'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — Amid reports that the Israeli military stormed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday [] in search of Hamas fighters, UN humanitarians warned that new food insecurity data indicates that famine could happen “anytime”.
“Famine is projected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in the northern governorates,” the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said, upon publication of a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza.
GENEVA (UN Human Rights)* 18 March 2024 – Twelve months into the armed conflict in Sudan, 24 million children are at risk of a generational catastrophe, and their rights to life, survival, protection, education, health, and development have all been gravely violated, a UN committee said.
(UN News)*, — Efforts are being made in the south of Madagascar to end a traditional but illegal practice in which girls are promised as a wife to older men, sometimes even before they are born.
The arranged marriage typically involves the exchange of a highly prized and culturally important Zebu cow for teenage girls as young as 13 years old.
Now two UN agencies UNICEF and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) are working together with the local authorities to educate women and also men, through sessions focusing on positive masculinity, about the dangers of the practice and how to treat women as equals.
Prolonged exposure to conflict and deprivation taking a devastating long-term physical and mental toll on generation of children
DAMASCUS/AMMAN 15 March 2024 (UNICEF)* – After thirteen years of conflict in Syria, almost 7.5 million children in the country are in need of humanitarian assistance – more than at any other time during the conflict.
(UN News)* — Amid a rising tide of anti-Muslim hate, top UN officials condemned the scourge on Friday [] as the General Assembly adopted a resolution to push back against it during commemorations marking the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
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The new resolution, tabled by Pakistan, calls for, among other things, concerted action to fight ongoing violence against Muslims and requests the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special envoy to combat Islamophobia.
The world body created the International Day through a resolution adopted following attacks on two mosques Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 51 people dead on this day in 2019.
Prior to adopting the new resolution, by a vote of 113 in favour to none against, with 44 abstentions, a divided Assembly rejected by a close margin two amendments proposed by a group of European nations.
(UN News)* — The war in Gaza has left a staggering almost 23 millions tonnes of rubble and unexploded weapons scattered across the enclave, UN humanitarians said on Friday [].
– The Biden administration’s sheer hypocrisy is reflected in its policy of dropping food packages into a devastated Gaza, while at the same time, it continues to arm Israel with missiles and heavy artillery to kill Palestinian civilians suffering hunger and starvation.
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Much of the Gaza Strip lies in ruins. Credit: UNRWA/Ashraf Amra. February 2024
As US Congressman Ro Khanna (Democrat of California) said last week: “You can’t have a policy of giving aid (to Palestinians) and giving Israel the weapons to bomb the food trucks at the same time.”
Western capitals no longer treat Israel like a state, a political actor capable of slaughtering children, but rather as a sacred cause. So any opposition has to be a blasphemy.
7 Mar 2024 – If you read the establishment media, you might conclude that a serious battle is being waged by Israel and its most ardent supporters to tackle an apparent new wave of antisemitism in the West.
Jonathan Cook
In article after article, we are told how Israel and western Jewish leadership bodies are demanding our concern, and outrage, at a rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents.
Organisations such as the Community Security Trust in the UK and the Anti-Defamation League in the US produce lengthy reports on the relentless increase in antisemitism, especially since 7 October, and warn that action is urgently required.
Undoubtedly, there is a real threat of antisemitism and, as ever, it comes largely from the far right. Israel’s actions – and its false claim to be representing all Jews – only help to stoke it.
(UN News)* — Out-of-control gang violence has created a humanitarian crisis in Haiti that the UN aims to help alleviate with the creation of an airbridge with the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 