New Saudi-Oman highway to reduce distance by 800 km

October 9, 2015

Riyadh, Oct 9: Saudi Arabia and Oman have completed the construction of a mega road project linking the two countries.

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“The new road, which will cut the distance between Saudi Arabia and Oman by about 800 km, will be opened soon for public,” said Ahmad Hilal Al-Busaidi, Omani ambassador, Wednesday.

Al-Busaidi said the two countries were currently building the administrative infrastructures including immigration posts and check points across the two ends of the road. “This has delayed the inauguration of the road project,” said the diplomat, adding that this will be first overland direct link between the two countries.

Oman and Saudi Arabia are currently linked via road through the UAE, spanning a total distance of 2,000 km. He said that travelers shuttling between Saudi Arabia and Oman would no longer need to cross the UAE.

The Kingdom has spent about SR1.6 billion on the motorway that passes through the eastern Saudi province of Al-Ahsa and the Rub' al-Khali desert (Empty Quarter) ending at Oman border.

The road inside Oman is around 160 km long, starting from Tanam in Ibri province, passing through oilfields until it reaches the Oman-Saudi border in the Empty Quarter.

“The road has a direct access to south Oman,” said the diplomat.

Inside Saudi Arabia, the road is 519-km long, including a 247-km stretch from the Omani border to Shaybah and the 319-km stretch from Shaybah to the Batha-Haradh road, which leads to Al-Kharj and then to Riyadh.

Al-Rosan Contracting, which had been commissioned to build 256 km of the road on the Saudi side, said the project had been a big challenge because the road is constructed through shifting sands across the Rub’ al Khali Desert, the largest and most barren sand desert in the world covering 600,000 square kilometers.

“Trying to build a road on shifting sand dunes was always going to be difficult. The project involved building sand bridges across salt flats and high rising dunes, so the selection of adaptable and reliable equipment was critical for this project, not least because of the aggressive environment, intense heat, sand and remoteness of the site,” an Al-Rosan manager was quoted as saying in a statement by Volvoce.com.

The statement said FAMCO (Al-Futtaim Auto & Machinery Co. LLC) is the equipment contracting partner of Al-Rosan in the project and it has used 95 Volvo machines, including a range of articulated haulers, excavators and motor graders, through the several stages of the project.

“The construction of the 256 km road was completed in sections and involved gigantic amounts of sand ‘cut and fill’. The sand transported to construct the bridge was 130 million m3 — the equivalent of 26 giant pyramids — and 12 million m3 of material was needed to protect the embankment of sand from wind and water,” it said.

Spelling out the features of this project, Al-Busaidi said: “The opening of the road will create trade and investment opportunities besides boosting tourism between the two countries.”

This new road project will also help vehicles including trailers laden with goods to reach fast to their destinations in the Kingdom or in Oman, he added.

He said that Oman, being a GCC member, seeks to promote relations with the Kingdom in all sectors. The new project will help the Kingdom to be well connected with the strategic cities and towns in Oman, which also shares borders with the UAE and Yemen as well as marine borders with Iran and Pakistan.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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A Palestinian woman has recounted terrifying incidents after Israeli military forces raided al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City last week, saying the occupying regime’s soldiers are raping Palestinian women before killing them.

Jamila Al-Hisi, an eyewitness who was besieged in the medical complex and managed to finally get out, said on Saturday that women have been subjected to rape, starvation, torture, and extrajudicial execution, adding that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is doing nothing.

She went on to say that Israeli troops have “forced 65 families to leave the area around the al-Shifa Medical Complex whilst burning and killing entire families,” noting that they have burned a building where Palestinian civilians were taking shelter.

“We don’t even have water to break our fast, and we don’t know where to go,” Hisi said, stressing that the displaced people in the compound have not found food or water for six days.

She further called on the Red Cross to provide water for the children and the sick who are being forced to drink dirty water and eat rotten food.

Palestinians are being forcibly displaced by Israeli occupation forces from the area surrounding al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, Hisi said, adding, “We are trapped amid continued Israeli shelling.”

The latest development comes as the Israeli military continues to carry out air strikes and artillery shelling in and around the al-Shifa Hospital for the seventh day in a row.

