Morocco Reopens more Mosques, Allows Friday Prayer

A teacher wearing face mask while teaching in a school in Casablanca in October 5, 2020. AP
A teacher wearing face mask while teaching in a school in Casablanca in October 5, 2020. AP
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Morocco Reopens more Mosques, Allows Friday Prayer

A teacher wearing face mask while teaching in a school in Casablanca in October 5, 2020. AP
A teacher wearing face mask while teaching in a school in Casablanca in October 5, 2020. AP

Morocco’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs announced on Tuesday the decision to increase the number of mosques to be reopened to 10,000.

It allowed these mosques to host the five daily prayers, as well as Friday sermons and prayers, effective on Friday.

The ministry stated that it will do all what is necessary to make this process a success and follow up the developments in coordination with the competent authorities.

It stressed that it will take into consideration the same preventive measures taken in mosques that have previously opened for the five daily prayers.

Moroccan community bodies had launched an appeal to open more mosques and hold Friday prayers.

They criticized the “continued closure of most mosques and the suspension of Friday prayers” while official institutions, markets, laboratories, administrations, universities and schools have been reopened.

Only 5,000 mosques out of over 50,000 across Morocco have been opened since July 15.

Initially, the 5,000 mosques were not open for Friday prayers in order to avoid COVID-19 transmission among worshippers.

The decision to re-open 5,000 mosques in July was part of Morocco’s gradual lockdown easing strategy and included a set of safety conditions.

According to these conditions, worshippers shall take with them plastic bags to put their shoes in when they are inside the mosque, wear masks outside and inside the mosque, bring their own prayer mat and respect social distancing guidelines.

The rate of coronavirus infections in Morocco has relatively decreased in the past 24 hours.

The Health Ministry announced on Monday 1,357 new COVID-19 infections, taking the tally since the virus first appeared in the country on March 2 to 153,761.

The number of recoveries increased to 129,498, while the death toll rose by 31 to 2,636, the Ministry added in a statement.

It said 464 patients are in intensive care units.

The COVID-19 fatality rate in Morocco stands at 1.7 percent and the current recovery rate is 84.2 percent, the ministry added.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".