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Jordanian minister calls for more-inclusive global development and end to war in Gaza

Minister of Planning and International Cooperation of Jordan Zeina Toukan addresses the "Summit of the Future" in the General Assembly hall at United Nations headquarters in New York City, U.S., September 23, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 24 September 2024
ALI YOUNES
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Jordanian minister calls for more-inclusive global development and end to war in Gaza

  • Zeina Toukan tells UN Summit of the Future ‘clock is ticking’ for Sustainable Development Goals and nations must work together to achieve them
  • She denounces ‘Israel’s barbaric war on the Palestinian people’ and describes resultant crisis in Gaza as a ‘human catastrophe’
Updated 24 September 2024
ALI YOUNES

WASHINGTON: Jordan’s minister of planning and international development on Monday urged the international community to take cooperative action to tackle the critical challenges that threaten efforts to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Zeina Toukan told the Summit of the Future at the UN headquarters in New York that the “clock is ticking” and nations must work together to ensure the goals are achieved by the target date, which is just six years away.
UN member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. It provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for all peoples of the world through the achievement of 17 goals, including an end to poverty, improved public health and education, greater equality, and economic growth.
Toukan said global development will come through cooperation between countries, including the creation of an improved multilateral system through which all nations can achieve and benefit from development. Trust between nations is key to cooperation and the creation of such a system, she added.
To aid growth, the international community must do more to encourage innovation and creativity, Toukan said. She also called for the reform of the international financial system to make it more equitable, rather than one that hinders the economic growth of some nations.
Highlighting the important role of young people in the development of their nations, she said: “Youth deserves a better future: a future of justice, peace and opportunities.”
She added that the participation of young people in the public affairs of their nations, and internationally, is important for the well-being of the entire global system.
The international community must address the challenges of today to create a better tomorrow, Toukan said. She welcomed the adoption of a new “global digital compact,” which is part of the Pact for the Future, as a “milestone” that will help nations to provide better opportunities for their citizens by integrating the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, into their economies. The compact commits governments to upholding international law and human rights online, and taking concrete steps to ensure digital spaces are safe and secure.
Turning to the conflict in Gaza, Toukan denounced “Israel’s barbaric war on the Palestinian people” and called for it to end. She described the resultant crisis in the territory as a “human catastrophe” and a prime example of the plights that affect the most vulnerable peoples around the globe.
She said since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7 last year, Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 people in Gaza, the majority of whom were women and children.
“The vast destruction and forced displacement is a testament to the brutality of this war,” Toukan added. Israel “is creating a lost generation deprived of peace and hope” and facing “lost opportunity,” she said.
The only way forward in efforts to bring peace and stability in the region is the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, Toukan added.
She urged the international community to avoid double standards, and to do more to help end the conflict and ensure adherence by all sides to international laws and UN resolutions.

 

Topics: UNGA79 War on Gaza Palestine Gaza US Lebanon

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Brick by brick, Morocco rebuilds 12th-century mosque destroyed by 2023 earthquake

Updated 3 min 42 sec ago
AP
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Brick by brick, Morocco rebuilds 12th-century mosque destroyed by 2023 earthquake

  • After nearly 900 years, the revered mosque was left mostly in pieces, and restoration workers were among the 3,000 lives lost
Updated 3 min 42 sec ago
AP

