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Egypt’s Awqaf Ministry: Opening of Mosques Depends on People Wearing Masks

The Egyptian cabinet meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, December 8, 2020. (Facebook)
The Egyptian cabinet meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, December 8, 2020. (Facebook)
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Egypt’s Awqaf Ministry: Opening of Mosques Depends on People Wearing Masks

The Egyptian cabinet meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, December 8, 2020. (Facebook)
The Egyptian cabinet meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, December 8, 2020. (Facebook)

Egypt’s Ministry of Awqaf has linked the continued opening of mosques with people’s abidance by the health measures amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

Awqaf Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa said the country’s supreme committee tasked with managing the pandemic decides the opening or closure of institutions during the health crisis, including places of worship.

He affirmed that his ministry is committed to the decisions issued by the committee in this regard.

All mosques are regularly being disinfected, Gomaa stressed, noting that the toilets in mosques will not be opened and only people wearing masks will be allowed to enter.

The Minister explained that if people do not abide by the simplest health measure, which is wearing masks, the mosques will not be opened.

Meanwhile, the government stressed Tuesday the importance of the implementation of necessary preventive measures to fight the pandemic, the most important of which is wearing masks.

During a weekly cabinet session, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly ordered relevant authorities to fine violators of the health protocols.

Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel Ghaffar pointed out that university hospitals have been providing their services to patients, adding that the availability of necessary medications and medical supplies is monitored on a daily basis in accordance with the announced protocols.

In the same context, the Health Ministry underscored the hospitals’ readiness to confront the second wave of the coronavirus by developing the infrastructure of 44 hospitals and gas networks, providing 100 oxygen tanks, increasing the capacity by 7,500 beds, 1,500 intensive care beds and 325 ventilators, as well as adding 17 computed tomography (CT) machines.

According to a recent statement by the Health Ministry, 202 recovered patients were discharged from hospitals after receiving the necessary medical care.

The ministry said 415 new cases were recorded as well as 19 deaths, raising the infection tally to 118,847, including 103,703 recoveries and 6,790 fatalities.

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Arab World

UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)

The UN's World Food Program said Sunday it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible after border crossings reopened as part of a long-awaited ceasefire deal.

"We're trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time," the WFP's Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told AFP, as the Rome-based UN agency's trucks began rolling into the strip.

"We're moving in with wheat flour, ready to eat meals, and we will be working all fronts trying to restock the bakeries," Skau said, adding the agency would attempt to provide nutritional supplements to the most malnourished.

An initial 42-day truce between Israel and Hamas is meant to enable a surge of sorely needed humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory after 15 months of war.

"The agreement is for 600 trucks a day... All the crossings will be open," Skau said.

The first WFP trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south and through the Zikim crossing in the north, the agency said in a statement, as it began trying to pull "the war-ravaged territory back from starvation".

"We have 150 trucks lined up for every day for the next at least 20 days," Skau said, adding that the WFP was "hopeful that the border crossings will be open and efficient".

There needs to be "an environment inside (Gaza) that is secure enough for our teams to move around," so that food "does not just get over the border but also gets into the hands of the people".

"It seems so far that things have been working relatively well.... We need to now sustain that over several days over weeks," he said.

Before the ceasefire came into effect, WFP was operating just five out of the 20 bakeries it partners with due to dwindling supplies of fuel and flour, as well as insecurity in northern Gaza.

"We're hoping that we will be up and running on all those bakeries as soon as possible," Skau said, stressing that it was "one of our top priorities" to get bread to "tens of thousands of people each day".

"It also has a psychological effect to be able to put warm bread into the hands of the people".

WFP also wants to "get the private sector and commercial goods in there as soon as possible," he said.

That would mean the UN agency could replace ready meals with vouchers and cash for people to buy their own food "to bring back some dignity" and allow them "frankly to start rebuilding their lives".

WFP said in a statement that it has enough food pre-positioned along the borders -- and on its way to Gaza -- to feed over a million people for three months.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 Hamas attack last year sparked the war.

The attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 46,913 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.