(UN News)* — UN humanitarians in war-ravaged Gaza are “hanging on by our fingertips” with civil society on the brink of full-blown collapse, they warned on Saturday [].
Women and children are bearing the brunt in terms of deaths and injuries as Israeli troops battle Palestinian militants across the enclave, with nowhere safe to go, and aid distribution stymied by war, insufficient access and insufficient supplies crossing into the Strip.
Gaza Humanitarian Disaster Heralds ‘Breakdown’ of Society
(UN News)* — As intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza and fighting with Palestinian armed groups continued to impede aid operations, reports on the ground of children begging for water and people cutting down telephone poles for firewood indicated that “society is about to break down”, UN humanitarians said on Friday [].
By Avril Benoît, executive director of MSF-USA | Médecins Sans Frontières [Doctors without Borders]*
“The US veto makes it complicit in the carnage in Gaza,” said Avril Benoît, executive director of MSF-USA.
On 20 November, five MSF vehicles parked in front of our clinic in Gaza city were destroyed by the intervention of the Israeli forces. The clinic was also damaged as a result and part of the building was engulfed by fire for a few hours.
Today, December 8, the United Nations Security Council failed to adopt a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza—blocked by a veto from the United States.
Geneva, 7 December 2023 (IOM)* — The International Organization for Migration (IOM) echoes the call of the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres for a lasting and immediate humanitarian ceasefire to allow critical aid to reach those in urgent need across the Gaza Strip.
IOM is responding to pressing humanitarian needs in Gaza. Photo: UNRWA 2023.
IOM also shares the grave concerns raised by UN officials as humanitarian efforts in Gaza near collapse due to intensive fighting and lack of access.
(UN News)* —The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday [] morning New York time to discuss the catastrophic situation in Gaza. This follows Wednesday’s urgent letter by Secretary-General António Guterres – one of the most powerful tools at his disposal – urging the body to help end carnage in the war-battered enclave through a lasting humanitarian ceasefire.
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | A wide view of the UN Security Council chambers as members meet on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
A resolution tabled late afternoon in the chamber calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire was vetoed by the United States.
Taiz, YEMEN, 6 December 2023 (UNFPA)* –“One day, when I was returning from fetching water, I collapsed on the road. I was bleeding so badly that I knew I was going to lose my baby.”
Umm Mahra was 31 years old and five months pregnant when she was forced to seek refuge with her family in a remote displacement camp in Taiz, in Yemen’s southwestern highlands.
Conflict had erupted across the country and a crippling drought took hold, exacerbating the situation for millions of people already fleeing for their lives.
(UNCCD)* —Recent drought-related data based on research in the past two years and compiled by the UN point to “an unprecedented emergency on a planetary scale, where the massive impacts of human-induced droughts are only starting to unfold.”
(Beirut) – Two Israeli strikes in Lebanon on October 13, 2023, that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six other journalists was an apparently deliberate attack on civilians and thus a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today [7December2023].
This residential building in Gaza collapsed after it was targeted in an Israeli airstrike. Photo: Yousef Hammash/NRC
5 December 2023 — “The pulverising of Gaza now ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age. Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 