TINMEL: The hand-carved domes and brick-laid arches had almost all been put back together when an earthquake shook Morocco so violently that they caved in on themselves and crashed to the earth.
After nearly 900 years, the Great Mosque of Tinmel lay in pieces — its minaret toppled, its prayer hall full of rubble, its outer walls knocked over.
But even in ruins, it remained holy ground for the residents of Tinmel. Villagers carried the sheet-laden bodies of the 15 community members killed in the quake down the hillside and placed them in front of the decimated mosque.
Among the mourners was Mohamed Hartatouch, who helped carry the remains of his son Abdelkrim. A 33-year-old substitute teacher, he died under bricks and collapsed walls while the village waited a day and a half for rescue crews to arrive.
“It looked like a storm. I wasn’t able to feel anything,” the grieving father said, remembering the day after the quake.
One year later, the rubble near Hartatouch’s half-standing home has been swept aside and Tinmel residents are eager to rebuild their homes and the mosque. They say the sacred site is a point of pride and source of income in a region where infrastructure and jobs were lacking long before the earthquake hit.
“It’s our past,” Redwan Aitsalah, a 32-year-old construction worker, said the week before the earthquake’s anniversary as he reconstructed his home overlooking the mosque.
The September 2023 quake left a path of destruction that will take Morocco years to recover from. It killed nearly 3,000 people, knocked down almost 60,000 homes and leveled at least 585 schools. The damage will cost about $12.3 billion to rebuild, according to government estimates.
Stretches of road were left unnavigable, including Tizi N’Test, the steep mountain pass that weaves from Marrakech to Tinmel and some of the hardest-hit villages near the earthquake’s epicenter.
Workers are now sifting through the rubble searching for the mosque’s puzzle pieces. They are stacking useable bricks and sorting the fragments of remaining decorative elements arch by arch and dome by dome, preparing to rebuild the mosque using as much of the remains as possible.
Though incomparable to the human loss and suffering, the restoration effort is among Morocco’s priorities as it attempts to rebuild.
The country’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Ministry of Culture have recruited Moroccan architects, archaeologists and engineers to oversee the project. To assist, the Italian government has sent Moroccan-born architect Aldo Giorgio Pezzi, who had also consulted on Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque, one of Africa’s largest.
“We will rebuild it based on the evidence and remains that we have so it returns to how it was,” Morocco’s Minister of Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq told The Associated Press.
The Great Mosque was a marvel of North African architecture with lobed arches, hand-carved moldings and the adobe-style bricks made of rammed earth used to construct most the area’s structures.
It was undergoing an 18-month-long restoration project when the quake struck, causing its ornate domes and pillars to cave in. Its clay-colored remnants lay in pieces beneath scaffolding erected by restoration workers from villages throughout the region, five of whom also died.
“The mosque withstood centuries. It’s the will of God,” Nadia El Bourakkadi, the site’s conservationist, told local media. The temblor leveled it months before repairs and renovations were to be completed.
Like in many of the area’s villages, residents of Tinmel today live in plastic tents brought in as temporary shelter post-earthquake. Some are there because it feels safer than their half-ruined homes, others because they have nowhere else to go.
Officials have issued more than 55,000 reconstruction permits for villagers to build new homes, including for most of the homes in Tinmel. The government has distributed financial aid in phases. Most households with destroyed homes have received an initial $2,000 installment of rebuilding aid, but not more.
Many have complained that isn’t enough to underwrite the initial costs of rebuilding. Less than 1,000 have completed rebuilding, according to the government’s own figures.
Despite the extent of their personal losses, Moroccans are also mourning the loss of revered cultural heritage. Centuries-old mosques, shrines, fortresses and lodges are scattered throughout the mountains. Unlike Tinmel, many have long been neglected as Morocco focuses its development efforts elsewhere.
The country sees Tinmel as the cradle of one of its most storied civilizations. The mosque served as a source of inspiration for widely visited sacred sites in Marrakech and Seville. Pilgrims once trekked through the High Atlas to pay their respects and visit. Yet centuries ago it fell into disrepair as political power shifted to Morocco’s larger cities and coastline.
“It was abandoned by the state, but materials were never taken from it,” said Mouhcine El Idrissi, an archaeologist working with Morocco’s Ministry of Culture. “People here have long respected it as a witness to their glorious and spiritual past.”
Some of the historic sites of the High Atlas have long been a lure to tourists. But the earthquake shone a spotlight on the vast disparities plaguing the primarily agricultural region. Long marginalized, poverty and illiteracy rates are higher than the nationwide average, according to census data and an October 2023 government report on the five earthquake-hit provinces.
“The mountainous areas most affected were those already suffering from geographical isolation,” Civil Coalition for the Mountain, a group of Moroccan NGOs, said in a statement on the earthquake’s anniversary. “The tragedy revealed structural differences, and a situation caused by development policies that have always kept the mountains outside the scope of their objectives.”
“There’s a Morocco that exists in Rabat and Marrakech, but we’re talking about another Morocco that’s in the mountains,” added Najia Ait Mohannad, the group’s regional coordinator. “Right now, the most urgent need is rebuilding houses.”
The government has promised “a well-thought-out, integrated and ambitious program” for the reconstruction and general upgrading of the affected regions, both in terms of infrastructure reinforcement and improving public services. It has also pledged to rebuild “in harmony with the region’s heritage and respecting its unique architectural features” and “to respect the dignity and customs” of the population.
For the village’s residents, the landmark could stand as a symbol of reinvestment in one of Morocco’s poorest regions, as well as a tribute to a glorious past.
For now, it stands in disrepair, its enchanting ruins upheld by wooden scaffolding, while down the hill, villagers hang laundry and grow vegetables amid the remnants of their former homes and the plastic tents where they now live.

