Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN

The UN has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory. (AFP)
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Updated 22 April 2025
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Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN

  • UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini: ‘Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade’
  • ‘Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war’

GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that Gaza was facing deepening hunger 50 days into a total Israeli blockade on all aid entering the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X.
“Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade.”
After 18 months of devastating war and an Israeli blockade on aid since March 2, the UN has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory.
Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
The heads of 12 major aid organizations warned last Thursday that “famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts” of the territory.
“You can see a clear tendency toward total disaster,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA told reporters in Geneva Tuesday.
“It is true that right now is probably the worst humanitarian situation we have seen throughout the war in Gaza.”
In his post on X, Lazzarini questioned “how much longer until hollow words of condemnation will translate into action to lift the siege, resume a ceasefire and save whatever is left of humanity?”
The UNRWA chief decried that two million people in Gaza, most of them women and children, “are undergoing collective punishment.”
“The wounded, sick and elderly are deprived of medical supplies and care,” he said, even as humanitarian organizations like UNRWA have thousands of trucks waiting with supplies that risk expiring.
“Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war,” he charged.
“The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume.”


Jordan, UK explore deepening trade ties under partnership agreement

Updated 5 sec ago
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Jordan, UK explore deepening trade ties under partnership agreement

  • Talks in Amman discuss progress made under 2021 deal and explore further avenues of collaboration
  • Trade envoy Iain McNicol outlines Britain’s 'keenness' to strengthen trade ties

AMMAN: Jordan and the UK have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening economic and trade cooperation under the framework of their 2021 bilateral partnership agreement, the Jordan News Agency reported.

During talks in Amman on Saturday, Minister of Industry, Trade, and Supply Yarub Qudah met with British Trade Envoy to Jordan, Kuwait, and Palestine, Iain McNicol, to discuss progress made under the deal and explore further avenues of collaboration.

Philip Hall, the British ambassador to Jordan, also attended the meeting.

According to a statement from the Jordanian Ministry of Industry, the discussions touched on efforts to streamline rules of origin and the development of mechanisms to monitor the agreement’s implementation; chief among them the launch of a Partnership Council and technical committees.

Qudah highlighted several ongoing challenges, including the complexity of the rules of origin, and the comparatively high costs of compliance and export for Jordanian producers.

He stressed the need to review the terms of the current agreement to ensure Jordanian products are granted preferential access to UK markets— particularly in light of the United Kingdom’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme, which offers more favorable terms to other nations.

McNicol affirmed Britain’s “keenness” to deepen trade ties with Jordan and expressed support for improving the Kingdom’s investment environment.

He also emphasized the UK’s commitment to sustainable trade initiatives, including support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and stimulating British investment in Jordan’s “vital” productive sectors.

Looking ahead, both sides agreed to accelerate preparations for the upcoming Jordanian-British Business Forum, which they said would provide a key platform to strengthen private-sector ties and explore new areas of economic cooperation.


Hamas armed wing releases video of apparently injured Israeli hostage

Updated 42 min 43 sec ago
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Hamas armed wing releases video of apparently injured Israeli hostage

  • The man, shown lying on the ground, also referred to Israel’s Independence Day celebrations
  • He gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by the militant group

JERUSALEM: The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday showing what appeared to be an Israeli hostage injured in a strike on Gaza.
In the undated four-minute video, which AFP has not been able to verify, the hostage, wearing bandages on his head and left arm and identifying himself only as “Prisoner 24,” spoke in Hebrew with a Russian accent, implying he had been wounded in a recent Israeli bombardment.
The man, shown lying on the ground, also referred to Israel’s Independence Day celebrations on Thursday as upcoming, suggesting that the video was filmed shortly beforehand.
He gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by the militant group, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free those still held in Gaza.
Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel. The army says 34 of them are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas came into force on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting.
Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over next steps in the ceasefire.
The Israeli government says its renewed offensive aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge it puts them in mortal danger.
Since the end of the truce, Hamas has released several videos of hostages. The latest images come as efforts by mediators to broker a new truce have stalled.


