Will Indians be allowed for Umrah? Saudi MoH to decide

News Network
September 28, 2020

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Riyadh, Sept 28: Saleh Benten Muhammad, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Hajj and Umrah has announced that the Ministry of Health would take a decision on whether India and other countries will be allowed to send their pilgrims to perform Umrah.

The minister’s announcement follows an earlier statement by the Ministry of Interior saying that the Kingdom would allow foreign Umrah performers to enter the Kingdom in the third phase of the gradual resumption of the suspended Umrah service effective from Nov. 1.

In a television interview with Al-Ekhbariya channel, Benten said that there would be a special electronic path for the arrival and departure of foreign Hajj pilgrims for next year’s Hajj. Referring to the resumption of Umrah service for domestic pilgrims effective from Oct. 4, the minister said that only 12 groups of pilgrims would be allowed to perform Umrah within 24 hours in the first phase.

“The pilgrims will be divided into groups and each group will be accompanied by a health professional at the Haram. Only pilgrims with ages ranging between 18 and 65 years will be allowed in the first phase,” he said.

Benten revealed that there is no fee for issuance of Umrah permit. “No Umrah pilgrims will be allowed to enter the Grand Mosque in Makkah without completing the entry procedures through the mobile app “I’tamarana” and this is to ensure the health and safety of pilgrims,” he said, adding that alternative arrangement will be made if there is any technical snag for completing the procedures through the app.

Domestic pilgrims

Saudi citizens and expatriates as well as their families in the Kingdom are allowed to download the Umrah mobile application titled “I’tamarna,” effective from Sunday to register their names to perform Umrah pilgrimage as well as to visit and worship at the Two Holy Mosques.

The application is now available for users of iOS and Android operating systems on their smartphones seven days before the start of the first phase of the pilgrimage. The Ministry of Interior announced earlier the gradual resumption of Umrah and visits to the Two Holy Mosques with a limited number of pilgrims, starting from Oct. 4.

In the first phase, citizens and expatriates from within the Kingdom will be allowed to perform Umrah at a capacity of 30 percent from Oct. 4 that translates to 6,000 pilgrims per day and that is in compliance with the health precautionary measures of the Grand Mosque. The pilgrims will be allowed to perform the ritual in 12 groups, each consisting of 500 pilgrims in a day.

The registration of the data entered by the pilgrims and visitors to the Two Holy Mosques will be directly related to the application “Tawakkalna,” the official app launched by the Ministry of Health to prevent the spread of coronavirus. This step would consist of a number of procedures, including providing a guarantee that the pilgrim or visitor is free from coronavirus, the Ministry of Hajj said.

The app will enable the pilgrims and visitors to plan their pilgrimage and visit in advance, as well as to make reservation of optional services to perform their rituals in ease and comfort, in addition to ensuring the compliance of the health and precautionary measures and preventive protocols, approved by the Ministry of Health and other competent authorities, to stem the spread of coronavirus.

The Ministry of Hajj has developed the app in cooperation with the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) to regulate the times of rituals of those wishing to visit Makkah and Madinah to perform Umrah and pray at the Two Holy Mosques.

Meanwhile, stores for Ihram clothing resumed business after a long interval of more than six months in Saudi Arabia prior to the partial resumption of the Umrah season from next Sunday. Ihram is one of the three pillars of Umrah, and it means entering the sacred state, during which certain things are prohibited. Men must wear two pieces of unstitched sheet of white cloth while women can wear their ordinary clothes.

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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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News Network
March 17,2024

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New Delhi: The Election Commission on Sunday made public fresh data on electoral bonds, which it had submitted in sealed covers to the Supreme Court and was later asked to put it in public domain.

These details are believed to be pertaining to the period before April 12, 2019. Electoral bond details after this date was made public by the poll panel last week.

The BJP encashed electoral bonds totalling Rs 6,986.5 crore; maximum Rs 2,555 crore received in 2019-20, as per the EC data.

The Trinamool Congress received Rs 1,397 crore through electoral bonds, second largest recipient after BJP, as per the EC data.

On the other hand, the Congress redeemed a total of Rs 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds.

DMK received Rs 656.5 crore through electoral bonds, including Rs 509 crore from lottery king Santiago Martin's Future Gaming.

BJD encashed electoral bonds worth Rs 944.5 crore, YSR Congress Rs 442.8 crore, TDP Rs 181.35 crore.

Political parties had filed data on electoral bonds in sealed cover as directed by the Supreme Court's interim order dated April 12, 2019, the poll panel said in a statement.

"Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Supreme Court without opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the Supreme Court's order dated March 15, 2024, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitized record of the same in a pen drive in sealed cover. The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in the digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website," EC said.

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News Network
March 21,2024

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Israeli military siege, hunger, and diseases will soon become the main killer in Gaza, says commissioner- general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UNRWA for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, took to X on Wednesday to vent his concern for the growing hunger and spread of diseases as a result of the Israeli siege on the besieged strip.

He said starvation and illness may soon be the main killer in Gaza.

"This fabricated and catastrophic level of hunger can still be reversed by flooding Gaza with food and life-saving assistance," Lazzarini said.

"More than ever humanity requires political will,” the UNRWA chief added.

In a press release on March 19, UNRWA said that “famine is imminent in the Gaza Strip, especially for isolated populations in northern Gaza deprived of humanitarian aid.”

The statement noted that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), in a latest food security outlook, concluded that up to 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

“Nutrition screenings conducted in February by UNICEF and UNRWA show that rates of acute malnutrition among children in northern Gaza and Rafah have nearly doubled since January,” it said.

The Israeli regime has accused UNRWA staff of being involved in the October 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas against the occupied territories, prompting a number of its western allies to suspend funding for the UN agency.

On Wednesday, an agreement was reached by US congressional leaders and the White House on a massive funding bill will continue a ban on US funding for UNRWA until March 2025, Reuters reported.

Earlier this year the US, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Austria and Romania  decided to cut their funding to the UNRWA, considered a lifeline for the Palestinians in Gaza.

France had also announced that it does not plan a new payment to fund UNRWA in the first quarter of 2024.

Condemning the suspension of funding, Lazzarini had said, “It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community…, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region.”

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