Makkah ready for Umrah pilgrims

December 30, 2013

Makkah, Dec 30: The Makkah Municipality has deployed all its resources to welcome Umrah visitors to the Grand Mosque and offer them the best services like healthy environment and amenities for a comfortable stay in the holy city, said Mayor Osama Al-Bar.

A labor force of about 7,000 consisting of supervisors, drivers, sweepers and others has started sanitizing the city against any epidemic. A fleet of 550 garbage trucks is busy round the clock.

The roads are being cleaned and a work force of 3,000 is engaged 24/7 to maintain sanitation. The municipality has fielded 300 electrically operated compressor garbage storage tanks in the holy city to keep unpleasant odor away. These storage tanks are towed away and taken to sites outside Makkah, where the garbage is immediately incinerated.

One hundred teams will spray insecticides in Makkah, especially around the Grand Mosque, to maintain hygiene, Al-Bar said, adding that a team of hundred workers with a fleet of 10 garbage trucks is on stand by to meet any emergency situation.

A team of supervisors survey all shops selling foodstuff. If the team finds any stuff past expiry date it is removed and the shop is fined.

Similarly, all the five butcheries are provided with veterinarians to check the animals before slaughtering and check meat after the animal is slaughtered. The meat shops are kept under continuous surveillance by the inspectors to ensure pure and good supply of meat.

The restaurants and hotels too are checked off and on, and samples of foodstuff are sent to laboratories for checking. These steps are taken to protect the Umrah visitors from food poisoning.

Continuous power supply to the 56 tunnels stretching 30 miles is ensured and roads and bridges are kept under watch to guarantee smooth flow of traffic.

The six parking lots around Makkah are provided with toilets, adequate supply of water for drinking, and mosques for offering prayers, all kept in readiness for the comfort of the Umrah visitors from the Kingdom and from the Gulf countries, said Al-Bar.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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