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UN warns of ‘catastrophic’ threat to region if Israel-Hezbollah fighting escalates

The UN on Tuesday expressed serious concerns about the risk of an escalation in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. (Screenshot/UNTV)
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Updated 26 June 2024
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UN warns of ‘catastrophic’ threat to region if Israel-Hezbollah fighting escalates

  • Russian envoy says Security Council’s US-backed Gaza ceasefire resolution now ‘dead letter’ that included ‘blatant lie’ that Israel had accepted the deal
  • Head of UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization warns of ‘extreme risk of famine’ in Gaza as more than 20 percent of people go entire days and nights without eating
Updated 26 June 2024
Ephrem Kossaify

NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Tuesday expressed serious concerns about the risk of an escalation in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, warning that not only would it cause even more suffering and devastation to the people of Lebanon and Israel but also “more potentially catastrophic consequences for the region.”

Tor Wennesland, the UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East urged both sides to take urgent, immediate steps to deescalate the situation.

Tensions along the border between Israel and Lebanon continue to escalate. Cross-border exchanges of fire have increased in recent weeks, prompting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to warn that the risk of the conflict spreading to the wider region “is real and must be avoided.”

Wennesland was speaking during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the implementation of Resolution 2334, which was adopted in 2016 and demands an end to all Israeli settlement activity, immediate steps to prevent violence and acts of terror against civilians, and calls on both sides to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric.

Wennesland said he was “deeply troubled” by continuing Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and reiterated that all settlements “have no legal validity and are in flagrant violation of international law.” He called on Israel to cease all such activity immediately.

Escalating violence and tensions in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are also deeply worrying, Wennesland said.

“Intensified armed exchanges between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, alongside lethal attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, have also exacerbated tensions and led to exceedingly high levels of casualties and detentions. All perpetrators of attacks must be held accountable,” he added.

Wennesland blamed regional instability on the ongoing hostilities in Gaza and stressed the need for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

“There is a deal on the table and it should be agreed,” he told council members. “I welcome the efforts, including by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, to reach such deal.”

He lamented the fact that effective mechanisms from Israel to provide humanitarian notifications, safe conditions for humanitarian operations, and sufficient access for aid workers to address humanitarian needs remain “sorely lacking and must be put in place without delay.”

Wennesland added: “Hunger and food insecurity persist. While projections of imminent famine in the northern governates have been averted through an increase in food deliveries, food insecurity has worsened in the south.

“Nearly all of Gaza’s population continues to face high levels of food insecurity, with nearly half a million people facing ‘catastrophic’ insecurity.”

Senior UN officials told Israeli authorities on Tuesday they will suspend aid operations across the battered enclave unless urgent steps are taken to protect humanitarian workers.

The UN World Food Program has already suspended aid deliveries from a US-built pier in Gaza over security concerns. This comes at a time when the amounts of essential goods allowed into Gaza continue to fall far short of the needs of the population, Wennesland said.

The Palestinian Authority’s fiscal situation remains “very precarious,” he added. Israel’s finance minister has announced his intention to continue blocking the transfer of all clearance revenues to the PA, and to take action that would end relations between Israeli and Palestinian banks at the end of June.

Such moves, Wennesland said, “threaten to plunge the Palestinian fiscal situation into an even greater crisis, potentially upending the entire Palestinian financial system.”

Meanwhile, Maximo Torero, the chief economist of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, on Tuesday warned of the “extreme risk of famine” in Gaza. He said the latest studies reveal that more than half of the population does not have any stocks of food in their homes, and more than 20 percent go entire days and nights without eating.

In northern Gaza, Torero said, 75,000 people, a quarter of the population, face catastrophic levels of food insecurity, and 150,000 are dealing with emergency levels of food insecurity.

In southern Gaza, including the Rafah area, more 350,000 people, a fifth of the population, are affected by catastrophic levels of food insecurity, and about 525,000 by emergency levels.

In response to these findings, humanitarian organization CARE’s interim country director for the West Bank and Gaza, Daw Mohammed, said: “The process to determine the difference between ‘famine’ or ‘catastrophic food insecurity’ is irrelevant for Palestinian people in Gaza, too many of whom have starved to death or will never fully recover from the ravages of hunger.

“The scale and intensity of hostilities, as we enter the ninth month of hell for people in Gaza, make data collection a life-threatening exercise and survival an hourly battle. Rather than wait for a determination of famine, we must listen to the call of humanity and act now.

“We need an immediate and sustained ceasefire, a massive increase in the safe flow of aid and aid workers into and around Gaza, access to water, fuel and basic healthcare services for all people, and the release of all hostages. There is no more time to wait.”

During the Security Council meeting, the US representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, blamed Hamas for rejecting a US-backed ceasefire deal.

“Hamas has eschewed the calls from this council and ignored voices from across the international community,” she said. “In fact, rather than accept the deal, Hamas has added even more conditions.