Topics: Morocco

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As Israel’s fight with Hezbollah heats up, people of Gaza fear being forgotten

Updated 35 min 28 sec ago
AP
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As Israel’s fight with Hezbollah heats up, people of Gaza fear being forgotten

  • The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have the same worry
Updated 35 min 28 sec ago
AP

MUWASI, Gaza Strip: As the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah grabs global attention, Palestinians in Gaza wonder: What will become of their plight after nearly a year of devastating war?
They are petrified that international concern has been diverted, and that a dark possibility looms: abandonment.
The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have the same worry.
Nezar Zaqout, one of some 1.9 million Palestinians forced to flee their homes since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, said he fears the fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border will overtake interest in the abysmal living conditions in Gaza and efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.
“We have become completely forgotten,” said Zaqout, who is living in Khan Younis after fleeing from Gaza City months ago. “There is no news about us in the media.”
Palestinians fret the miserable conditions in Gaza will become permanent. Ninety percent of the population is homeless, with hundreds of thousands in unsanitary tent camps struggling to find food and clean water.
“A year on, and no one cares about us. Every day there is bombing, every day there are martyrs, and every day there are injuries,” said Saadi Abu Mustafa, who fled Khan Younis to Muwasi, a sprawling tent camp along Gaza’s southern coast.
Since Hamas launched the war on Oct. 7, Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 95,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and militants, but says over half of the dead were women and children.
Months of intense air and ground assaults have razed entire housing blocks to the ground; researchers who study satellite imagery estimate nearly 60 percent of buildings in the Gaza Strip have likely been damaged since the start of the war.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after Oct. 7, when its militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others. While it has been badly hobbled, the militant group backed by Iran remains in power.
Israel’s government says about 70 of the 100 hostages are still presumed alive. Their families dread the government’s focus on ending the war is fading.
“My biggest concern is that all the public’s attention and the world’s attention would be gone to the north,” said Udi Goren, a relative of Tal Haimi, an Israeli killed on Oct. 7 and whose body was taken to Gaza. “Eventually the hostages will just be completely left alone without anyone to bring them out.”
As the threat of all-out-war between Israel and Hezbollah has risen, Israel has drawn down its troop presence in Gaza to move key units to its northern border with Lebanon. Still, thousands of soldiers remain in Gaza, carrying out sporadic raids and preventing displaced Palestinians from returning home.
Daily strikes have continued in Gaza, too. An Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza Saturday killed at least 22 people and wounded 30 others, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Recent rains have made already difficult living conditions in the Israeli-designated “safe zone” of Muwasi unbearable. On Sunday, children living there walked barefoot through mud that reached above their ankles, while men dug through the muck to salvage precious canned goods and furniture.
“The entire kitchen in which we prepare food was filled with water. We did not know what to do. This is the beginning of winter. What will happen in the coming days?” said Rana Goza’t, a mother displaced from Gaza City.
Others lamented water-logged mattresses and pleaded for international groups to help keep attention on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“We hope that all peoples care about us and see where we have reached,” said Enas Kollab, who relocated to Muwasi from northern Gaza.
A flurry of diplomatic activity to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas appears to have subsided, with each side accusing the other of negotiating in bad faith and making untenable demands.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel must keep troops in two areas of Gaza to prevent Hamas from rearming. But Hamas has said it will not agree to any deal that allows Israeli troops to remain.
Hopes for a deal have further dimmed as the United States, a key mediator in the talks, appears to be losing the ability to influence its closest ally. In a trip to the region last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited only Egypt because US officials believed having him travel to Israel in support of a deal might cause Netanyahu to say something that would undermine mediation efforts.
No clear vision has emerged for postwar Gaza — or who will guide and govern that process — but one thing is clear: Rebuilding the territory will take decades. The UN estimated this summer that just removing some 40 million tons of rubble would take 15 years.

