Here’s a quick look at Al Jazeera’s Middle East coverage this week.
Two-year-old Mohammed al-Tamimi was shot in the head while in the car with his father, hundreds came out to grieve with his family. In Sudan, fighting took an ominous turn while Iran unveiled the hypersonic missile they announced months ago. Here’s the Middle East this week:
Palestinian toddler shot dead
On June 6, Mohammed al-Tamimi was buried amid an outpouring of grief. Four days earlier, he had been shot in the head by Israeli forces as he got into the family’s car with his dad to go to a cousin’s birthday party. He died in a hospital three days later.
Forced to dismantle their own homes
Ein Samiya is a small Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank where shepherds were under constant attack by Israeli settlers. There were some small joys though, such as a new, donor-funded elementary school. But the settler attacks reached such a peak that the shepherds dismantled their homes with their own hands and moved to a secret location where all they can hope for is a little peace.
Sudan’s ominous turn
Shortly after the Sudanese army pulled out of recent peace talks, word spread that people trying to flee the violence were being confined to the cities. It soon became apparent to observers that the army was planning an intense offensive on the capital, Khartoum, to drive the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces out.
The arrival of army reinforcements only confirmed those fears and people hunkered down for the assault. As violence raged in Khartoum, already scarce supplies became even scarcer as armed fighters looted shops, homes and other facilities.
Culture and heritage: The rise, the fall and making do
Just as Beirut’s beloved Sursock Museum rose from the rubble three years after Lebanon’s port explosion and flung open its palatial doors to visitors eager to see its restored interiors and modern art collection, a ruinous fate befell a Cairo landmark.
In a tragic counterbalance, bulldozers are levelling sections of Cairo’s ancient City of the Dead to make way for a new road. Tumbling to the ground are ancient mausoleums, generations-old family crypts, and the improvised homes of unknown hundreds (maybe thousands) of the city’s most desperately poor.
Ibrahim al-Naes knows far too much about rubble for someone his age; he is surrounded by it in an internally displaced people’s (IDP) camp in Idlib where his family lives. But the 12-year-old Syrian has turned the items discarded around him – scraps of metal and plastic, broken instruments and even syringes – into incredible toy trucks and machinery that can lift, dump and pulley. Move aside, plastic yellow dump trucks!
A little something different, more people being amazing
So, the Iranian women’s ice hockey team went to the IIHF Women’s Asia and Oceania Championship in May and amazed the world. In a series of astounding victories, they climbed the rankings to win the silver medal, only three years after the team was formed.
And check out Abdel Rahman al-Farran, the youngest tour guide in Lebanon’s Sidon. The 10-year-old has caught many eyes as he shows people around and explains the history of the city.
Briefly
Iran has a hypersonic missile. What does that mean?
Karim Benzema has signed with Saudi club al-Ittihad.
Jordan’s crown prince has married a Saudi architect in Amman, we have the photos.
Tunisia’s president said it is better to tax the rich than deprive the poor of subsidies.
Kuwait has held parliamentary elections again. What happened?
Quote of the Week
“I call on all honourable citizens ‘the people of Darfur’ – old and young, women and men – to take up arms to protect their property, and we, the armed movements, will support them in defending themselves.” | Minni Minnawi, head of the Sudan Liberation Army – Minni Minnawi faction in Darfur, calling on civilians to arm themselves to fight “attackers”.
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