“It’s time to end the intransigence from Hamas, start a ceasefire and release the hostages.”

Her Russian counterpart Vassily Nebenzia said that the US-backed Resolution 2735, which calls for a ceasefire and was adopted on June 10, was sold to the Security Council “in the guise of a solution for saving Gaza. This kind of ‘cat in a sack,’ as we warned, turned out to be dead letter.”

He added: “What is even worse, in the resolution of the Security Council a blatant lie crept in; it is explicitly stated there that Israel consented to the peace proposal of the international mediators. However, in West Jerusalem this has not yet been confirmed and they repeat that at the same time as announcing the decisive intent to completely destroy Hamas.

“Ultimately, none of the phases stipulated in Resolution 2735 have been implemented. The council essentially was blindly dragged into a misadventure and moved towards blessing a scheme which, from the get go, had no chances of being implemented.

“We urge the membership of the Security Council, moving forward, to adopt a more conscientious approach to those decisions which they support, and to give thought to their actual content.”

Israeli reconnaissance aircraft violate Lebanese airspace over Beirut

Updated 1 min 21 sec ago
NAJIA HOUSSARI
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Israeli reconnaissance aircraft violate Lebanese airspace over Beirut

  • Lebanese army seeking those responsible for the firing of rockets toward Israel on Friday
  • ‘We have entered a new phase in our nation’s history, and there is no turning back,’ says Aoun
Updated 1 min 21 sec ago
NAJIA HOUSSARI

BEIRUT: President Joseph Aoun said on Saturday that Lebanon has entered a “new phase” in its history “after decades of violence, wars, economic and financial crises, and the deterioration of the state’s structure.”
In his address to the Lebanese people to mark Eid Al-Fitr, Aoun added: “For those who think our resolve will weaken or our determination will waver; there is no turning back.”
Aoun, who returned from Paris on Friday evening after holding talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and officials from Cyprus and Greece, continued: “What distinguishes Lebanon is its adherence to the values of unity, solidarity, and rising above selfishness and personal interests. There is no salvation for Lebanon unless we live by these values, which, alongside the implementation of laws and the realization of justice, form the only path to combating corruption, achieving structural reforms in our national institutions, and advancing Lebanon to keep pace with global progress and modernity.”
Also on Saturday, the Lebanese army continued its investigations to determine who was responsible for the rockets fired from southern Lebanon toward Israel on Friday, an event that led to an escalation of Israeli aggression unprecedented since a ceasefire agreement came into effect four months ago.
A military source said: “Night raids were conducted by army intelligence in the south and the western Bekaa aimed at finding suspects involved in launching rockets from the south.”
An Israeli airstrike on the Hadath area in the southern suburbs of Beirut resulted in the complete destruction of two buildings and damage to numerous neighboring structures, including two schools in the area. Students from those schools organized a protest on Saturday to “denounce the Israeli assaults,” and asking for clarification on “the fate of the academic year in light of the damages that hinder an immediate return to the two schools.”
Morgan Ortagus, US deputy special envoy to the Middle East, said in an interview with a local Lebanese station on Friday night that the United States “supports the Lebanese Army,” adding: “The launching of rockets from Lebanon into Israel constitutes a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement reached between the two parties, and this escalation raises significant international concern.”
Ortagus also stated that the Lebanese government is “responsible for disarming Hezbollah,” but noted “the government is unable to control everything, which contributes to the deterioration of the security situation in the country.”
The US envoy continued: “It cannot be claimed that Israel is violating the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon,” and urged Lebanese authorities to “take responsibility instead of blaming Israel.”
Ortagus reaffirmed the US administration’s stance, urging “the full disarmament of Hezbollah, as it threatens stability in Lebanon and the region.” She also accused Iran and Hezbollah of “destroying the south and dragging Lebanon into a war that could have been avoided were it not for Iran’s interference and Hezbollah’s involvement. The US is committed to using all available measures to prevent the arming of Hezbollah, as it poses a significant threat to regional security.
“The US does not seek a larger conflict between Lebanon and Israel, but instead aims to maintain the ceasefire agreement between the two sides. As a gesture of goodwill, Israel released Lebanese prisoners, signaling its willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution. In addition, the Lebanese president supports diplomatic negotiations, making it a critical time to activate diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon,” Ortagus added.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. Low-altitude reconnaissance aircraft have been regularly spotted over Beirut and its southern suburbs, including the towns of Bechamoun, Aramoun, Khaldeh and Choueifat in Mount Lebanon.
In the south, an Israeli warplane dropped two stun grenades near a crowd of residents in the town square of Yaroun in Bint Jbeil.
The municipalities of Beirut’s southern suburbs have called on the residents to refrain from using firecrackers or engaging in celebratory gunfire during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, stating that violators will be “referred to the appropriate judicial authorities.”
The municipalities have also banned merchants from selling firecrackers, “under the threat of having their shops shut down.”

