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Israel is bracing itself for heavy downpours and flash floods that Storm Byron is forecast to produce, especially in the coastal areas.

The Israel Meteorological Service said on Thursday that rain is likely to cover cities from northern Israel to the Negev in the south, with floods possible in low-lying cities. Up to 150mm (5.9 inches) of rain is estimated in some coastal areas, with wind gusts of up to 90km/h (56mph).

The Israeli army chief, Eyal Zamir, issued safety guidelines for the military, cancelling all leave until 6am on Friday, prohibiting all outdoor training activities and limiting soldiers to “operational” and “essential” activities.

Israel has been on high alert. Cities across the country have taken measures to prepare for the storm, reinforcing emergency teams and opening shelters in case they are needed.

Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Eli Cohen assessed the situation with various government bodies to ensure an uninterrupted electricity supply during the storm.

In contrast, unrecognised Bedouin communities in southern Israel are bracing for disaster, hoping for a miracle. Close to 30,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel live in those communities without any basic services, including electricity, water, or infrastructure. Many of the homes and buildings in these communities are under demolition orders. They will face the brunt of the storm without recourse for help from Israeli authorities.

‘Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people’

Recognised non-Jewish towns in the Negev have a tense relationship with the state. On Wednesday, Omar al-Asam, head of the Tal al-Sabe Council, announced a strike to protest against the police blocking off the town’s only entrance and assaulting one of the residents.

“The police’s racist and aggressive conduct is unacceptable, and it goes to show the police’s racist attitude towards Arab citizens across the country, especially in the Negev,” al-Asam told local media.

This tension is a mainstay in Israel’s relationship with its non-Jewish citizens. In 2019, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens.”

“According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it,” Netanyahu wrote on Instagram in response to criticism from Israeli actor Rotem Sela.

This attitude is part of Israel’s institutional discrimination against non-Jewish citizens, amounting to apartheid according to experts and human rights organisations. In the past two years, right-wing politicians have advocated for the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel or conditioning nationality on loyalty. Some have repeatedly attempted to outlaw non-Jewish parties and expel members of Knesset, the Israeli parliament, most recently in June 2025.

Byron poses ‘lot of challenges’

Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank also faces serious challenges from the storm.

Youssef Abu Saadah, the head of the meteorological service in Palestine, told Al Jazeera, “The expected rain from Storm Byron is more than a third of the average yearly rainfall. This poses a lot of challenges.”

He clarified that flood warnings in the Negev are partly because of the downstream from the Hebron hills in the West Bank.

Widespread disruption has hit Portuguese air travel and trains, hospitals and schools after trade unions called the biggest nationwide strike action in more than a decade against government labour reforms.

Heavy disruption on Thursday has been felt across public sectors as workers protest against a draft law aiming to simplify firing procedures, extend the length of fixed-term contracts and expand the minimum services required during industrial disputes.

Some public transport operated due to minimum service requirements imposed by authorities, but the capital, Lisbon’s, streets were noticeably quieter.

Lisbon’s main train station was empty with most services cancelled and the TAP Air Portugal national airline called off about two-thirds of its usual 250 flights.

While hospitals stayed open, most surgeries and appointments have been postponed as nursing staff walked out.

Thursday’s walkout is Portugal’s largest since June 2013, when the country was forced to gut public spending in exchange for international aid after being engulfed by a debt crisis that affected several European nations.

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has insisted that the labour reforms, with more than 100 measures, were intended to “stimulate economic growth and pay better salaries”.

But the communist-leaning General Confederation of the Portuguese Worker (CGTP) and more moderate General Union of Workers (UGT) have lambasted the plans.

The CGTP organised about 20 demonstrations across the country. Its secretary-general, Tiago Oliveira, called the reforms “among the biggest attacks on the world of work”.

He told the AFP news agency that the government action would “normalise job insecurity”, “deregulate working hours” and “make dismissals easier”.

Of a working population of some five million people, about 1.3 million are already in insecure positions, Oliveira said.

‘Already a success’

With Portugal set to elect a new president in early 2026, Oliveira said he considered the strike was “already a success” as it had drawn public attention to the government’s labour reforms.

“Without a doubt, we’ll have a great general strike,” the union leader added.

Public opinion is largely behind the action, with 61 percent of those polled in favour of the walkout, according to a survey published in the Portuguese press.

On the eve of the strike, Montenegro said he hoped “that the country will function as normally as possible … because the rights of some must not infringe on the rights of others”.

Although his party lacks a majority in parliament, Montenegro’s government should be able to force the bill through with the support of the liberals, and the far right, which has become the second-largest political force in Portugal.

The left-wing opposition has accused Montenegro’s camp of not telling voters that workers’ rights rollbacks were on the cards while campaigning for the last parliamentary elections.