(New York) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2024 electoral campaign frequently used hate speech against Muslims and other minorities, Human Rights Watch on 14 August 2024 said.
(UN News)* —Sudan’s deepening humanitarian crisis caused by nearly 16 months of war has left countless women and girls subject to sexual violence and rape and tens of thousands of children at risk of death from hunger, UN aid teams said on Tuesday [13 August 2024].
Speaking from Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder described meeting a senior medical worker at a hospital outside Khartoum who had “direct contact with hundreds, hundreds of women and girls, some as young as eight years old, who have been raped. Many have been held captive for weeks on end.”
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2024 (IPS)* –– The growing number of killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza has triggered a demand for a cut-off in US arms supplies to Israel.
The journalists gather in front of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital to commemorate their friends, Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who lost their lives in Israeli army attack on a moving vehicle in the Al-Shati refugee camp, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on July 31, 2024. Source: Middle East Monitor. Credit: Ashraf Amra, Anadolu Agency
A letter addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken—and signed by scores of reporters, news outlets and journalist unions— says Israel has killed more than 165 Palestinian journalists since October 7 last year.
(UN News)* — The UN Human Rights Office condemned on Saturday [] the increasing frequency of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) strikes on schools, where hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, with the latest attacks killing dozens at a Gaza City school.
At around 4:30am during dawn prayer on Saturday, a mosque inside Al Tabaeen School was struck by the IDF “at least three times”, the UN rights office, OHCHR, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a statement, adding that the attacks were “conducted with apparent disregard for the high rate of civilian fatalities”.
(UN News)* — The UN human rights office, OHCHR, called on Friday [] for the Israeli authorities to monitor senior officials whose public statements on the Gaza conflict may promote war crimes.
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UNIS Vienna | Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, addresses a conference for youth human rights defenders at the UN in Vienna (file).
OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Türk “is shocked and appalled” by comments made by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who suggested that letting two million Palestinians in Gaza starve to death could be “justified and moral” in order to free hostages.
The High Commissioner condemned these words in the strongest terms, which also incite hatred against innocent civilians.
(UN News)* — Thousands of people in Gaza have been fleeing west toward Al Mawasi after the Israel military issued a new evacuation order on Thursday [], UN humanitarian partners on the ground have reported.
(UN News)* — Scaling up aid delivery remains a challenge in Gaza as the war reaches the 300-day mark, the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said on Thursday [].
Andrea De Domenico was speaking from Jerusalem in his final briefing to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York as the Israeli authorities have not renewed his visa.
()* — UN agencies warned on Friday [] of the high risk of the further spread of infectious diseases in Gaza, amid chronic water scarcity and no way to adequately manage waste and sewage.
“People in Gaza are facing yet another peril: Hepatitis A is spreading including among children,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, wrote on social media.
(UN News)* — The conflict in Sudan has led to a horrifying surge in violence against children, a new UN report has revealed, underscoring the need for urgent and tangible protection measures.
The report on Children and Armed Conflict in Sudan, released on Tuesday [], documented a staggering 2,168 grave violations against 1,913 children in 2022 and 2023 – a significant increase compared to the previous reporting period.
(UN News)* — A new UN report published Wednesday [] into alleged abuses carried out against thousands of Palestinians detained by the Israeli authorities since war erupted in Gaza last October has documented a range of serious violations that may amount to torture.