BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Ministry of Telecommunications requested a treasury advance from the Ministry of Finance to avoid the repercussions of its employees’ strike that began last week.

The strike has resulted in interruptions to landlines, mobile phones and internet services for millions of Lebanese citizens. Key services at hospitals, security and military facilities were also disrupted.

ANKARA: Syrian refugees, once welcomed with open arms to Turkey, are now living in fear amid a rise in hate crimes against them, experts have claimed.

Many believe they are being used as political leverage in the upcoming Turkish elections scheduled for next year.

Syrian teenager Fares Elali became one of the latest victims of the backlash when he was recently stabbed to death in the southern Turkish province of Hatay.

AL-MUKALLA: A high school in Houthi-held Sanaa has expelled a student for refusing to recite the militia’s slogan, the student’s father said, a decision that has sparked outrage in Yemen and prompted an overwhelming show of support for the family. 

Farouq Jaber claimed that the principal of an unnamed high school in Sanaa expelled his daughter Taghred for refusing to chant the Houthi slogan before morning lines, even though she was an excellent student.

JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities on Monday advanced a plan to build nearly 500 homes in a new settlement in east Jerusalem that rights groups say will further sever it from the nearby Palestinian city of Bethlehem and the southern West Bank.
The planned Givat HaShaked settlement is part of a cluster of settlements on the southern edge of east Jerusalem, many of which have already been built up into full-fledged residential neighborhoods. Critics say they further undermine any hopes for a two-state solution.

JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has nominated Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi as the country’s next army chief, his office said on Sunday.

The nomination of Halevi, who serves as deputy to outgoing Chief of General Staff Aviv Kohavi, will be discussed by an advisory committee in the coming days before the government gives its approval, Gantz’s office said.

Halevi is due to take up his new position in February next year, the Defense Ministry said, after Kohavi’s term ends.