UN envoy condemns intense wave of Israeli airstrikes on Syria

Updated 03 May 2025
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UN envoy condemns intense wave of Israeli airstrikes on Syria

  • UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir O. Pedersen, denounced the strikes
  • “I strongly condemn Israel’s continued and escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, including multiple airstrikes in Damascus and other cities,” Pedersen wrote

HARASTA, Syria: The United Nations special envoy for the Syrian Arab Republic condemned Saturday an intense wave of Israeli airstrikes as Israel said its forces were on the ground in Syria to protect the Druze minority sect following days of clashes with Syrian pro-government gunmen.
The late Friday airstrikes were reported in different parts of the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs, as well as southern and central Syria, local Syrian media reported. They came hours after Israel’s air force struck near Syria’s presidential palace after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by Syrian Druze.
Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X the strikes targeted a military post and anti-aircraft units. He also said the Israeli troops in Southern Syria were “to prevent any hostile force from entering the area or Druze villages” and that five Syrian Druze wounded in the fighting were transported for treatment in Israel.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported Saturday that four were wounded in central Syria, and that the airstrikes hit the eastern Damascus suburb of Harasta as well as the southern province of Daraa and the central province of Hama.
UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir O. Pedersen, denounced the strikes on X.


“I strongly condemn Israel’s continued and escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, including multiple airstrikes in Damascus and other cities,” Pedersen wrote Saturday, calling for an immediate cease of attacks and for Israel to stop “endangering Syrian civilians and to respect international law and Syria’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and independence.”
Four days of clashes between pro-government gunmen and Druze fighters have left nearly 100 people dead and raised fears of deadly sectarian violence.
The clashes are the worst between forces loyal to the government and Druze fighters since the early December fall of President Bashar Assad, whose family ruled Syria with an iron grip for more than five decades.
Israel has its own Druze community and officials have said they would protect the Druze of Syria and warned Islamic militant groups from entering predominantly Druze areas. Israeli forces have carried out hundreds of airstrikes since Assad’s fall and captured a buffer zone along the Golan Heights.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria.
Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.


Groups fear Israeli proposal for controlling aid in Gaza will forcibly displace people

Updated 03 May 2025
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Groups fear Israeli proposal for controlling aid in Gaza will forcibly displace people

  • Israel has not detailed any of its proposals publicly or put them down in writing
  • “Israel has the responsibility to facilitate our work, not weaponize it,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN agency

