GENEVA: Mounds of trash rotting in the heat are piling up close to where displaced people are sheltering in Gaza, a UN official said on Friday, raising fears about the further spread of disease.
Hundreds of thousands of Gazans who had fled to southern Gaza earlier in the more than 8-month conflict have been uprooted again since Israel expanded its military operations against Hamas to the southern city of Rafah in early May.
Louise Wateridge, an aid worker with United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), said that a pile of waste weighing an estimated 100,000 tons was building up near people’s tents in central Gaza.
“It’s among the population and it’s building up without anywhere to go. It just keeps getting worse. And with the temperatures rising, it’s really adding misery to the living conditions here,” she told journalists via video link from Gaza.
Israel has refused repeated requests to allow UNRWA to empty the main landfill sites, she said, meaning temporary ones are emerging, she added. Even if permission is granted, Wateridge said UNRWA’s humanitarian missions such as trash collection have all but halted due to Israeli refusals to allow fuel imports.
Israel’s COGAT, a branch of the military tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel, which launched its Gaza military operation after deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, says it has expanded efforts to facilitate aid flows into Gaza and blames aid agencies for distribution problems inside the enclave. It controls fuel shipments into Gaza and has long maintained that there is a risk they are diverted to Hamas.
The World Health Organization’s Tarik Jašarević said the trash, along with the rising heat, a lack of clean drinking water and sanitation services, was adding to disease risks.
“It can lead to a number of communicable diseases appearing,” he said, mentioning that around 470,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported since the start of the war.
Wateridge, who arrived back in Gaza on Thursday after a four-week absence, said the situation had deteriorated significantly. She described the living conditions as “unbearable” with people sweltering under plastic sheets and cowering in bombed out buildings.
Huge mounds of rotting trash pile up around Gaza camps, UNRWA says
https://arab.news/9fw76
Huge mounds of rotting trash pile up around Gaza camps, UNRWA says
- Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA aid worker, said that a pile of waste weighing an estimated 100,000 tons was building up near people’s tents in central Gaza
- “It’s among the population and it’s building up without anywhere to go. It just keeps getting worse”
Arab League chief condemns Israeli decisions in the West Bank as a complete overturn of the Oslo Accords
CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit strongly condemned Israeli cabinet decisions to revoke the Palestinian Authority’s powers in Area B, restrict authority officials’ movement, and initiate settlement construction in the West Bank.
He said these decisions represent a complete and final overturn of the Oslo Accords, returning the situation to a pre-agreement state and reinforcing a blatant occupation.
Gamal Roshdy, spokesman for the secretary-general, said that Aboul Gheit called on the international community to recognize the Israeli government as a right-wing, racist administration uninterested in peace.
He emphasized the Israeli government’s goal to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, solidify the occupation in the West Bank, and eliminate Palestinian control, including in Area B under the Oslo Accords.
Roshdy said that the recent decisions reflected the Israeli government’s complete submission to the extreme right, represented by the minister of finance.
These decisions aim to embarrass and insult the international community, which has shown a trend toward expanding recognition of the Palestinian state by undermining all components of the two-state solution.
He said that such actions further inflame the situation in the West Bank, turn back the situation to before the Oslo Accords, and seek to subjugate the Palestinians under a direct occupation regime that can only be described as apartheid.
Egypt also criticized the Israeli government’s decision to legalize five settlements in the West Bank.
In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egypt condemned the Israeli government’s decision to approve the legalization of five settlements in the West Bank and to plan the construction of thousands of new settlement units as a continuation and apparent insistence on a policy of violating international law and UN Security Council resolutions, foremost among them Resolution 2334.
Egypt strongly denounced Israel’s exploitation of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip to further illegal settlement expansion and attempt to alter the legal status of the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.
Egypt said that Israel’s continued illegal actions aim to undermine the chances of a two-state solution, which is based on respecting the inalienable legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and is the only path to comprehensive and lasting peace.
It called on the international community to intervene to stop Israel’s illegal actions and practices and the continuous violations of Palestinian rights.
Egypt also called for more intense efforts to immediately end the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
Frankly Speaking: The Arab verdict on the US election debate
- Middle East Institute Senior Fellow Firas Maksad shares his assessment of, and key takeaways from, recent Biden-Trump debate
- Describes how the Gaza war might impact US election outcome, offers three scenarios for a Hezbollah-Israel full-scale war
DUBAI: If the statements made by US President Joe Biden and his rival Donald Trump during Thursday’s election debate are anything to go by, it will be bad news for the Palestinian people no matter who wins the White House race in November.
