UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2025 (IPS)* – President Trump—whose rash and ill-conceived proposals continue unabated—has threatened to “seize Gaza,” turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” and move Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, two longstanding American allies who depend heavily on US support for their survival.
Children in Gaza stand on debris from a destroyed building. February 2025. Credit: UN News
The US President has also hinted that both countries would suffer either cutbacks or elimination of billions of dollars in economic and military aid —if they refuse to cooperate with him.
(Beirut) –Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon between October 2023 and December 2024 destroyed vast swathes of critical civilian infrastructure and public services, preventing tens of thousands of Lebanese from returning to their homes, Human Rights Watch said on 17 February 2025.
(UN News)* — As the UN and partners continue to deliver life-saving assistance across the Gaza Strip, the scale of needs remains overwhelming, requiring urgent and sustained support, UN aid coordination office OCHA said on Monday [].
OCHA cited Gaza’s Ministry of Health which stressed that oxygen supplies are critically needed to keep emergency, surgical and intensive care services running at hospitals, including Al Shifa and Al Rantisi hospitals in Gaza City.
(UN News)* — The forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern part of the West Bank is escalating at an alarming pace, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees UNRWA warned on .
Several refugee camps are nearly empty after Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall on 21 January, making it the longest operation in the West Bank since the second intifada, according to the agency.
NEW YORK, Feb 7 2025 (IPS)* –Even after Trump declared that he wanted to take back the Panama Canal, acquire Greenland by force, if necessary, and rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, I could not, like many others, imagine that his madness could reach a new unfathomable height.
Much of Gaza has been destroyed in the current conflict. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba, February 2025
At his news conference on February 4, with Prime Minister Netanyahu standing beside him, sporting a sinister grin, Trump announced that the US would take over Gaza, ship the Palestinians like sheep to Jordan and Egypt, build such a mesmerizing Riviera along the Mediterranean Sea and, voilà, bring peace and prosperity to the whole region.
US president, Donald Trump, on 4 February 2025, announced his plan for the Middle East: the US to take control of Gaza, 2 million Palestinians to be evacuated to Egypt and Jordan, and to build in Gaza an international touristic resort… World’s human rights organisations stated that the plan violates international laws and amounts to “ethnic cleansing“...
On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Declaration setting out, for the first time, the fundamental human rights that should to be universally protected.
(Washington, DC) – US President Donald Trump’s statement on February 4, 2025, that the United States would “take over” the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinian population there would need to be moved out would, if implemented, amount to an alarming escalation of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, Human Rights Watch on 5 February 2025 said.
(UN News)* —UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the international community to continue pushing for a full ceasefire and the release of all hostages in Gaza, and “to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing” in the enclave, in a speech in New York on Wednesday [].
UN News | Children in Gaza stand on debris from a destroyed building.
The UN chief spoke in the wake of comments made by United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday night in the White House, who suggested the US could “take over” the Gaza Strip, calling on Palestinians living there to leave.
(UN News)* — Escalating hostilities in the occupied West Bank are putting the fragile ceasefire in Gaza at risk, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, warned in a statement on Monday [].
It comes a day after Israeli Security Forces (ISF) carried out a series of controlled detonations at the Jenin refugee camp, located in the northern West Bank, destroying large areas there “in a split second”.
(UN News)* — People continue to stream back into Gaza City in the wake of the temporary ceasefire across the Strip, with some 500,000 reportedly returning so far, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Thursday [].
Tess Ingram, Communications Manager for UNICEF Middle East and North Africa, is in the northern city where she witnessed people moving through the streets on donkeys, in cars, or by bicycle.
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“There’s a lot of people with shovels trying to remove rubble, and of course you can see people setting up makeshift shelters or tents on what I’m guessing used to be their homes,” she told UN News.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 