Turkey's Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned the killing of a Palestinian woman by ‘Israeli’ security forces in the occupied West Bank and urged for a comprehensive investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a written statement, the ministry expressed its condolences to the family and relatives of the victim, Ghada Ibrahim Sbatein, killed by Israeli forces near the city of Bethlehem Sunday.

"We strongly condemn the shooting and killing of a Palestinian civilian woman, who poses no threat, by the ‘Israeli’ security forces without warning. We call on the Israeli authorities to investigate the incident in an impartial and comprehensive manner, to bring those responsible to justice as soon as possible and to take the necessary measures to prevent such inhumane incidents from recurring," it said.

Sbatein, a mother of six, was seriously injured after ‘Israeli’ soldiers opened fire in the town of Husan, located west of Bethlehem city in the occupied West Bank. She later succumbed to her injuries in the hospital.

[Israel's] Haaretz newspaper wrote that the woman was unarmed and didn't pose any threat to the soldiers.

‘Israeli’ forces also shot and killed a Palestinian man near the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said early Monday, the latest in growing violence that has erupted during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The ‘Israeli’ military said it opened fire on a man throwing a firebomb at an ‘Israeli’ vehicle driving on a West Bank highway late Sunday. In the last 24 hours, four Palestinians have been killed.

Ramadan this year converges with major Jewish and Christian holidays. Protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan last year boiled over into an 11-day war between ‘Israel’ and Gaza.

Palestinian health officials identified the man killed in the latest shooting late Sunday as 21-year-old Muhammad Ali Ahmed Ghoneim.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Mohammed Zakarna, 17, died on Monday after he was wounded by ‘Israeli’ gunfire in the West Bank city of Jenin a day earlier.

Earlier Sunday, ‘Israeli’ forces shot and killed two Palestinian women. The ‘Israeli’ army said one had stabbed and lightly wounded a police officer in the city of Hebron. The other was an unarmed woman who it said ignored warning shots and calls to stop as she approached a checkpoint near Bethlehem.

Palestinian assailants often carry out attacks at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank. But Palestinians and human rights groups say the ‘Israeli’ military often uses excessive force and in some cases has injured or killed people who were not involved in violence.

The European Union’s diplomatic mission to the Palestinian territories accused ‘Israel’ of using unacceptable excessive force in fatally shooting the unarmed woman. “This incidence must be swiftly investigated and the perpetrators be brought to justice,” it wrote on Twitter.

In a separate incident on Monday, the military said two ‘Israeli’ citizens arrived at a West Bank checkpoint near the city of Nablus with gunshot wounds. ‘Israeli’ public broadcaster Kan reported that the two had attempted to visit Joseph's Tomb, which had been vandalized a day earlier, and were attacked by unidentified assailants.

A day earlier, a group of Palestinians set the tomb ablaze before they were dispersed by Palestinian security forces. The shrine, located on the outskirts of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, is a frequent flashpoint site. Some Jews believe it is the burial place of the biblical Joseph, while Muslims believe it is the tomb of a sheikh. The army escorts Jewish worshipers to the site several times a year, in coordination with Palestinian security forces./DS

Turkey's Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) nongovernmental organization (NGO) sent Ramadan packages to 8,500 people in Syria’s northern Afrin on Monday.

Zeki Tahiroğlu, IHH’s Syria Reyhanlı regional coordinator, said in a written statement that the organization is continuing to provide aid during Ramadan.

“This year, the Syrian people are spending their 12th Ramadan amid war. We, as we did since this situation started, continue to be on the side of war-weary civilians in Ramadan,” Tahiroğlu said.

“Within this scope, we distributed Ramadan provision packages to 8,500 civilians living in the Afrin city center and rural area in the first week of Ramadan. The distributed packages include dry legumes, breakfast material, tea, sugar, tomato pasta and oil,” he elaborated.

Turkey had liberated Afrin during operation Olive Branch. The operation was launched on Jan. 20, 2018, in cooperation with the Syrian National Army (SNA) and successfully ended on March 24, 2018, six days after Afrin was liberated from the occupation of the PKK terrorist group's Syrian wing, the YPG.

In harsh land and winter conditions, the operation was conducted against approximately 8,000 to 10,000 YPG/PKK terrorists stationed in the region. While the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the SNA took all the possible measures not to harm civilians and residential areas, the terrorist group tried to use civilians as shields to prevent the operation.

Thanks to the measures taken by Turkish security forces, civilians, who had to flee the region due to the terrorist group's oppression and the following military operation, started to return to their homes on March 20, 2018. Since then, the population of the district has reached at least 350,000 with rapid improvements in the region's infrastructure. The priority of the post-operation period for Turkish officials has been to strengthen the security of Afrin, enable the return of civilians and the normalization of daily life.

In search and scanning activities, military bases and ditches dug by the terrorist group and mines and other explosives planted by terrorists were destroyed. In the district, seven local councils have been established to represent democratic rights for the local people. Local councils support various fields and activities including agriculture, industry, trade, culture, sports, health and education for the normalization and revival of life.