Indeed, in the first televised head to head of the US election campaign, Biden reiterated his commitment to siding with Israel in the war in Gaza and accused Hamas of resisting efforts to end the conflict.
For his part, Trump called Biden “a weak and a very bad Palestinian” — using the name of the national group as a slur — and argued that Israel should be given a free hand to finish the job in Gaza.
Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C., says the arguments posed by the candidates during the debate should not be considered their official stance.
“This is American electioneering at its worst,” Maksad said during an appearance on the Arab News current affairs show “Frankly Speaking.” “We all know that American elections tend to be the silly season.
“Candidates will say anything to get elected pretty much, only to turn around and change their position, or at least adjust their position, and in favor of a more nuanced one once they are in fact in the Oval Office. So, I think much of what was said (ought to be taken) with a grain of salt.”
Maksad said it was “quite shameful” for Trump to use the term Palestinian in a “derogatory” way in a bid to undermine Biden by painting him as being relatively pro-Palestinian. “This, while both candidates were falling over themselves to demonstrate their support for Israel.”
Maksad, who is also the Middle East Institute’s senior director for strategic outreach, believes the style and tone of the debate is “just the reality of American electoral dynamics” and should not be considered a concrete policy position of either candidate.
“We can take our pick in terms of examples in the past where candidates have said one thing about nations in the Middle East, only to reverse course and even visit these countries once they become elected president,” he said.
One point that commentators were united on following the election debate was how poorly Biden performed — struggling to express his ideas clearly, fumbling over his words, and pausing for long periods, raising fresh doubts about his cognitive ability.
Although Trump is also prone to meandering speeches, commentators agreed the Republican nominee delivered a more concise and agile performance than the Democratic incumbent.
“I think it’s safe to say that most Americans were shell-shocked by the debate that they saw,” Maksad told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen.
“Going into this, the Democratic Party objective was to make this, first and foremost, about (Trump’s legal woes) rather than on the cognitive ability, or lack thereof, of President Biden.
“I think what we clearly saw was the Trump campaign had a great night, a celebratory night, whereas most of the Democratic operatives, fundraisers, and supporters of the president are left scrambling, wondering whether it’s too late in the game to try and draft in another last-minute, 11th hour candidate.”
Although many commentators said Biden offered more substance in his remarks, his poor delivery appears to have cost him in the eyes of voters.
“I very much had that debate with close friends in the Democratic circle, some of whom had served in the White House, as this debate was ongoing, and they kept pointing out to that very point, which is listen to the substance. Our candidate has much more substance,” Maksad said.
“Trump, in fact, rambles and says very little in terms of substance, not much in terms of specific policy focus and policy options being put on the table here. I think that’s true. I take the point, but I do think that in elections and American elections, how you come across to a voter is equally, if not more, important.
“And it was abundantly apparent that (former) President Trump was the more capable, confident, powerful in his presence on stage in this debate.”
If those watching the debate were hoping to learn more about where the rivals stood on the big foreign policy questions of the day, they would have been sorely disappointed as Biden and Trump focused mainly on domestic issues.
There were, however, some minor indications of similarities and differences on Middle East policy.
“President Biden — very much in favor of diplomacy. Some might say even accommodating Iran in the region, its aspirations,” said Maksad. “President Trump — much more confrontational when it comes to Iran, looking to contain its influence in the region.
“But that’s not to say that there aren’t similarities, too. I think, when it comes to regional integration, a possible normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, you see a bipartisanship on these issues here in Washington, D.C.”
Gaza, meanwhile, has become a deeply polarizing issue in the US, even beyond the Arab and Muslim communities, with protests taking place on university campuses across the country.
Asked whether the war is likely to influence the outcome of the election, however, Maksad said it was low down on the list of priorities for the majority of US voters.
“I think it’s both unimportant but also very crucial,” he said. “If you take the laundry list of issues for most Americans that they care about, priorities, I don’t think Gaza features anywhere near the top.”
Since the conflict in Gaza began in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, there have been fears that the war would spill over into the wider region. Lebanon, in particular, is seen as being especially vulnerable following months of tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah.
