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Saudi Bans Working Under Peak Sun Hours Starting Saturday 

The move stems from the keenness on ensuring the safety and health of private sector workers. (SPA)
The move stems from the keenness on ensuring the safety and health of private sector workers. (SPA)
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Saudi Bans Working Under Peak Sun Hours Starting Saturday 

The move stems from the keenness on ensuring the safety and health of private sector workers. (SPA)
The move stems from the keenness on ensuring the safety and health of private sector workers. (SPA)

Saudi Arabia will enforce on Saturday a ban on outdoor work during peak sun hours.

Work will be prohibited between 12 and 3 pm starting June 15 and until September 15.

The move stems from the keenness on ensuring the safety and health of private sector workers, protecting them from health risks and providing them with a safe work environment according to international health and safety standards.

The Ministry of Human Resources urged employers to regulate their working hours according to the announcement to help provide a safe working environment and raise the level of competency and preventive measures to limit work-related health injuries and illnesses.

Abiding by the ban will protect employees from accidents and ultimately improve productivity.

The Ministry released a guide on work-related health and safety, protection from the sun and preventing heatstroke. It urged people to report any violations.

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Washington Urges Israel to Extend Cooperation with Palestinian Banks

A West Bank Jewish settlement is seen in the background, while a protestor waves a Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin in 2012. (AP)
A West Bank Jewish settlement is seen in the background, while a protestor waves a Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin in 2012. (AP)
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Washington Urges Israel to Extend Cooperation with Palestinian Banks

A West Bank Jewish settlement is seen in the background, while a protestor waves a Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin in 2012. (AP)
A West Bank Jewish settlement is seen in the background, while a protestor waves a Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin in 2012. (AP)

The United States on Thursday called on Israel to extend its cooperation with Palestinian banks for another year, to avoid blocking vital transactions in the occupied West Bank.

"I am glad that Israel has allowed its banks to continue cooperating with Palestinian banks, but I remain convinced that a one-year extension of the waiver to facilitate this cooperation is needed," US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday, on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Rio de Janeiro.

In May, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to cut off a vital banking channel between Israel and the West Bank in response to three European countries recognizing the State of Palestine.

On June 30, however, Smotrich extended a waiver that allows cooperation between Israel's banking system and Palestinian banks in the occupied West Bank for four months, according to Israeli media, according to AFP.

The Times of Israel newspaper reported that the decision on the waiver was made at a cabinet meeting in a "move that saw Israel legalize several West Bank settlement outposts."

The waiver was due to expire at the end of June, and the extension permitted Israeli banks to process payments for salaries and services to the Palestinian Authority in shekels, averting a blow to a Palestinian economy already devastated by the war in Gaza.

The Israeli threat raised serious concerns in the United States, which said at the time it feared "a humanitarian crisis" if banking ties were cut.

According to Washington, these banking channels are key to nearly $8 billion of imports from Israel to the West Bank, including electricity, water, fuel and food.