TEL AVIV: Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza for two months and says it won’t allow food, fuel, water or medicine into the besieged territory until it puts in place a system giving it control over the distribution.
But officials from the UN and aid groups say proposals Israel has floated to use its military to distribute vital supplies are untenable. These officials say they would allow military and political objectives to impede humanitarian goals, put restrictions on who is eligible to give and receive aid, and could force large numbers of Palestinians to move — which would violate international law.
Israel has not detailed any of its proposals publicly or put them down in writing. But aid groups have been documenting their conversations with Israeli officials, and The Associated Press obtained more than 40 pages of notes summarizing Israel’s proposals and aid groups’ concerns about them.
Aid groups say Israel shouldn’t have any direct role in distributing aid once it arrives in Gaza, and most are saying they will refuse to be part of any such system.
“Israel has the responsibility to facilitate our work, not weaponize it,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN agency that oversees the coordination of aid Gaza.
“The humanitarian community is ready to deliver, and either our work is enabled ... or Israel will have the responsibility to find another way to meet the needs of 2.1 million people and bear the moral and legal consequences if they fail to do so,” he said.
None of the ideas Israel has proposed are set in stone, aid workers say, but the conversations have come to a standstill as groups push back.
The Israeli military agency in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, known as COGAT, did not respond to a request for comment and referred AP to the prime minister’s office. The prime minister’s office did not respond either.
Since the beginning of March, Israel has cut off Gaza from all imports, leading to what is believed to be the most severe shortage of food, medicine and other supplies in nearly 19 months of war with Hamas. Israel says the goal of its blockade is to pressure Hamas to free the remaining 59 hostages taken during its October 2023 attack on Israel that launched the war.
Israel says it must take control of aid distribution, arguing without providing evidence that Hamas and other militants siphon off supplies. Aid workers deny there is a significant diversion of aid to militants, saying the UN strictly monitors distribution.
Alarm among aid groups
One of Israel’s core proposals is a more centralized system — made up of five food distribution hubs — that would give it greater oversight, aid groups say.
Israel has proposed having all aid sent through a single crossing in southern Gaza and using the military or private security contractors to deliver it to these hubs, according to the documents shared with AP and aid workers familiar with the discussions. The distribution hubs would all be south of the Netzarim Corridor that isolates northern Gaza from the rest of the territory, the documents say.
One of the aid groups’ greatest fears is that requiring Palestinians to retrieve aid from a small number of sites — instead of making it available closer to where they live — would force families to move to get assistance. International humanitarian law forbids the forcible transfer of people.
Aid officials also worry that Palestinians could end up permanently displaced, living in “de facto internment conditions,” according to a document signed by 20 aid groups operating in Gaza.
The hubs also raise safety fears. With so few of them, huge crowds of desperate Palestinians will need to gather in locations that are presumably close to Israeli troops.
“I am very scared about that,” said Claire Nicolet, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.
There have been several occasions during the war when Israeli forces opened fire after feeling threatened as hungry Palestinians crowded around aid trucks. Israel has said that during those incidents, in which dozens died, many were trampled to death.
Given Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people, global standards for humanitarian aid would typically suggest setting up about 100 distribution sites — or 20 times as many as Israel is currently proposing — aid groups said.
Aside from the impractical nature of Israel’s proposals for distributing food, aid groups say Israel has yet to address how its new system would account for other needs, including health care and the repair of basic infrastructure, including water delivery.
“Humanitarian aid is more complex than food rations in a box that you pick up once a month,” said Gavin Kelleher, who worked in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Aid boxes can weigh more than 100 pounds, and transportation within Gaza is limited, in part because of shortages of fuel.
Experts say Israel is concerned that if Hamas seizes aid, it will then make the population dependent on the armed group in order to access critical food supplies. It could use income from selling the aid to recruit more fighters, said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at two Israeli think tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.
Private military contractors
As aid groups push back against the idea of Israel playing a direct distribution role within Gaza, Israel has responded by exploring the possibility of outsourcing certain roles to private security contractors.
The aid groups say they are opposed to any armed or uniformed personnel that could potentially intimidate Palestinians or put them at risk.
In the notes seen by AP, aid groups said a US-based security firm, Safe Reach Solutions, had reached out seeking partners to test an aid distribution system around the Netzarim military corridor, just south of Gaza City, the territory’s largest.
Aid groups urged each other not to participate in the pilot program, saying it could set a damaging precedent that could be repeated in other countries facing crises.
Safe Reach Solutions did not respond to requests for a comment.
Whether Israel distributes the aid or employs private contractors to it, aid groups say that would infringe on humanitarian principles, including impartiality and independence.
A spokesperson for the EU Commission said private companies aren’t considered eligible humanitarian aid partners for its grants. The EU opposes any changes that would lead to Israel seizing full control of aid in Gaza, the spokesperson said.
The US State Department declined to comment on ongoing negotiations.
Proposals to restrict who can deliver and receive aid
Another concern is an Israeli proposal that would allow authorities to determine if Palestinians were eligible for assistance based on “opaque procedures,” according to aid groups’ notes.
Aid groups, meanwhile, have been told by Israel that they will need to re-register with the government and provide personal information about their staffers. They say Israel has told them that, going forward, it could bar organizations for various reasons, including criticism of Israel, or any activities it says promote the “delegitimization” of Israel.
Arwa Damon, founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, says Israel has increasingly barred aid workers from Gaza who had previously been allowed in. In February, Damon was denied access to Gaza, despite having entered four times previously since the war began. Israel gave no reason for barring her, she said.
Aid groups are trying to stay united on a range of issues, including not allowing Israel to vet staff or people receiving aid. But they say they’re being backed into a corner.
“For us to work directly with the military in the delivery of aid is terrifying,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. “That should worry every single Palestinian in Gaza, but also every humanitarian worker.”


Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak resigns

Updated 03 May 2025
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Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak resigns

  • Mubarak said he had faced “lots of difficulties”, including being unable to reshuffle the government

Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, the prime minister of Yemen's internationally recognized government, said on Saturday he had submitted his resignation.
In a statement, Mubarak said he had faced “lots of difficulties”, including being unable to reshuffle the government.