Maksad, who is himself Lebanese and an expert on the nation’s troubled past, believes there are three likely scenarios, as all-out war appears increasingly inevitable.
“One is the current diplomatic efforts that are being spearheaded by Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s envoy on this issue, point person on this issue, who will be visiting areas and coordinating very closely with the French presidential envoy on this matter,” he said.
A diplomatic breakthrough of this kind would mean finding a way for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to step back from his position of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
“That might be through some Israeli withdrawal from the disputed points along the Blue Line, the border between Israel and Lebanon, northern Gaza being something to watch out for,” Maksad said.
“But if the diplomatic breakthrough that we’re all looking, and hoping, for in the coming weeks does not materialize, scenario two here is a limited war … limited to the deep populated areas of northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
“And the US and French diplomacy would then kick in to try and bring things back with the diplomatic track. And that could help dislodge the current stalemate.”
The “catastrophic scenario,” meanwhile, would be a situation that “starts out as an attempt at a limited conflict, a limited war in northern Israel and south Lebanon, very quickly expands to population centers like Beirut and Haifa and beyond that. And we see the 2006 scenario on steroids where Israel is flattening entire blocks of southern Beirut.”
The UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper recently suggested that Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut is being used by Hezbollah to store and smuggle weapons. Although Hezbollah has denied the allegation, there are fears Israel may use the claims as a justification to bomb the airport.
“I’m not too sure that Israel needs a justification to bomb Beirut International Airport,” said Maksad. “They have done so in the past. They’ve done so repeatedly. They’ve cratered the runways. They have done so as far back as the 1960s when the PLO was the major concern operating out of Lebanon.
“So, there’s a long track record there of Israel targeting Lebanese infrastructure. And I’m not too sure that this particular article in the Telegraph is what the Israelis are looking for.
“But that said, also given my Lebanese ancestry, I mean, I think every Lebanese knows that the airport is by and large under the influence and control of Hezbollah or Hezbollah’s allies.”
He added: “Whether in fact the Telegraph article is accurate in that it’s being used as a storage base for Hezbollah missiles is something that’s beyond my capability in terms of being able to assess that.”
Asked whether Hezbollah is likely to make good on Nasrallah’s threat to attack Cyprus — a country that could host Israeli jets should Israel launch an aerial campaign against Hezbollah — Maksad said he thought the comments were merely intended to signal the potential reach of Iran and its regional proxies in the event of war.
“There are multiple views as to why Hassan Nasrallah chose to include Cyprus in the list of threats he made in his recent speech,” he said.
“I do think that, first and foremost, he was thinking from a military perspective in terms of where Israel, and particularly the air force, might be able to operate from if Hezbollah rained missiles on Israeli airports in the north and hamstrings Israel’s ability to operate against it. And Cyprus is high on that list of alternatives for Israel.
“But I do think that he’s also sending a broader message … which is one about Hezbollah’s ability to intercept and contradict and complicate shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean.
“And so through Hezbollah, you have Iran here very clearly signaling its ability to interdict and disrupt global commerce, not only in Hormuz, not only in Bab Al-Mandeb, but also in the Eastern Mediterranean, arguably as far south as Suez.”
He added: “This is part of Iran signaling its ability now to project influence and power into the Mediterranean, into the Red Sea and certainly within the Arab and Persian Gulf.”
As turmoil rages in the Middle East at the very moment that the US is turning its attention inward to the looming election, doubts have been raised about the possibility of securing the hotly anticipated deal between the US and Saudi Arabia.
“I see very low prospects of the Saudi-US deal being able to move forward,” said Maksad. “In fact, it will continue to be tethered to an Israeli leg with a precondition of a viable, non-reversible pathway towards a Palestinian state.
“But the politics is simply not there on the Israeli side, but also on the Palestinian side. This is the proposition that is entirely devoid of reality on the Israeli and Palestinian side.
“That said, the deal itself, the bilateral aspects of this deal, are largely negotiated and done. Whether it relates to a defense treaty or civil nuclear cooperation or commerce and AI and cyber, those issues have all been successfully negotiated by both the US and by Riyadh.
“But the issue is that if you are seeking a treaty which requires congressional, mainly Senate ratification, it is difficult to see that being passed in the Senate short of normalization with Israel.