In the field of health, a hospital with a capacity of 100 beds and 13 branches was reopened thanks to Turkey's efforts. In the district, a total of five hospitals and six health centers provide free health care services to the local people. While more than 65,000 students in 263 schools are receiving an education in Afrin and the surrounding residential areas, 135 mosques have opened following reconstruction activities.

Despite all these positive developments, the YPG/PKK continues to target residential areas and civilians in Afrin by using Tal Rifaat, located in the southeast of Afrin, as a base./DS

Turkey's technology-intensive product exports increased by 20.7% in the first quarter of the year, reaching $56.8 billion.

The rise comes amid the "National Technology Move" carried out under the leadership of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, which now is bearing its fruits.

According to the data of the Trade Ministry and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), exports of high, medium high, medium low and low technology products totaled $212.8 billion last year, up 33.1% from the previous year.

Of these, nearly $6.5 billion consisted of high-tech products, and $71 billion consisted of medium-high technology products.

Last year, nearly $206 billion of technology-intensive products in various classes were imported.

The increase in technology-intensive product exports throughout 2021 continued in the first quarter of this year as well.

In the January-March period, exports of technology-based manufacturing industry products increased by 20.7% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached $56.8 billion. This figure was recorded as approximately $47.1 billion in the same period of 2021.

In the first three months of the year, exports of high-tech products totaled $1.6 billion, exports of medium-high technology products were $18.7 billion, exports of medium-low technology products were $17.8 billion and exports of low-tech products amounted to $18.7 billion.

Meanwhile, there was a decline in the imports of "high-tech products" in the said three months.

Turkey, which imported $6.4 billion of high-tech products in the first three months of last year, made an import of $5.8 billion in the same period of this year, with a decrease of 9.8%.

Imports were $26.3 billion in medium-high technology products, $18.9 billion in medium-low technology products and $7.1 billion in low-tech products./DS

Seawater temperatures are substantially changing in the Black Sea, according to Turkish researchers, amid a climate crisis that has triggered floods and landslides in the eponymous region

An almost 2 degree Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) rise in seawater temperatures has alarmed scientists examining the Black Sea. At a time of escalation in landslides and floods in the Turkish region littoral to the sea, rising temperatures are blamed on the climate crisis, which spells other troubles such as drought elsewhere in Turkey.

Associate professor Ertuğrul Ağırbaş, a marine biology expert from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University in the Black Sea province of Rize, says their latest measurement found seawater temperature in March was between 9.5-10 degrees Celsius compared to the average March figure of 8.1 degrees Celsius.

Unprecedented downpours confined to certain areas, ensuing flash floods and landslides have been a common feature of the usually rainy Black Sea region. Climate change exacerbated weather conditions, as was evident in last week’s temperatures, which reached 32 degrees Celsius last week, far above seasonal norms. The sudden melting of the dense layer of snow accumulated over winter had caused landslides across the region as well.

For the past five decades, the average seawater temperature was 8.1 degrees Celsius in March and this sudden change will bring about new challenges, Ağırbaş warns. He told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Monday that it would also impact biodiversity and fishing.

“Global warming expands the areas with less oxygen in seas. The Black Sea is special among other seas as it is among the most affected by climate change. It is an inland sea with an anoxic layer (caused by the absence of mixture or drainage of deep water with fresher water near the surface). A rise in seawater temperatures carries the hydrogen sulfur layer at the bottom closer to the surface. The change further reduces the areas with a high amount of oxygen,” he said. Ağırbaş noted that the cold layer between the bottom and surface was also disappearing, affecting biodiversity and fishing. “The number of fish species had decreased and this deals a blow to commercial fishing. Fishermen will either resort to practices to catch more fish in a shorter time or will seek to fish outside our territorial waters. This means more economic losses,” he warned.

Though it may appear to be specific to the Black Sea, the change may also affect the larger fishing economy, as the Black Sea accounts for about 60% of fishing activities in Turkey, according to experts. Ağırbaş points to a significant decline in stocks of hamsi, a type of Turkish anchovy heavily consumed in the country. “In the case of hamsi, we see changing ecosystem conditions and changes in the food chain as factors in declining stocks and this, in turn, is caused by climate change. Without proper ecological conditions for their survival, the fish migrated to other waters,” he stressed. Ağırbaş added that regulations may be considered to change the period of the fishing ban to address the decline in stocks.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University is also running a project to study the impact of carbon emissions on the Black Sea ecosystem. Although less industrialized than the western regions, the Black Sea, especially its westernmost tip, is home to large industrial hubs, prompting worries about potential pollution. That western region was among the places affected by last year’s sea snot or marine mucilage, which covered the Marmara Sea and was blamed on increasing pollution of the sea and other factors aggravated by climate change.

Turkey is already tested by climate change, which aggravates disasters like forest fires and floods. Experts also warn about rising temperatures in the already warm Aegean and Mediterranean regions. The rise in seawater temperatures also plays a role in heavier rainfalls, with the evaporation of more water./DS

There is no other country in the world other than Turkey that is fighting so many global terrorist organizations at the same time, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said Sunday.

