(UN News)* — Large parts of the city of Rafah are now a “ghost town”, with UN humanitarians reporting on Tuesday [] that some 450,000 Gazans have been forcibly displaced from the southernmost city by Israeli evacuation orders in the last week.
UNRWA | Smoke rises over Rafah as bombardments continue. (file)
“Empty streets in Rafah as families continue to flee in search of safety… UNRWA estimates that nearly 450,000 people have been forcibly displaced from Rafah since 6 May,” said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in a post from western Rafah on X.
“Inland in Rafah is now a ghost town. It’s hard to believe there were over one million people sheltering here just a week ago,” reported UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge.
(UN News)* — Nearly 360,000 people have fled Rafah in the last week amid continuing Israeli bombardment that has crippled humanitarian aid deliveries and is believed to have killed another UN aid worker, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Monday [].
“Nearly 360,000 people have fled Rafah since the first evacuation order a week ago,” the UN agency said in a post on X, referencing leafleting by the Israeli military ordering those in eastern Rafah to leave their shelters.
In another alert, UNRWA warned of ongoing “restricted humanitarian access” to and across the Gaza Strip that was now “a matter of life or death” for Gazans already suffering “relentless bombardments and food insecurity”.
Statement from Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) following forced, unlawful evacuation orders in Rafah:
Tented shelters in Raffah, southern Gaza. Photo: Yousef Hammash/NRC
“Israel’s military offensive in Rafah could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on approximately 1.4 million displaced civilians in the area.
“The relocation orders issued by Israel today to thousands of Gazans, directing them to move to Al-Mawasi, are beyond alarming. The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services.
(Jerusalem) –Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October 2023, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection, Human Rights Watch said on 14 May 2024.
This is a summary of what was said by UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at 7 May 2024‘s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva
UNICEF/UNI521730/El BabaChildren stand in front of the tent where they are staying with their families in Rafah, the Gaza Strip.
(UNICEF)* -– “Every warning. Every story of children killed and wounded. Every image of heartbreak and bloodshed. Every mind-boggling piece of data on the number of children and mothers killed; of homes and hospitals destroyed. All Ignored.
“Our worst fear – Gazans’ nightmare – appears to be a reality. A reality that those holding power have the ability to prevent.
BULAWAYO, May 8 2024 (IPS)* – While there have been a record number of displaced people worldwide, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), migrant remittances are promoting human development.
Migrants use a cross-border bus in Bulawayo to enter South Africa. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS
Millions of people from developing countries rely on money sent from abroad by relatives, helping drive local economies marked by high unemployment and poverty, according to humanitarian agencies that include the World Bank.
(UN News)* — Money sent home by migrants abroad has surpassed foreign direct investment in boosting the gross domestic product (GDP) of developing countries, UN migration agency IOM said in the latest edition of its flagship report, released on Tuesday [7 May 2024].
World Migration Report 2024 reveals a significant shift in global migration patterns, including a record number of people displaced due to conflict, violence, natural and other disasters.
Speaking at the launch in Dhaka, Bangladesh, IOM Director General Amy Pope said the report aims to “demystify the complexity of human mobility through evidence-based data and analysis”.
Is the West launching an all-out war against global ‘South,’ against the BRICS – plus, against the ‘other’? Are we in the first stages of a civilizational struggle initiated by the U.S.-led assemblage we call the “collective West”? That would have seemed an absurd idea until very recently.
Bremmer, Michael
Yet, there are remarkable developments on the world scene that suggest that dramatic alterations indeed are in the offing. Let us examine them; then interpolate what systemic meaning they might auger.
1) Palestine is the most revealing, graphic indicator that something is badly askew in the mentality of political elites in North America and Europe – with resonance among their accommodating publics.
Complicity in the genocidal actions of Israel in Gaza – accompanied by pogroms in the West Bank – is a stunning phenomenon. It forces us to reconsider who we in the West are and what we stand for.
‘We now see huge fear among the population of the West Bank.’UNRWA | Nour Shams Palestine refugee camp, that is only 3 kilometers away from the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank after Israeli forces’ operation that lasted more than 55 hours between 18 and 21 April
(UN News)* —As war rages in Gaza, violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also increased substantially, a senior official with the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Wednesday [8 May 2024].
“The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is acting as if there is an armed conflict in the West Bank,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told UN News.
BRATISLAVA, May 3 2024 (IPS)* – A new report has warned media freedom in the EU [European Union] is close to “breaking point” in many states amid rising authoritarianism across the continent.
Protestors gathered in Bratislava on May 2, 2024 to protest against changes to the public broadcaster, RTVS. The placard in the picture reads: RTVS on a flat-screen TV; STVR about a flat earth. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS
In its latest annual report covering 2023, the Berlin-based Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) highlighted widespread threats, intimidation and violence against journalists and attacks on the independence of public broadcasters in the EU, with roll backs in media freedom down to “deliberate harm or neglect by national governments”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 