Sisi Aims for ‘New Delta’ Project to Ensure Food Security in Egypt

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his visit to an agriculture project in the Western Desert. (Egyptian Presidency)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his visit to an agriculture project in the Western Desert. (Egyptian Presidency)
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Sisi Aims for ‘New Delta’ Project to Ensure Food Security in Egypt

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his visit to an agriculture project in the Western Desert. (Egyptian Presidency)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his visit to an agriculture project in the Western Desert. (Egyptian Presidency)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi asserted the importance of the mega national project, the New Delta, in achieving food security and providing over 200,000 various job opportunities.

Sisi toured the Egypt’s Future Project located in the New Delta and extending to the Western Desert. The project’s location near Sphinx International Airport, Borg el-Arab International Airport, el-Dekheila Port and Alexandria Port facilitates the delivery of production requirements and final products.

“It also contributes to making the project an attractive destination for investors,” according to a presidential statement.

Presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said Sisi inspected Egypt’s Future Project during the harvest season, saying the process is being carried out according to state-of-the-art technological methods of agriculture.

He also met with a number of heads of specialized agricultural companies participating in the project and reviewed the developments. He stressed the importance of strengthening coordination and cooperation between the various relevant authorities.

Sisi highlighted the added value of this national project that aims to increase the agricultural area in Egypt, achieve food security and provide job opportunities in a variety of specialties.

It will have a broad positive impact on achieving comprehensive development and providing a decent life and a better future for the Egyptian people, declared Sisi.

Last week, the president issued an immediate directive to the government to merge the implementation phases of the project into one and intensify efforts, which will help promote the state’s strategy in establishing “new agricultural and urban communities characterized by modern administrative systems.”

The project aims to cultivate 500,0000 acres, provide high-quality agricultural products at reasonable prices to citizens and export the surplus. About 200,000 acres were reclaimed in the first phase of the project, and the remaining 300,000 will be reclaimed in the coming stages.

In previous statements, Sisi described the New Delta project as the future of Egypt, explaining that agriculture in the planned area depends on treating the water that is already in the country.



Middle East Aid Workers Say Rules of War Being Flouted

Members of the Lebanese Red Cross inspect damage after an Israeli bombardment -  AFP
Members of the Lebanese Red Cross inspect damage after an Israeli bombardment - AFP
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Middle East Aid Workers Say Rules of War Being Flouted

Members of the Lebanese Red Cross inspect damage after an Israeli bombardment -  AFP
Members of the Lebanese Red Cross inspect damage after an Israeli bombardment - AFP

Flagrant violations of the laws of war in the escalating conflict in the Middle East are setting a dangerous precedent, aid workers in the region warn.

"The rules of war are being broken in such a flagrant way... (it) is setting a precedent that we have not seen in any other conflict," Marwan Jilani, the vice president of the Palestine Red Crescent (PCRS), told AFP.

Speaking last week during a meeting in Geneva of the 191 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, he lamented a "total disregard for human life (and) for international humanitarian law".

Amid Israel's devastating retaliatory operation on October 7 in the Gaza Strip , local aid workers are striving to deliver assistance while facing the same risks as the rest of the population, he said.

The PCRS has more than 900 staff and several thousand volunteers inside Gaza, where more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the territory's health ministry, and where the UN says virtually the entire population has been repeatedly displaced.

- 'Deliberate targeting' -

"They're part of the community," said Jilani. "I think every single member of our staff has lost family members."

He decried especially what he said was a "deliberate targeting of the health sector".

Israel rejects such accusations and maintains that it is carrying out its military operations in both Gaza and Lebanon in accordance with international law.

But Jilani said that "many of our staff, including doctors and nurses... were detained, were taken for weeks (and) were tortured".

Since the war began, 34 PRCS staff and volunteers have been killed in Gaza, and another two in the West Bank, "most of them while serving", he said.

Four other staff members are still being held, their whereabouts and condition unknown.

Jilani warned that the disregard for basic international law in the expanding conflict was eroding the belief that such laws even exist.

A "huge casualty of this war", he said, "is the belief within the Middle East that there is no international law".

- 'Unbelievable' -

Uri Shacham, chief of staff at the Israeli's emergency aid organization Magen David Adom (MDA), also decried the total disregard for laws requiring the protection of humanitarians.

- Gaza scenario looming -

The Red Cross in Lebanon, where for the past month Israel has been launching ground operations and dramatically escalating its airstrikes against Hezbollah, also condemned the slide.

Thirteen of its volunteers have been recently injured on ambulance missions.

One of its top officials, Samar Abou Jaoudeh, told AFP that they did not appear to have been targeted directly.

"But nevertheless, not being able to reach the injured people, and (missiles) hitting right in front of an ambulance is also not respecting IHL," she said, stressing the urgent need to ensure more respect for international law on the ground.

Abou Jaoudeh feared Lebanon, where at least 1,620 people have been killed since September 23, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, could suffer the same fate as Gaza.

"We hope that no country would face anything that Gaza is facing now, but unfortunately a bit of that scenario is beginning to be similar in Lebanon," she said.

The Lebanese Red Cross, she said, was preparing "for all scenarios... but we just hope that it wouldn't reach this point".