Topics: Lebanon President Joseph Aoun Eid Al-Fitr

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Tunisian startup turns olive waste into clean energy

Updated 29 March 2025
AFP
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Tunisian startup turns olive waste into clean energy

  • For generations, rural households in Tunisia have burned olive waste for cooking and heating, or used it as animal feed
  • The International Olive Council estimated Tunisia will be the world’s third-largest olive oil producer in 2024-2025, with an expected yield of 340,000 tons
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP

SANHAJA, Tunisia: In a northern Tunisian olive grove, Yassine Khelifi’s small workshop hums as a large machine turns olive waste into a valuable energy source in a country heavily reliant on imported fuel.
Holding a handful of compacted olive residue — a thick paste left over from oil extraction — Khelifi said: “This is what we need today. How can we turn something worthless into wealth?“
For generations, rural households in Tunisia have burned olive waste for cooking and heating, or used it as animal feed.
The International Olive Council estimated Tunisia will be the world’s third-largest olive oil producer in 2024-2025, with an expected yield of 340,000 tons.
The waste generated by the oil extraction is staggering.
Khelifi, an engineer who grew up in a family of farmers, founded Bioheat in 2022 to tackle the issue. He recalled watching workers in olive mills use the olive residue as fuel.
“I always wondered how this material could burn for so long without going out,” he said. “That’s when I asked myself: ‘Why not turn it into energy?’“
Beyond profit, Khelifi hopes his startup helps “reducing the use of firewood as the country faces deforestation and climate change.”
At his workshop, employees transport truckloads of olive waste, stacking it high before feeding it into the processing machines.
The material is then compacted into cylindrical briquettes and left to dry for a month under the sun and in greenhouses before its packaging and sale.
Khelifi began developing his idea in 2018 after he traveled across Europe searching for a machine to turn the olive paste into long-burning fuel.
Unable to find the right technology, he returned to Tunisia and spent four years experimenting with various motors and mechanical parts.
By 2021, he had developed a machine that produced briquettes with just eight-percent moisture.
He said this amount significantly reduces carbon emissions compared to firewood, which requires months of drying and often retains more than double the amount of moisture.
Bioheat found a market among Tunisian restaurants, guesthouses, and schools in underdeveloped regions, where winter temperatures at times drop below freezing.
But the majority of its production — about 60 percent — is set for exports to France and Canada, Khelifi said.
The company now employs 10 people and is targeting production of 600 tons of briquettes in 2025, he added.
Selim Sahli, 40, who runs a guesthouse, said he replaced traditional firewood with Khelifi’s briquettes for heating and cooking.
“It’s an eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative,” he said. “It’s clean, easy to use, and has reduced my heating costs by a third.”
Mohamed Harrar, the owner of a pizza shop on the outskirts of Tunis, praised the briquettes for reducing smoke emissions, which he said previously irritated his neighbors.
“Besides, this waste carries the soul of Tunisian olives and gives the pizza a special flavour,” he added.
Given Tunisia’s significant olive oil production, waste byproducts pose both a challenge and an opportunity.
Noureddine Nasr, an agricultural and rural development expert, said around 600,000 tons of olive waste is produced annually.
“Harnessing this waste can protect the environment, create jobs, and generate wealth,” he said.
Nasr believes repurposing olive waste could also help alleviate Tunisia’s heavy dependence on imported fuel.
The country imports more than 60 percent of its energy needs, a reliance that widens its trade deficit and strains government subsidies, according to a 2023 World Bank report.
Fuel and gas shortages are common during winter, particularly in Tunisia’s northwestern provinces, where households struggle to keep warm.
Redirecting agricultural waste into alternative energy sources could ease this burden.
Yet for entrepreneurs like Khelifi, launching a startup in Tunisia is fraught with challenges.
“The biggest hurdle was funding,” he said, lamenting high-interest bank loans. “It felt like walking on a road full of potholes.”
But now his goal is “to leave my mark as a key player in Tunisia’s transition to clean energy,” he added. “And hopefully, the world’s, too.”

Topics: Tunis Olive International Olive Council

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Iraq agrees to supply Lebanon with fuel for six months

Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters
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Iraq agrees to supply Lebanon with fuel for six months

  • Iraq provides Lebanon with the fuel in exchange for health care to Iraqi citizens
Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters

BEIRUT: Iraq has agreed to supply Lebanon with fuel for six more months, the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said in a statement on Saturday, renewing a deal meant to alleviate Lebanon’s acute power shortage.
Under the heavy fuel oil deal, first agreed in July 2021, Iraq provides the Lebanese government with the fuel in exchange for services including health care for Iraqi citizens.
Lebanon then swaps the heavy fuel oil for gas oil that it can use at its power stations.
These have operated for decades at partial capacity, but electricity provision deteriorated further during a financial crisis that has hit the state’s ability to buy fuel.

