Dozens of health workers killed in Lebanon over past day, WHO says

4-year-old Qassem Hussein, who lost his father in an Israeli airstrike, is treated at the Maritime Hospital in the town of Jbeil, north of Beirut, Lebanon, September 26, 2024. (Reuters)
Short Url
Updated 03 October 2024
Follow

Dozens of health workers killed in Lebanon over past day, WHO says

  • “Many (other) health workers are not reporting to duty and fled the areas where they work due to bombardments,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said
  • “This is severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services”

GENEVA: At least 28 on-duty medics have been killed in the past 24 hours in Lebanon, where Israel has launched airstrikes and sent troops to fight Hezbollah in an escalating conflict, the World Health Organization chief said on Thursday.
“Many (other) health workers are not reporting to duty and fled the areas where they work due to bombardments,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press briefing, calling for stronger protections for health workers.
“This is severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services,” he said.
The global health agency will not be able to deliver a large planned shipment of trauma and medical supplies to the country on Friday due to flight restrictions, he added.
WHO’s representative in Lebanon Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar told the briefing that all of the health care workers killed in the past day had been on duty, helping with the wounded.
A total of nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 127 children, and 9,384 injured since the start of Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, the country’s health ministry said.
“Hospitals have been already evacuated. I think what I can say for now is the capacity for mass casualty management exists, but it’s just a matter of time until the system actually reaches its limit,” said the WHO’s Abubakar.


Sudan war shatters infrastructure, costly rebuild needed

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

Sudan war shatters infrastructure, costly rebuild needed

  • The Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been battling since April 2023
  • Tens of thousands of people have been killed or injured and about 13 million were uprooted
KHARTOUM: Destroyed bridges, blackouts, empty water stations and looted hospitals across Sudan bear witness to the devastating impact on infrastructure from two years of war.
Authorities estimate hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of reconstruction would be needed. Yet there is little chance of that in the short-term given continued fighting and drone attacks on power stations, dams and fuel depots.
Not to mention a world becoming more averse to foreign aid where the biggest donor, the US, has slashed assistance.
The Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling since April 2023, with tens of thousands of people killed or injured and about 13 million uprooted in what aid groups call the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Residents of the capital Khartoum have to endure weeks-long power outages, unclean water and overcrowded hospitals. Their airport is burnt out with shells of planes on the runway.
Most of the main buildings in downtown Khartoum are charred and once-wealthy neighborhoods are ghost towns with destroyed cars and unexploded shells dotting the streets.
“Khartoum is not habitable. The war has destroyed our life and our country and we feel homeless even though the army is back in control,” said Tariq Ahmed, 56.
He returned briefly to his looted home in the capital before leaving it again, after the army recently pushed the RSF out of Khartoum.
One consequence of the infrastructure breakdown can be seen in a rapid cholera outbreak that has claimed 172 deaths out of 2,729 cases over the past week alone mainly in Khartoum.
Other parts of central and western Sudan, including the Darfur region, are similarly ravaged by fighting, while the extensive damage in Khartoum, once the center of service provision, reverberates across the country.
Sudanese authorities estimate reconstruction needs at $300 billion for Khartoum and $700 billion for the rest of Sudan.
The UN is doing its own estimates.
Sudan’s oil production has more than halved to 24,000 barrels-per-day and its refining capabilities ceased as the main Al-Jaili oil refinery sustained $3 billion in damages during battles, Oil and Energy Minister Mohieddine Naeem said.
Without refining capacity, Sudan now exports all its crude and relies on imports, he said. It also struggles to maintain pipelines needed by South Sudan for its own exports.
Earlier this month, drones targeted fuel depots and the airport at the country’s main port city in an attack Sudan blamed on the UAE. The Gulf country denied the accusations.
All of Khartoum’s power stations have been destroyed, Naeem said. The national electrical company recently announced a plan to increase supply from Egypt to northern Sudan and said earlier in the year that repeated drone attacks to stations outside Khartoum were stretching its ability to keep the grid going.
Looted copper
Government forces re-took Khartoum earlier this year and as people return to houses turned upside down by looters, one distinctive feature has been deep holes drilled into walls and roads to uncover valuable copper wire.
On Sudan’s Nile Street, once its busiest throughway, there is a ditch about one meter (three feet) deep and 4 km (2.5 miles) long, stripped of wiring and with traces of burning.
Khartoum’s two main water stations went out of commission early in the war as RSF soldiers looted machinery and used fuel oil to power vehicles, according to Khartoum state spokesperson Altayeb Saadeddine.
Those who have remained in Khartoum resort to drinking water from the Nile or long-forgotten wells, exposing them to waterborne illnesses. But there are few hospitals equipped to treat them.
“There has been systematic sabotage by militias against hospitals, and most medical equipment has been looted and what remains has been deliberately destroyed,” said Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, putting losses to the health system at $11 billion.
With two or three million people looking at returning to Khartoum, interventions were needed to avoid further humanitarian emergencies like the cholera outbreak, said United Nations Development Programme resident representative Luca Renda.
But continued war and limited budget means a full-scale reconstruction plan is not in the works.
“What we can do ... with the capacity we have on the ground, is to look at smaller-scale infrastructure rehabilitation,” he said, like solar-power water pumps, hospitals, and schools.
In that way, he said, the war may provide an opportunity for decentralizing services away from Khartoum, and pursuing greener energy sources.