“And normalization with Israel, given the very clear Saudi preconditions on the Palestinian state, or a pathway to a Palestinian state, are simply not there.”
Fighting rages in Gaza City’s Shujaiya for fourth day
- Israeli tanks fire shells toward several houses, leaving families trapped inside and unable to leave
- Israel’s military operations in Rafah aimed at eradicating the last armed battalions of Hamas
GAZA: Heavy battles and bombardment hit Gaza City’s Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, months after Israel declared Hamas’s command structure dismantled in the northern area.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighborhood, where the army said it has fought Palestinian militants both “above and below ground” in tunnels.
Months of on-and-off talks toward a Gaza truce and hostage release deal have meanwhile made little progress, with Hamas saying Saturday there was “nothing new” in a revised plan presented by US mediators.
The Israeli military said ground and air forces had carried out raids on compounds used by militants and “eliminated several terrorists” over the past 24 hours.
It also reported clashes in central Gaza and the southern Rafah area, a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the “intense phase” of the war raging since October 7 was nearing an end.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from Shujaiya since new fighting broke out there on Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders.
For those who remain, “our lives have become hell,” said 50-year-old Shujaiya resident Siham Al-Shawa.
She told AFP people were trapped as strikes could happen “anywhere” and “it is difficult to get out of the neighborhood under fire.”
“We do not know where to go to protect ourselves.”
Netanyahu said Israeli “forces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip.”
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, he told his cabinet that “dozens of terrorists are being eliminated every day.”
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Six people were killed in an air strike at dawn targeting a house in Rafah, said medics at Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken.
Artillery shelling also rocked parts of the city, witnesses said.
The Israeli military launched a ground operation in Rafah in early May, leading to the closure of a key aid crossing.
United Nations and other relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.
“Everything is rubble,” said Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, speaking Friday from the city of Khan Yunis.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food. And now, people are living back in these buildings that are empty shells.”
In Israel, thousands of protesters again took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding greater efforts to return the remaining captives, and calling for early elections.
Former hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was rescued in a June 8 raid, said in a video address that “we can’t forget about the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity, and we must do everything possible to bring them back home.”
About a month after US President Joe Biden outlined a truce plan, Washington last week presented “new language” for parts of the proposed deal, according to US news site Axios.
A Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, confirmed that the Islamist movement had received the latest proposal but said it presented “no real progress in the negotiations.”
Hamdan labelled the proposals “a waste of time” that aimed to give Israel “additional time... to practice genocide.”
Hamas has called for a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, demands repeatedly rejected by Israel.
Netanyahu on Sunday said “Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of our hostages.”
With military and diplomatic “pressure... we will return them all,” he said.
The Gaza conflict has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has traded cross-border fire with the Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed Hamas ally.
Threats of a full-blown war have escalated this month.
Iran’s mission to the UN, on social media Saturday, said it “deems as psychological warfare” Israeli “propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon.”
It also warned its arch foe that, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue” that could draw in more Tehran-aligned armed groups in the region.
Hezbollah on Sunday claimed several attacks on Israeli military positions, and Lebanese official media reported Israeli strikes in the border area.
The Shiite Muslim movement announced three deaths among its ranks.
Israel extends cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks, official says
- The waiver, which was due to expire at the end of June, allows Israeli banks to process shekel payments for services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority
The waiver, which was due to expire at the end of June, allows Israeli banks to process shekel payments for services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority. Without it, the Palestinian economy would have taken a hit.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich extended the waiver during a recent cabinet meeting, his spokesperson said.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said it was important to keep open the Israeli-Palestinian correspondent banking relationships to allow battered economies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to function and help ensure security.
The Palestinian economy relies heavily on this relationship to process transactions made in Israeli shekels.
Some 53 billion shekels ($14 billion) were exchanged at Palestinian banks in 2023, official data show.
President Ghazouani maintains lead in Mauritania presidential election
NOUAKCHOTT: Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani held a steady lead in the West African nation’s presidential election with just over half of votes counted, provisional results from the electoral commission showed on Sunday.
Ghazouani had 54.87 percent of the vote, while his immediate rival, anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, was at 22.86 percent, with 50.32 percent of votes counted, or just 2,211 polling stations out of 4,503 reporting by 0700 GMT, provisional results on the electoral commission’s website showed.
