MILAN, Italy (Human Rights Watch)* – Italy’s Democratic Party-Five Star Movement coalition government should revoke anti-asylum and anti-rescue measures held over from the previous government, Human Rights Watch on 31 January said.
The Trump administration’s plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict disregards international law and diminishes prospects for a just and lasting peace, said two major humanitarian organisations on 29 January 20920.
Children heading home from school pass the yellow steel gate at Qafisheh checkpoint in Hebron, 2 May 2019. Photo: Ivan Karakashian/NRC
(UN News)* — A minimum of $1.4 billion is needed to fund the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, the acting chief said on Friday [31 January 2020].
Christian Saunders said the funds would provide essential services throughout 2020, including life-saving humanitarian assistance for 5.6 million registered Palestine refugees across the Middle East.
31 January 2020 (UN News)* – A United States plan released this week to resolve the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is “lopsided” and will only entrench occupation, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday [31 January 2020].
UNICEF/Ahed Izhiman| On 12 July 2018 in the State of Palestine, 8-year old Hamid looks out over the old city of Hebron from the roof of his house. Checkpoints punctuate Hebron’s old city, part of the area known as H2, and affect the movement of people, including access to education as many children must pass one or more checkpoints on their way to school.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2020 (IPS)* – The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has described the much-ballyhooed US Middle East peace plan as “more like Swiss cheese– with the cheese being offered to the Israelis and the holes to the Palestinians”.
Sisters Salima, 6, and Samira, 5, can finally warm themselves by the heater they have been waiting for so long.
“We have suffered a lot from the cold. Dad said we would get a heater in our new house soon. This is the best gift ever,” say the two Afghan sisters Salima, 6, and Samira, 5, as they move closer to the wood-burning stove.
We meet their father Ewaz, 45, as the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is giving cash assistance to displaced families who need help staying warm through the winter. Each family receives 15,700 Afghani, equivalent to USD 200.
The top UN official in Libya on Thursday [30 January 2020] expressed his “deep anger and disappointment” over intensifying conflict in Libya despite a high-level summit held in the German capital of Berlin earlier this month, that set out measures to de-escalate fighting and put the divided country back on a path towards peace. (*).
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe | Ghassan Salamé of Lebanon, newly appointed Special Representative and Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya
“There are unscrupulous actors inside and outside Libya who cynically nod and wink towards efforts to promote peace and piously affirm their support for the UN”, Ghassan Salamé, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya, told the Security Council.
“In 2019, over 51 million people suffered in 10 crises away from the public eye,” CARE said.
The report observed that three of the least-covered crises are on the United Nations’ list of the least-funded emergencies. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here fromteleSUR).
28 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Of the top 10 most forgotten 2019 humanitarian crises fuelled by the climate emergency nine were in Africa, according to a new analysis entitled “Suffering in Silence” and released Tuesday by CARE International.
(UN News)* — More than 800 people died last year crossing deserts, rivers and remote lands while migrating across the Americas, making 2019 one of deadliest years on record, the UN migration agency said on Tuesday [28 January 2020].
(UN News)* — The UN Special Envoy for Yemen told an emergency session of the Security Council on Tuesday [28 January 2020] that a recent upsurge in violence between pro-Government and rebel forces following weeks of relative calm, had to end “before it’s too late”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 