BEIRUT: There have been 22,111 Israeli violations of Lebanon’s airspace since 2007, according to a database that wants to show the effects of “systematic and prolonged exposure to the roar of these military planes in the airspace, and their impact on the physical and psychological life of those who have had to withstand constant air pressure” from above.

Airpressure.info compiled the database to make all Israeli air violations visible.

BEIRUT: One of Lebanon’s most notorious drug barons used his wife as a “human shield” to evade capture by Lebanese troops during a series of military raids in Baalbeck, northeast of Beirut.

Troops targeting Ali Munther Zeaiter, known in the drug world as Abu Salleh, destroyed drug-manufacturing labs and seized military-grade weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, during a week-long military operation centered on the Al-Sharawneh neighborhood at the northern entrance to the city.

AMMAN: For the first time in nearly three years, Jordan has allowed the entry of humanitarian aid for displaced Syrians in the Rukban camp, located near the northeastern border with Syria.

On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited activists saying they had seen the aid entering Rukban from Jordan.

The camp, according to the UN, is home to an estimated 50,000 Syrians (10,000 families) who remain stranded at the desert facility.

TEHRAN: Iran has arrested 13 suspected robbers accused of making off with the contents of more than 160 safe boxes from a bank branch in the capital, the judiciary said Friday.
“Thirteen suspects in the robbery of Bank Melli were arrested, and large quantities of stolen property have been discovered,” Tehran’s chief prosecutor Ali Salehi said, quoted by the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency.
The state-owned lender said thieves had taken advantage of a public holiday on Sunday to break into the branch on Enghelab Street, a major artery in Tehran.

DUBAI: The creation of a joint development fund with France to assist Lebanon is the latest in a string of announcements signaling a ramp-up in Saudi aid to Middle East and North African countries being pushed deeper into debt by conflict and crisis.

The fund, unveiled in April, made an initial $30 million pledge to support food security in Lebanon and the country’s crippled health sector, according to a statement from the French embassy.