UNITED NATIONS, Oct 272023 (IPS)* – Last August, 91 UN member states, “in a demonstration of solidarity and commitment”, signed a U.S.-Led Joint Communiqué condemning the Use of Food as a Weapon of War.
A young girl eats bread distributed by World Food Programme, at a school shelter in Gaza. Credit: WFP/Ali Jadallah
Roughly 345 million people – in 79 countries – face acute food insecurity, often caused or exacerbated by armed conflicts, the US said, pointing out that the joint communiqué was born out of the United States’ resolve to once again use its UN Security Council presidency to draw attention to conflict-induced food insecurity.
Geneva/Cairo/Port Sudan, 16 October 2023 (IOM)* – Six months into the conflict, Sudan has become the largest internal displacement crisis in the world with over 7.1 million people displaced within the country, 4.5 million of whom have been displaced since violence erupted in mid-April, according to the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Ali, originally from Khartoum, is now forced to sleep in the open air in Northern Sudan. Shelter is among the most pressing needs for millions displaced by the violence. Photo: IOM Sudan/Noory Taha
Approximately three million are originally from Khartoum, the capital and the epicenter of the conflict.
Marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Mr. Guterres pointed out that nearly 700 million people are living on less than $2.15 per day and over a billion don’t have access to basic needs like food, water, health care and education.
Billions more lack sanitation and access to energy, jobs, housing and social safety nets, he added.
Distress is being deepened by conflicts, the climate crisis, discrimination and exclusion – particularly against women and girls, the UN chief said.
Less than a kilometre from Gaza, pallets of food, fuel, water, and medicine are among the hundreds of tonnes of lifesaving aid packed into a long convoy of trucks idling on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, as drivers await Israel’s green light so they can reach 2.3 million besieged Palestinians caught in the crossfire of the ongoing war.
As humanitarians continued to echo the UN Secretary-General’s urgent calls on Israel to open a safe aid delivery corridor, Gaza will soon run out of basic supplies, according to UN agencies on the ground, who raised alarms about a looming unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.
(UN News)* — The UN Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) issued an urgent call on Saturday [] for Israeli Authorities to protect all civilians sheltering in Gaza.
The statement came as the Israeli-imposed deadline for some 1.1 million civilians to leave the northern part of the enclave, ahead of what is expected to be a major advance into Gaza by Israeli ground forces, expired.
The shutdown of Gaza’s only power plant will exacerbate an already desperate humanitarian crisis for more than 2.2 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip, amid a massive bombing campaign by Israel that has killed at least 1,350 people and injured more than 6,000 people.
The airstrikes were launched in retaliation to the attack on 7 October by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups from Gaza who fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and injuring more than 2,700 and taking hostages, including many civilians.
13. Oct 2023 — We are alarmed by Israel’s call for over a million Palestinians to leave northern Gaza in less than 24 hours.
Israel must rescind this order immediately. Demands for the population in its entirety to relocate in such an immediate manner put at risk the lives of those forced to flee.
The Government of Israel has not provided any assurances for their safety while in transit or for the safety of civilians remaining in the Gaza Strip as fighting continues.
Humanitarian agencies operating in Gaza are reporting an unfolding humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale.
“Netanyahu made clear with his little map what normalization really seeks: eliminating Palestine… from the region and legitimizing greater Israel, all with the blessing of Arab regimes,” one critic said.
Palestine 1947 Map Palestine Remembered
22 Sep 2023– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and their defenders today after presenting a map of “The New Middle East” without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
7 Oct 2023 – Right now Palestinians, Israelis, and all of us with families on the ground are terrified for our loved ones. We grieve the lives of those already lost and remain committed to a future where every life is precious, and all people live in freedom and safety.
Following 16 years of Israeli military blockade, Palestinian fighters from Gaza launched an unprecedented assault, in which hundreds of Israelis were killed and wounded, and civilians kidnapped.
The Israeli government declared war, launching airstrikes, killing hundreds of Palestinians and wounding thousands, bombing residential buildings and threatening to commit war crimes against besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 