Topics: War on Gaza Lebanon

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World leaders gather at UN as Mideast tensions explode

Updated 24 September 2024
AFP
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World leaders gather at UN as Mideast tensions explode

  • UN Security Council member France calls for urgent meeting to address Middle East tensions
  • Gathering takes place a day Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed more than 490 people
Updated 24 September 2024
AFP

UNITED NATIONS, United States: Escalating clashes between Israel and Hezbollah threatened to overshadow US President Joe Biden’s final appearance at the UN’s signature annual event on Tuesday as diplomats scrambled to avert an all-out regional war.

The gathering of dozens of world leaders, the high point of the diplomatic calendar, comes a day after Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed more than 490 people, according to local authorities.

As world leaders gathered in Manhattan Monday for the annual flurry of speeches and face-to-face diplomacy, UN Security Council member France called for an emergency meeting on the crisis engulfing the Middle East.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said he was “gravely alarmed” as focus shifted from Gaza to Lebanon, and the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warned “we are almost in a full-fledged war.”

Israel’s closest ally the United States again warned against a full-blown ground invasion of Lebanon, with a senior US official promising to bring “concrete” ideas for de-escalation to the UN this week.

It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon as efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October 2023, have come to nothing.

“Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan will be the dominant issues,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think tank, adding he expected many leaders to “warn that the UN will become irrelevant globally if it cannot help make peace.”

More than 100 heads of state and government are scheduled to speak during the UN’s centerpiece event, which will run until Monday.

Since last year’s annual gathering, when Sudan’s civil war and Russia’s Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises.

“International challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them,” Guterres warned ahead of the gathering.

The October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel and the ensuing violence in the Middle East has exposed deep divisions in the global body.

With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expected to address the General Assembly this week, there could be combustible moments.

On Tuesday, representatives of Turkiye, Jordan, Qatar, Iran and Algeria are slated to take the podium to press for a Gaza ceasefire after nearly one year of war.

Ukraine will also be on the agenda Tuesday when President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a UN Security Council meeting on Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“I invite all leaders and nations to continue supporting our joint efforts for a just and peaceful future,” Zelensky told the UN on Monday.

“Putin has stolen much already, but he will never steal the world’s future.”

It is unclear if the grand diplomatic gathering can achieve anything for the millions mired in conflict and poverty globally.

“Any real diplomacy to reduce tensions will take place behind the scenes,” Gowan said.

“This may be an opportunity for Western and Arab diplomats to have some quiet conversations with the Iranians about the need to stop the regional situation spinning out of control.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has called for an urgent meeting of Arab leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly over the crisis in Lebanon.

Guterres cautioned against “the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza.”

Topics: UN Lebanon Israel Gaza

Humanity needs dialog to become aware of dangers to international peace: Lebanese MP

Updated 24 September 2024
Arab News
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Humanity needs dialog to become aware of dangers to international peace: Lebanese MP

  • Bahia Hariri says that effort is required to reinstate trust in the international system
Updated 24 September 2024
Arab News

LONDON: The whole of humanity urgently needs dialog to become aware of the dangers that are threatening international peace and security following the erosion of the international system, a member of the Lebanese parliament said on Monday.

Addressing the UN General Assembly’s Summit of the Future on behalf of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati — who canceled his trip due to the escalating situation in Lebanon — MP Bahia Hariri said that effort was required to reinstate trust in the international system.

“The Summit of the Future is taking place at a time that is ever so sensitive,” Hariri said.

“The whole of humanity urgently needs dialog to call ourselves into question and to become aware of the dangers that are threatening international peace and security after the erosion of the international system, violence, (and) lack of respect for values and conventions. In response to this, we require efforts to reinstate trust in this system.”

