UNRWA SITUATION REPORT #71 ON THE SITUATION IN THE GAZA STRIP AND THE WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM — January 30, 2024
Key Points
The Gaza Strip
Intense fighting in/around Khan Younis (southwest of Gaza) over the last eight days is causing loss of life and damage to civilian infrastructure, including UNRWA’s largest shelter in the southern area, the Khan Younis Training Centre (KYTC).
As of 29 January 2024, the total number of UNRWA colleagues killed since the beginning of hostilities has increased by one and is now 152.
As of 29 January, up to 1.7 million* people (over 75 per cent of the population) ** have been displaced across the Gaza Strip, some multiple times.***
Siddarth Kara’s book exposes the exploitation behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Photo Courtesy of Siddharth Kara
“Unspeakable riches have brought the people of the Congo little other than unspeakable pain.” So writes Siddharth Kara in Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. It’s one of the many poetic phrases that make this book easy on the ear but hard on the heart and mind.
There’s pleasure in turning the pages of such finely crafted prose, pain in knowing that, if you have half a heart, you’ll never be able to see your smartphone, laptop, tablet, solar power system, or electric car quite the same way again, that you’ll see blood all over the supply chain that put them in your hand, on your roof, or in your driveway.
CARACAS, Jan 31 2024 (IPS)* – Rural life in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be marked by poverty and inequality compared to the towns and cities where the vast majority of the population lives. A new focus on rural life in the region could help reveal and address the challenges and neglect faced by people in the countryside. | En español
A family from the Q’eqchi Mayan indigenous people of Guatemala gathers to share a meal cooked with firewood. Life in many rural areas of Latin America continues to be marked by scarce resources and inequality, in comparison with urban areas. CREDIT: IDB
(UN News)* — War in Sudan is putting the future of its 24 million youngest citizens at risk, the Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country has warned.
“Sudan is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. It’s a living nightmare for children,” Mandeep O’Brien said this week in an interview with UN News.
Nearly 10 months have passed since clashes erupted between the Sudanese Army and a rival group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), leaving14 million children in desperate need of lifesaving assistance.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 31 2024 (IPS)* – Contractionary economic trends since 2008 and ‘geopolitical’ conflicts subverting international cooperation have worsened world conditions, especially in the poorest countries, mainly in Africa, leaving their poor worse off.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Conditions and prospects are so bad that two well-known globalisation cheerleaders have appealed to rich nations for urgent action.
Former IMF Deputy Managing Director and World Bank Senior Vice-President, Professor Anne Krueger and influential Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf warn ominously of the dire consequences of inaction.
Deepening stagnation Following tepid growth after the 2008 global financial crisis, Covid-19 disrupted supply chains worldwide. Then, post-pandemic recovery was disrupted by wars in Ukraine and then Gaza.
Whose Child is This? Whose child is this? Is this child an Iraqi . . . an Israeli . . . a Chechnyan . . . an Afghani . . . a Kurd . . . a Nigerian? Is she or he English, Indonesian, Spanish, Lebanese, Turkish, Congolese, Bosnian, Persian? Does it matter? Is this child not a daughter or son to each of us?
Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Amer Hosin.
Is this child not a human being born of a union of a man and woman whose intimacy, whose passion, whose very breathe yielded a life that sought only to live . . . to enjoy some moments of laughter and delight, some moments of comfort and calm . . . to make yet another life.
23 January 2024 (UNRWA)* —Women and girls are among the most vulnerable groups in any society. Their vulnerability is typically amplified in times of crisis, such as the displacement of Gaza’s population because of the war.
(UN News)* — Mass evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military to the people of Gaza continue to push them “into ever smaller areas” amid “ever-intensifying violence” in likely violation of international humanitarian law, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Friday [].
The OHCHR warning came nearly four months into the war, which has seen widespread Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas-led attacks on Israeli communities beginning 7 October when some 1,200 people were massacred and more than 250 taken hostage.
(UN News)* —Women and children account for roughly 70 per cent of people killed in the war in Gaza, with two mothers killed every hour since hostilities erupted more than 100 days ago, according to a UN Women report published on Friday [19 January 2024].
The report examines the gendered impact of the conflict, which has left more than 23,000 Palestinians dead, according to Gazan health authorities, about 16,000 of whom are women or children.
(UN News)* — Babies are being “delivered into hell” in Gaza with many others likely dying as a result of conflict with Israel and increasingly dire conditions in the enclave, UN humanitarians warned on Friday [].
Reiterating urgent international calls for a ceasefire, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that there have been nearly 20,000 births since the start of widespread Israeli bombardment in response to Hamas-led attacks in Israel that left some 1,200 dead and approximately 250 taken hostage.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 