In his speech at the iftar dinner held on the occasion of the 177th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Police Service in the capital Ankara, Soylu said: "There has not been a single terrorist act in our cities since the Dec. 31, 2016 Reina attack (in Istanbul). As of the end of 2021, the numbers of the PKK terrorist organization remained at around 150 members. They can't get out of the caves, they can't organize in the cities, they tried to provoke the universities together with the leftist terrorist organizations, but we didn't allow that either."

The Reina attack was a mass shooting incident on Jan. 1, 2017, at around 1:15 a.m. local time, in which a terrorist shot and killed 39 people and wounded 79 others at the Reina nightclub in the Ortaköy neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey, where hundreds had been celebrating New Year's Eve. Uzbekistan-born Abdulkadir Masharipov was arrested in Istanbul on Jan. 17, 2017. The Daesh terrorist group claimed credit for his actions.

Turkey's efforts against Daesh made it a primary target for the terrorist group, which carried out numerous gun and bomb attacks targeting security forces and civilians. These included the country's deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 102 people and wounded 400 others in a twin suicide bombing at a rally in the capital Ankara on Oct. 10, 2015.

Soylu said that the Turkish Police Force is facing the most severe security problems in 177 years, but it is at the peak of 177 years in terms of field success, techniques, personnel and technology use.

Soylu, who said that there was one unsolved murder in 2021 – that has since been solved, reiterated that 237,820 suspects were recently caught using fingerprint integration.

Some 66 Daesh terrorist group members have been caught through the use of the facial recognition analysis system in 2021-2022, Soylu also said last week.

Underlining that Turkey has been combating multiple terrorist groups, Soylu said, "In 2021-2022, 66 Daesh terrorists were caught as a result of our colleagues' analysis via facial recognition systems."

"Our intelligence department and our anti-terrorism department are at their strongest in their history. Today, the urban structures of left-wing terrorist organizations, the PKK, Daesh and FETÖ's (Gülenist Terror Group) urban structures have been severely damaged. Some leftist terrorist organizations have been completely cleared from the countryside," he said.

The minister also stated that according to the 2022 Global Terrorism Index Report, three of the top five countries most affected by terrorism in the world are Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

"All three are countries in which the United States and the West have somehow intervened and left in the middle. According to the World Drug Report for 2021, global opium poppy cultivation increased by 24% in the world in 2020 and by 37% in Afghanistan compared to 2019. They were supposed to bring democracy, so they forgot, instead they brought poppy seeds and planted them. Just like in the case of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, we saw together how the rich countries messed things up in Ukraine, how they provoked everything and what happened to those people after that. Nowhere have they been able to fight terrorism, prevent immigration, resolve conflicts or manage the virus outbreak," he said./aa

A total of 2,824 Ukrainian civilians were evacuated Sunday from war zones to safe areas through humanitarian corridors, the country’s deputy prime minister announced.

"Today, 2,824 people were evacuated from dangerous areas. During the day, 2,622 people reached the city of Zaporizhia from Mariupol by personal vehicles and sent buses. Of them, 213 were evacuated from the city of Mariupol, and the rest from the cities of Polohy, Vasylivka, Melitopol and Berdyansk,” Irina Vereshchuk said in a video message.

She added that despite “constant cease-fire violations by the occupiers” in the Luhansk region, 202 people were evacuated from the cities of Lysychansk, Severodonetsk, Rubizhne, Popasna and Kreminna.

Noting that some of the buses sent for evacuation were blocked by the Russian military, Vereshchuk said they will continue to evacuate people.

Russia's war on Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, has been met with international outrage, with the European Union, US and the UK, among others, implementing stringent economic penalties on Moscow.

At least 1,793 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 2,439 injured, according to estimates by the UN, which noted that the true figure is likely far higher.

More than 4.5 million Ukrainians have also fled to several European countries, with millions more displaced inside the country, according to the UN refugee agency./aa

The Polish town of Przemysl near the border with Ukraine was bustling with activity Sunday as more than 1,000 Ukrainian refugees swarmed its train station.

The station saw higher numbers of arrivals despite a decreasing number of incoming refugees.

Sergio, a volunteer helping refugees with his linguistic skills, said many of the Ukrainians had just escaped from Ukraine and some of those who left weeks ago were now returning to Kyiv and Odessa.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, he said there are two special trains that will take Ukrainians to the cities of Hannover in Germany and Prague in the Czech Republic and everyone was trying to board them.

Przemysl is approximately 91 kilometers (57 miles) from Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine.

Refugees reaching Poland are directed to humanitarian aid centers and continue their journey with free tickets provided to them.

Przemysl has been one of the busiest towns in Poland since the Russian army launched its war on Ukraine.

Russia's war on Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, has been met with international outrage, with the European Union, US and the UK, among others, implementing stringent economic penalties on Moscow.

At least 1,793 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 2,439 injured, according to estimates by the UN, which noted that the true figure is likely far higher.

More than 4.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the war in late February, according to UN figures./aa