since the US-brokered ceasefire deal went into effect on October 10 show that Israeli forces have carried out numerous attacks, each constituting a separate ceasefire violation.

UNICEF teams say they repeatedly continue to witness heart-wrenching scenes of fearful Palestinian children sleeping outdoors with amputated limbs, while others live as orphans in flooded, makeshift shelters.

“I saw this myself in August. There is no safe place for them. The world cannot normalize their suffering,” Pires said, lamenting that the UN could “do a lot more if the aid that is really needed was entering faster.”

The UNICEF spokesperson warned that with the advent of winter, the risks for hundreds of thousands of displaced children will increase.

He warned, “The stakes are incredibly high” for children as winter acts as a threat multiplier, where children have no heating, no insulation, and few blankets. He said respiratory infections rise.

“Too many children have already paid the highest price,” Pires said. “Too many are still paying it, even under a ceasefire. The world promised them it would stop and that we would protect them.”

“Now we must act like it,” the UNICEF spokesperson added.

Since the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, it has killed nearly 70,000 people in the territory, most of them women and children, and injured over 170,000 more, while reducing most of the structures in the enclave to rubble.

Comments