‘I’ve seen the opposite of hope. We can’t allow the normalisation of this.’
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UN News/Abdelmonem Makki | Speaking from Gaza, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told UN News “this is and has been a war on children.”
(UN News)* — Almost 3,000 malnourished children are at risk of dying before their families’ eyes in Gaza, where the eight-month-long war continues, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as spokesperson James Elder told UN News on Saturday [] about the situation on the ground in the besieged and bombarded enclave.
JERUSALEM (WFP)* -– As fighting escalates in the south and centre of Gaza, the toll on civilians is devastating, and the continued hostile operating environment make it near-impossible for humanitarian operations to deliver desperately needed food aid, warned WFP’s Deputy Executive Director, Carl Skau as he on 14 June 2024 concluded a two day- mission to Gaza.
”Driving through Gaza City to Jabalia, the destruction is unbelievable. In the North of Gaza, I didn’t see one single building intact and there was constant shelling with drones buzzing overhead,” said Skau.
“The people here are traumatised and exhausted. One woman who had lost her husband told me this war has been going on for 250 days – but to her it felt like 250 years.”
(UN News)* —Violence against children caught in armed conflict reached “extreme levels” last year, with a “shocking” 21 per cent increase in extreme violations, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a report published on Thursday [13 June 2024].
Children were killed and maimed in unprecedented numbers in places such as Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, notably Gaza; Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Ukraine, his annual report on Children and Armed Conflict revealed.
The alarming increase was due to the evolving nature, complexity, and intensification of armed conflict, as well as the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, the report said.
(UN News)* —The scenes of devastation witnessed in the aftermath of Israel’s military operation to release hostages from the Nuseirat refugee camp proves that each day the war continues “it only grows more horrific” the UN’s top humanitarian official said on Sunday [].
According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 270 people including children and other non-combatants were killed during intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in and around the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday [8 June 2024], in the middle area of the war-torn enclave. More than 600 were reportedly injured with hospitals overwhelmed.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2024 (IPS)* –– The continued veiled threats from Russia, warning of nuclear attacks on Ukraine, have prompted some politicians in Europe to visualize a nuclear-armed European Union (EU).
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UN Secretary-General António Guterres (center right) attends a Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation on March 18, 2024. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
NEW YORK, Jun 6 2024 (IPS)* — It is quite astonishing and clearly insane, that Manfred Weber, the German leader of the European Union’s center-right European People’s Party, now expected to come in first in the European Parliament election scheduled on June 6-9th, is calling for the EU’s own nuclear “deterrent”—arguing that the US-stationed nuclear weapons in five NATO states, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherland, and Turkey, may be inadequate protection for Europe’s security should Trump, that great friend of Russia, be elected!
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Aerial view of the European Parliament in Brussels
The war has caused unprecedented devastation to the Palestinian labour market and the wider economy, according to new data and analysis by the ILO and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Since hostilities erupted in October 2023, the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip has reached a staggering 79.1 per cent. In the West Bank, which has also been severely impacted by the crisis, unemployment has reached 32 per cent.
(Beirut) – Israel’s widespread use of white phosphorus in south Lebanon is putting civilians at grave risk and contributing to civilian displacement, Human Rights Watch on 5 June 2024 said.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 2024 (IPS)* –The Biden administration, which is frantically attempting to finalize a shaky peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, is being stymied by at least two far right-wing politicians in Netanyahu’s cabinet—Foreign Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir—and also by the Israeli Prime Minister himself who wants to totally eradicate Hamas before he agrees to a cease-fire.
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Destruction in Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh
But peace or no peace, the charges against Israel, including genocide, war crimes, starvation as a weapon of war, and the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, and churches, will continue to linger.
(UN News)* —Violence in the occupied West Bank linked to the war in Gaza passed a deadly milestone with more than 500 Palestinians killed since 7 October, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights chief Volker Türk said on Tuesday [].
Two of the latest fatalities were 16-year-old Ahmed Ashraf Hamidat and 17-year-old Mohammed Musa Al Bitar, both shot “at a distance of about 70 metres while running away after throwing stones and/or Molotov cocktails towards a[n Israeli] military post outside a settlement near Aqabat Jaber, CCTV footage shows”, said the High Commissioner’s Office, OHCHR.
Photo credit: UNICEF. \ 
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 