Topics: Iraq Lebanon fuel electricity

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Sudan’s army takes major market as it extends control over capital

Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters
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Sudan’s army takes major market as it extends control over capital

  • The statement comes days after the Sudanese army declared victory over the RSF in Khartoum
  • The army said in a statement that its forces were now in control of the market in western Omdurman, Souq Libya, having seized weapons and equipment left behind by the RSF
Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters

CAIRO: The Sudanese army said on Saturday it had taken control of a major market in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, which had previously been used by their Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rivals to launch attacks during a devastating two-year-old war.
The statement comes days after the Sudanese army declared victory over the RSF in Khartoum, claiming control of most parts of the capital.
The conflict between the army and the RSF has unleashed waves of ethnic violence, created what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and plunged several areas into famine.
The army said in a statement that its forces were now in control of the market in western Omdurman, Souq Libya, having seized weapons and equipment left behind by the RSF when they fled.
Souq Libya is one of the largest and most important commercial hubs in Sudan.
The army already controlled most of Omdurman, home to two big military bases. It appears intent on securing control over the entire capital area, which is made up of the three cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, divided by branches of the River Nile.
The RSF has not commented on the army’s advance in Omdurman, where the paramilitary forces still hold some territory.
The war erupted amid a power struggle between the army and RSF ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule. It ruined much of Khartoum, uprooted more than 12 million Sudanese from their homes, and left about half of the 50 million population suffering acute hunger.
Overall deaths are hard to estimate, but a study published last year said the toll may have reached 61,000 in Khartoum state alone in the first 14 months of the conflict.
The war has added to instability in the region, with Sudan’s neighbors Libya, Chad, Central African Republic and South Sudan each weathering internal bouts of conflict over recent years.

Topics: Sudan Unrest Sudanese army Omdurman Khartoum rapid support forces (RSF)

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Turkiye opposition calls mass rally in Istanbul

Updated 29 March 2025
AFP
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Turkiye opposition calls mass rally in Istanbul

  • Imamoglu’s detention on March 19 has prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.
  • The protests over his arrest quickly spread across Turkiye, with vast crowds joining mass nightly rallies outside Istanbul City Hall
Updated 29 March 2025
AFP

Istanbul: Protesters were to join a mass rally in Istanbul Saturday at the call of Turkiye’s main opposition CHP over the jailing of the city’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a top figure in the party whose arrest has sparked 10 days of the country’s biggest street demonstrations in a decade.
Imamoglu’s detention on March 19 has also prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.
The rally, which begins at 0900 GMT in Maltepe on the Asian side of Istanbul, is the first such CHP-led gathering since Tuesday and comes on the eve of the Eid Al-Fitr celebration marking the end of Ramadan, which starts Sunday.
Widely seen as the only Turkish politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as the CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential race on the day he was jailed.
“Imamoglu’s candidacy for president is the beginning of a journey that will guarantee justice and the nation’s sovereignty. Let’s go to Maltepe.. and start our march to power together!” CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said on X.
The protests over his arrest quickly spread across Turkiye, with vast crowds joining mass nightly rallies outside Istanbul City Hall called by the CHP, that often degenerated into running battles with riot police.
Although the last such rally was Tuesday, student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked despite a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested.
Among them were 20 minors who were arrested between March 22-25, of whom seven remained in custody, the Istanbul Bar Association said Friday.
In Istanbul, at least 511 students were detained, many in predawn raids, of whom 275 were jailed, lawyer Ferhat Guzel told AFP, while admitting that the number was “probably much higher.”
The authorities have also cracked down on media coverage, arresting 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deporting a BBC correspondent and arresting a Swedish reporter who flew into Istanbul to cover the unrest.
Although 11 journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, two more were detained on Friday as was Imamoglu’s lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan, who was later granted conditional release.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who flew into Turkiye on Thursday to cover the demonstrations, was jailed on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP, saying it was not immediately clear what the charges were.
’Accusations 100 percent false’
Unconfirmed reports in the Turkish media said Medin was being held for “insulting the president” and belonging to a “terror organization.”
“I know that these accusations are false, 100 percent false,” Dagens ETC’s editor-in-chief Andreas Gustavsson wrote on X account.
In a post on social media, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said Stockholm was taking his arrest “seriously.”
Turkish authorities held BBC journalist Mark Lowen for 17 hours on Wednesday before deporting him on the grounds he posed “a threat to public order,” the broadcaster said.
Turkiye’s communications directorate put his deportation down to “a lack of accreditation.”
Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, the legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities “seem to be very determined on limiting coverage of the protests.
“As such, we fear that the crackdown on the press will not only continue but also increase.”

Topics: Turkiye

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