UN blasts new US-backed aid distribution system in Gaza

Updated 28 May 2025
Follow

UN blasts new US-backed aid distribution system in Gaza

  • The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis in the territory
  • Intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The UN on Wednesday condemned a US-backed aid system in Gaza after 47 people were injured during a chaotic food distribution, where the Israeli military said it did not open fire at crowds.

The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis coupled with intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy group that has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.

According to the UN, 47 people were injured in the mayhem that erupted on Tuesday when thousands of Palestinians desperate for food rushed into a GHF aid distribution site, while a Palestinian medical source said at least one had died.

Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said most of the wounded had been hurt by gunfire, and based on the information he had, “it was shooting from the IDF” — the Israeli military.

The Israeli military rejected the accusation, with Col. Olivier Rafowicz telling AFP that Israeli soldiers “fired warning shots into the air, in the area outside” the center managed by the GHF, and “in no case toward the people.”

With the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel entering its 600th day on Wednesday, Palestinians in Gaza felt there was no reason to hope for a better future.

In Israel, the relatives of people held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attack longed for the return of their loved ones, with hundreds gathering in their name in Tel Aviv.

“Six hundred days have passed and nothing has changed. Death continues, and Israeli bombing does not stop,” said Bassam Daloul, 40, adding that “even hoping for a ceasefire feels like a dream and a nightmare.”

The UN has repeatedly hit out against the GHF, which faces accusations of failing to fulfil the principles of humanitarian work, and Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, on Wednesday reiterated the criticism.

“I believe it is a waste of resources and a distraction from atrocities. We already have an aid distribution system that is fit for purpose,” he said during a visit in Japan.

In Gaza, the civil defense agency said Israeli air strikes killed 16 people since dawn Wednesday.

Heba Jabr, 29, who sleeps in a tent in southern Gaza with her husband and their two children, was struggling to find food.

“Dying by bombing is much better than dying from the humiliation of hunger and being unable to provide bread and water for your children,” she said.

Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza for over two months, before allowing supplies in at a trickle last week.

A medical source in southern Gaza said that after Tuesday’s stampede at the GHF site “more than 40 injured people arrived at Nasser Hospital, the majority of them wounded by Israeli gunfire,” adding that at least one had died since.

The source added that “a number of other civilians also arrived at the hospital with various bruises.”

On Tuesday, the GHF said around “8,000 food boxes have been distributed so far... totaling 462,000 meals.”

