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Moroccan King, French President Inaugurate Al Boraq High Speed Train

Thursday's launch marks the end of a seven-year project [Youssef Boudlal/Reuters]
Thursday's launch marks the end of a seven-year project [Youssef Boudlal/Reuters]
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Moroccan King, French President Inaugurate Al Boraq High Speed Train

Thursday's launch marks the end of a seven-year project [Youssef Boudlal/Reuters]
Thursday's launch marks the end of a seven-year project [Youssef Boudlal/Reuters]

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated on Thursday Morocco’s first high-speed rail line, the first ever such line in Africa.

The project required an investment of USD2.3 billion of which 51 percent was financed by France, 27 percent by Morocco and 22 percent by four sovereign Gulf funds.

The Moroccan and French leaders boarded the train in Tangier after they were handed tickets by Director General of the National Railway Office Mohamed Rabie Khlie, according to State agency MAP.

The new railway linking Casablanca to Tangier through Rabat and Kenitra will be a landmark in the field of road transportation of passengers in Morocco.

The French president arrived Wednesday in Tangier Airport in a short visit to Morocco, in which the Elysee statement revealed that Macron is committed to another event in Paris during the same day.

This achievement required 11 years to be completed since sealing the agreement in 2007 during a visit to Morocco by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy – construction works commenced in 2011 because the project was supposed to be inaugurated in 2015.

The high-speed train can run up to 320km/h reducing the journey time from Tangier to Kenitra then up to 180km/h between Kenitra, Casablanca passing through Rabat.

According to Morocco’s National Railway Office (ONCF), the trip duration between Tangier and Kenitra will be reduced from 3.15 hr to only 47 minutes thanks to Al Boraq. As for the trip duration from Rabat to Tangier then it will become 1.20 hr instead of 3.45 hr. Once the railway is fully completed in 2020, the trip duration between Rabat and Tangier will take one hour only. After the trip from Casablanca to Tangier was 4.45 hr, it will become 2.10 hr and in 2020 only 1.30 hr.

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Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, local health authorities said, as some Palestinians there said their plight was being forgotten as attention shifted to the air war between Israel and Iran.

The deaths included the latest in near daily killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on Gaza that it had imposed for almost three months.

Medics said separate airstrikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp and Zeitoun neighborhood in central and northern Gaza killed at least 14 people, while five others were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Eleven others were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of displaced Palestinians awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.

The Israel army said it was looking into the reported deaths of people waiting for food. Regarding the other strikes, it said it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" and "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm."

On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said 397 Palestinians among those trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3,000 wounded since aid deliveries restarted in late May.

Some in Gaza expressed concern that the latest escalations in the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023 would be overlooked as the focus moved to Israel's five-day-old conflict with Iran.

"People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days," said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.

"Whoever doesn't die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won," he told Reuters via a chat app.

'FORGOTTEN'

Israel has been channeling much of the aid it is now allowing into Gaza through a new US- and Israeli-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.

It has said it will continue to allow aid into Gaza, home to more than 2 million people, while ensuring aid doesn't get into the hands of Hamas. Hamas denies seizing aid, saying Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the population in Gaza.

The Gaza war was triggered when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.

US ally Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, displaced almost all the territory's residents, and caused a severe hunger crisis.

The assault has led to accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.

Palestinians in Gaza have been closely following Israel's air war with Iran, long a major supporter of Hamas.

"We are maybe happy to see Israel suffer from Iranian rockets, but at the end of the day, one more day in this war costs the lives of tens of innocent people," said 47-year-old Shaban Abed, a father of five from northern Gaza.

"We just hope that a comprehensive solution could be reached to end the war in Gaza, too. We are being forgotten," he said.