For anyone — including a Jew like myself — who hasn’t stubbornly closed their eyes and covered their ears over the past eleven months, one thing should be obvious: it’s simply absurd to label outrage, protest, and despair over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza as “antisemitism.” Period.
23 Sep 2024 – It is irony at its most bitter. Not so very long ago, hundreds of white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. With tiki-torches held high, they chanted “Jews will not replace us!”
And yet here we are, seven years later, and apparently these fanatical card-carrying antisemites have indeed been “replaced” in the minds of many Americans. Why?
Because a deceitful campaign now portrays anti-genocide college students (including many Jews) as the leading purveyors of “the world’s oldest hatred.”
But for anyone — including a Jew like myself — who hasn’t stubbornly closed their eyes and covered their ears over the past eleven months, one thing should be obvious: it’s simply absurd to label outrage, protest, and despair over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza as “antisemitism.” Period.
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government’s attacks and unlawful blockade against Gazahave inflicted profound trauma and suffering on Palestinian children, especially those with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 30 September 2024.
.The Israeli military’s extensive use of explosive weapons has caused serious injuries resulting in permanent disabilities and lifelong scarring for children in Gaza.
(UN News)* — More than one million people across Lebanon have been uprooted by ongoing and deadly Israeli airstrikes across the country, including one reported early Monday [] morning in a residential area of central Beirut, adding to fears of a full-scale invasion.
In a situation update published on Monday the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 11 health workers had been killed and 10 injured between 17 and 28 September.
Some 37 health centres have been forced to close due to the fighting out of 317 in total, and three hospitals treating patients have been evacuated.
(UN News)* — A new humanitarian crisis is unfolding at Lebanon’s border with Syria as thousands of people flee Israeli shelling linked to the war in Gaza, UN humanitarians said on Thursday [], just as Israel premier Benyamin Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly.
Only hours earlier, UN Secretary-General António Guterreswarned the Security Council that “hell is breaking loose in Lebanon” along the UN-patrolled line of separation, with exchanges of fire greater in “scope, depth and intensity” than previously.
With the amount of aid Israel is currently allowing into Gaza, it will take humanitarian agencies more than two years to deliver the kits needed to prepare tents, makeshift shelters and damaged homes south of Wadi Gaza for this coming winter, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council-led Shelter Cluster in Palestine.
Makeshift site in Khan Younis, Gaza. Photo credit: Alison Ely / Palestine Shelter Cluster
25 September 2024 — At least 25,000 sealing-off kits, the equivalent of 25 truckloads, must be delivered per week to southern Gaza before the end of November, to meet the vast needs.
(UN News)* —UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the Security Council on Wednesday [] “to work in lock-step” to end the escalating violence between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants across the Blue Line in southern Lebanon.
“Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon” the UN chief warned, noting that the exchanges of fire along the UN-patrolled line of separation “have expanded in scope, depth and intensity.”
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Monday [23 September 2024] saw Lebanon’s bloodiest day in a generation, as Israel continues to bombard largely Hezbollah-controlled territory, doubling down on the devastating electronic device attacks which killed hundreds last week.
(UN News)* — As Lebanon mourns the victims of a wave of Israeli airstrikes believed to have left hundreds dead, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday [] against a return to the “dark days of 2006” when full-scale war broke out, calling for an urgent de-escalation and the protection of civilians.
Speaking from Beirut in the aftermath of Lebanon’s “worst day in 18 years”, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deputy representative in the country, Ettie Higgins, said that unless the violence stopped, the consequences could be “unconscionable”.
(UN News)* — Last October’s terror attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on Israeli communities marked a devastating day for children, and the suffering has continued unabated, a senior UNICEF official said on Thursday [].
Ted Chaiban, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action, stressed the urgent need for an immediate end to the hostilities and a negotiated political settlement that prioritises the rights and well-being of both Israeli and Palestinian children, now and in the future.
(UN News)* —The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday [] voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution that demands that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
UN Photo/Evan Schneider | Result of the General Assembly vote on a draft resolution on the ICJ advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
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With a recorded vote of 124 nations in favour, 14 against, and 43 abstentions, the resolution calls for Israel to comply with international law and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.
Joint press release: 15 aid organisations demand international pressure for an immediate ceasefire, arms embargo, and end to Israel’s systematic aid obstruction
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Destruction on Al-Nasser Street, Gaza City. Photo: NRC
16 September 2024 (Norwegian Refugee Council)* — New data has revealed the scale of aid obstruction, and the consequential drastic fall in aid entering Gaza.