UN agencies and aid groups have argued that the GHF’s designation of so-called secure distribution sites contravenes the principle of humanity because it would force already displaced people to move again in order to stay alive.

Israel stepped up its military offensive in Gaza earlier this month, while mediators push for a ceasefire that remains elusive.

In Israel, hundreds of people gathered to call for a ceasefire that would allow for the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza since their 2023 attack.

Protesters gathered along the country’s roads and on the main highway running through the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv at 6:29 am, the exact time the unprecedented October 7 attack began.

Most Israeli media headlines read “600 days,” and focused on the hostage families’ struggle to get their relatives home.

Other events were planned across Israel to make the 600th day of captivity for the 57 remaining hostages still in Gaza.

Some 1,218 people were killed in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 3,924 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,084, mostly civilians.


Pope Leo appeals for Gaza ceasefire, laments deaths of children

Updated 28 May 2025
Follow

Pope Leo appeals for Gaza ceasefire, laments deaths of children

  • ‘The intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers,’ he said

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo appealed on Wednesday for a ceasefire in Gaza, and called on Israel and Hamas militants to “completely respect” international humanitarian law.

“In the Gaza Strip, the intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers who hold tightly to the bodies of their dead children,” the pontiff said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“To those responsible, I renew my appeal: stop the fighting,” said the pope. “Liberate all the hostages. Completely respect humanitarian law.”

Leo, elected on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, also appealed for an end to the war in Ukraine.


Italy demands Israel stops strikes, blasts expulsions of Gazans

Updated 28 May 2025
Follow

Italy demands Israel stops strikes, blasts expulsions of Gazans

  • Antonion Tajani: ‘The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored’

ROME: Italy’s foreign minister on Wednesday again urged Israel to stop its strikes on Gaza, while warning that expelling Palestinians from the territory “is not and never will be an acceptable option.”
“The legitimate reaction of the Israeli government to a terrible and senseless terrorist act has unfortunately taken on absolutely tragic and unacceptable forms, that we ask Israel to stop immediately,” Antonion Tajani told parliament, referring also to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored,” he said.
“Hamas must immediately free all the hostages which are still today in its in hands, and who have the right to return to their homes.”
Tajani also condemned US President Donald Trump’s plan for US control of Gaza and the forced displacement of the Palestinians living there.
“I want to reiterate today in this chamber with the utmost clarity – the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza is not and will never be an acceptable option,” Tajani said.
“This is why we wholeheartedly support the Arab plan led by Egypt for the recovery and reconstruction of the (Gaza) Strip, which is incompatible with any hypothesis of forced displacement.”


Israel hits Houthi targets including last plane at Sanaa airport

Updated 28 May 2025
Follow

Israel hits Houthi targets including last plane at Sanaa airport

  • The strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport
  • Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month

JERUSALEM/ADEN: Israel said it had struck Houthi targets including the last remaining plane used by the group at Sanaa international airport, after the Yemeni militants launched missiles toward Israel a day earlier.

The General Director of Sanaa International Airport, Khaled Al-Shaief, said in a post on his X account that the strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport.

The airport is the largest in Yemen and came back into service last week after temporary repairs and runway restoration following previous Israeli strikes.

It was mainly being used by UN aircraft and the plane destroyed in the latest Israeli strikes. Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month.

“This is a clear message and a direct continuation of the policy we have established: whoever fires at the State of Israel will pay a heavy price,” Israel’s defense ministry said in a statement.

The Houthis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” a regional alliance that includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis control territory where about 60 percent of Yemen’s population resides.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the group has fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea in what it says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.

The US also launched intensified strikes against the Houthis this year, before halting the campaign after the Houthis agreed to stop attacks on US ships.

In a statement on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any harm directed at Israel will be met with greater force.

“But, as I have said more than once, the Houthis are only the symptom. The main driving force behind them is Iran, which is responsible for the aggression emanating from Yemen,” Netanyahu said.