Future Bloc: Attempts to Undermine Relations with Saudi Arabia will Fail

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri presides a cabinet meeting at the governmental palace in Beirut, Lebanon September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri presides a cabinet meeting at the governmental palace in Beirut, Lebanon September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
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Future Bloc: Attempts to Undermine Relations with Saudi Arabia will Fail

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri presides a cabinet meeting at the governmental palace in Beirut, Lebanon September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri presides a cabinet meeting at the governmental palace in Beirut, Lebanon September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo

Lebanon’s Future parliamentary bloc warned against campaigns to undermine its relations with Saudi Arabia, underlining the presence of local and regional media outlets that publish fake news and fabricated reports to harm the interests of the Kingdom and other Arab countries.

In a statement following its weekly meeting on Tuesday, chaired by Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, the bloc noted that an ongoing campaign was aimed at distorting and inciting resentment against the Kingdom by circulating false stories that will hurt Arab countries.

The bloc warned “those seeking to damage Lebanon’s relationship with Saudi Arabia that their plan will fail.”

The statement emphasized the Future Bloc’s “commitment and loyalty - in all its bodies and political formations – to the relationship established with Saudi Arabia.”

The bloc praised the “major investment programs in infrastructure, which are being prepared by Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, to be presented by the government at the international support conference, to help Lebanon develop and strengthen its infrastructure and contribute to restore economic growth and increase employment opportunities.”

It also highly valued the premier’s effort to contain the repercussions of the recent crisis between President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabib Berri over the decree of the officers’ promotion.

On a separate note, the bloc hailed the “high professionalism of the internal security forces and the information division which, in a record time, revealed that one of the assistants of Major General Ashraf Rifi organized a shooting against his car in Tripoli – an operation that spared the city and its people a useless futile sedition.”

The Future bloc also condemned a car bomb in Sidon Sunday that targeted a Palestinian official, describing it as “a crime aimed at destabilizing the city [Sidon] and Lebanon.”



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.