Her comments came after Israeli strikes killed more than 350 people in Lebanon on Monday, including more than 60 women and children. It was the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

The summit represents an opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance. It also aims to reaffirm existing commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Charter.

Hariri said the Lebanese government “welcomes the efforts of the secretary-general and the United Nations to prepare this summit through the dialogs being addressed and the strategy and the approach to it in place since 2015; the 2030 sustainable development agenda; the Paris Agreement on climate change; the Addis Ababa action plan for sustainable development; the declaration made on the 75th anniversary of the United Nations in 2020; our common agenda in 2021; the statement by the secretary-general in 2022; the summit on the transformation of education; the fight against the spread of pandemics in 2023; and the SDG Summit.”

Hariri added: “All of these measures should reinstate trust. In the past we talked about a new generation every 10 years. The Lebanese Prime Minister Mikati is looking at levels of trust in Lebanese civil society and in scientific institutions and the youth.

“And we wish to underscore the importance of the secretary-general’s position on debating the results of this exceptional summit with civil society and with youth organizations.

“We hope that the young people of the city of Beirut will be the first to discuss the results of this Summit of the Future.”

Topics: UNGA79 Bahia Hariri humanity

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Israeli aggression and ‘narrow’ interests’ of West block global progress, Syrian envoy tells UN

Updated 24 September 2024
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Israeli aggression and ‘narrow’ interests’ of West block global progress, Syrian envoy tells UN

  • Qusay Al-Dahhak says Syria opposed a ‘Pact for the Future’ adopted by member states on Sunday, because its plans for UN reforms do not go far enough
Updated 24 September 2024
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NEW YORK CITY: Syria said it voted against a “Pact for the Future,” which was adopted by a majority of UN member states on Sunday, on the grounds that it does not go far enough in terms of plans to reform the organization.

The pact, which received the backing of 143 of 193 member states in the vote, aims to rebuild trust in the UN and its ability to tackle global crises.

But Qusay Al-Dahhak, Syria’s permanent representative to the UN told delegates attending the “Summit for the Future” at the organization’s headquarters in New York on Monday that its mechanisms and systems need to evolve away from serving the “narrow interests” of a handful of Western states.

He said the brighter future desired by those who backed the pact, one that best serves all member states and their peoples, would only be achieved through “radical change.”

“(This will require) some Western countries to abandon the mentality of the past and their ambitions of hegemony and colonization,” Al-Dahhak said.

Though he did not name any specific Western states, he said that they should “cease attempting to impose their will on other peoples and respect their independent, national choices.”

He denounced the “illegal measures” he said have been taken by the West that have deprived Syrians of their future, undermined their legitimate choices and prevented them from accessing their own national wealth, but said Syrians are nonetheless “determined to move forward and build their own future.”

The US, the EU, Canada, Australia and Switzerland imposed sanctions on Syria in response to the actions of President Bashar Assad and his regime since the start of the civil war in the country in 2011.

Al-Dahhak said his country looks forward to a future based on dialog and diplomacy between nations, and on the promotion of multilateral action and the upholding of the principles of the UN Charter, which he said will not be best served by the pact in its current form.

“Hence the need to take immediate and serious measures to develop multilateral mechanisms and structures and to reinforce them to strengthen re-participation away from the policies of exclusion and the narrow interests of some Western states,” he added.

The envoy also condemned the “ongoing Israeli occupation of Arab territories in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon” and Israel’s continued “acts of aggression, crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” which he said amounted to a “grave violation of international law and the principles and purposes of the UN Charter.”

Referencing the pact agreed on Sunday, he said transgressions by Israeli authorities also represent a major obstacle and hinder access to the “common future we all seek.” He said there was a need to unite and intensify the UN efforts to confront Israel’s regional aggression and its occupation of land belonging to other states.

Al-Dahhak also vowed Syria would join other nations in calling for reforms of global financial institutions to “guarantee participation of developing countries in the global economic decision making,” which he said would help to alleviate global debt.

Topics: UNGA79 UN UN General Assembly (UNGA) Syria

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