On Monday, heavily armed Israeli forces stormed the al-Shifa hospital using tanks and drones, claiming that the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas is using the facility to “conduct and promote terrorist activity.” Later that day, Israel said that “terrorist forces” were firing at Israeli troops.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said at the time that about 3,000 people were inside al-Shifa seeking refuge and that those attempting to leave were being targeted by snipers and fire from helicopters.

Ever since the Israeli military raided the hospital last week, reports have suggested unspeakable atrocities being carried out against the doctors, nurses, and general staff as well as the thousands of displaced people there.

Israelis have admitted to executing 140 people inside al-Shifa, including paramedics, patients and wounded whilst the siege is still ongoing after seven days with mass arrests.

Meanwhile, a group of Palestinian activists have circulated a shocking story about the Israeli soldiers raping a pregnant woman in the al-Shifa hospital, alongside Hisi’s revelation.

Watan-Palestinian activists quoted the husband of a woman who was raped by Israeli forces as saying that “They ordered her to undress and began to beat her… She told the military she was five months pregnant, not to beat her, but they continued to beat her.”

“After hours, they took out all the women except the pregnant woman, and her children… They took her in front of her husband and children and raped her, ordering the men not to close their eyes or they would be shot.”

Israel waged the war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,226 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured another 74,518 individuals.

Tel Aviv has also imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says at least five people, including a staff member, were killed and 22 others wounded after Israeli forces targeted a food distribution centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on Wednesday said that the strike hit one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the eastern part of Rafah.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” Lazzarini said.

“Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict," he continued.

He said the attack was carried out even though "the Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

Lazzarini further urged the protection of the UN, its staff, and its premises and called for an independent investigation.

Israel acknowledged an airstrike on a food aid distribution center in southern Gaza, which it claimed targeted and killed a high-ranking member of Hamas. 

Meanwhile, the statement by the UNRWA head added that since October 7, at least 165 team members have been killed while in the line of duty and more than 400 people sheltering in UN buildings also lost their lives due to Israel's attacks.

More than 150 of the agency’s facilities, including schools and shelters, have been hit in the war, with some destroyed, and UNRWA staff have reportedly been mistreated and humiliated while in Israeli detention centers, according to the UNRWA.

Six aid seekers killed in Israeli attack

Separately, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said six people were killed in the latest attack on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City.

The Wafa news agency said some 83 people who were wounded in the attack have been transferred to the al-Shifa Medical Complex in the city.

Over the past weeks, Israeli forces have increased their offensives on the Kuwait Roundabout, an area where large groups gather to wait for aid deliveries.

Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the roundabout on Monday night.

The Israeli military has restricted the delivery of humanitarian supplies to northern Gaza for weeks, and thousands of children are going without sufficient food and medication.

The prevention of aid convoys comes as humanitarian officials have already issued a dire warning, stating that unless a ceasefire is implemented and aid is significantly increased, the toll of malnutrition and disease is expected to rise, leading to an alarming loss of lives.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,272 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,024 others.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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The Israeli military has attacked desperate Palestinians lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, killing at least 19 people and injuring 23 others in a new massacre against aid seekers. 

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement that the carnage took place on Saturday near the al-Kuwait roundabout, southeast of Gaza City.

“The occupation army and tanks opened fire with machine guns at the hungry people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a remote place that did not pose a threat to the occupation,” the statement said.

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense Department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” looking for food to help their families and children.

“There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult, and challenging,” he added, saying the victims were taken to the nearby al-Ahli Arab hospital.

Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV network, Alaa al-Khudary, a witness at the scene, said that Israeli forces shot at the crowd, leaving “many dead” and injuring others while they tried to get “a bite to eat” for their children.

However, the Israeli army claimed that the reports of its troops firing on a Gaza aid queue are “incorrect.”

In recent weeks, Israeli soldiers have conducted several deadly attacks on crowds of aid seekers in the besieged Gaza.

In mid-March the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinian civilians who had gathered in Gaza to obtain humanitarian aid, targeting them with gunfire from helicopters, tanks, and drones near the Kuwait roundabout on the outskirts of Gaza City, killing over 60 people and injuring 160 others.

In what is known as the “flour massacre”, the occupation forces killed 118 people and wounded 760 others as they opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street on February 29.

Earlier this month, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that a total of 400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid seekers since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression against the Palestinian territory.

Israel waged its US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,142 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 74,412 others.

Israel is intentionally starving the people in Gaza by blocking their access to food, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

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