UN may cut food aid to Syrian refugees due to cash shortage

Updated 09 April 2013
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UN may cut food aid to Syrian refugees due to cash shortage

BEIRUT/GENEVA: The United Nations said yesterday it will halt food aid to 400,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon next month unless it receives urgent new funding.
The cash shortage is part of a wider financial shortfall that the organization says is threatening its efforts to help nearly 1.3 million Syrian refugees and almost 4 million more people displaced inside Syria by the two-year conflict.
“The speed with which the crisis is deteriorating is much faster than the ability of the international community to finance the Syrian humanitarian needs,” Panos Moumtzis, the UN refugee agency’s regional coordinator for Syrian refugees said.
“We’re afraid, if no more funds are made available urgently — and this is where we are at a breaking point — we will come to a point where we will have to start reducing aid, prioritizing aid,” he said in Geneva.
In Lebanon, where authorities and aid groups are struggling to cope with a growing wave of refugees already equivalent to 10 percent of the local population, the UN World Food Programme warned that it might be forced to cut back operations in May.
“In one month, and with the current funding, more than 400,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon will no longer receive food assistance,” WFP country operations head Etienne Labande said.
All refugees currently receive food when they register and then get monthly food coupons worth $27 a month, Labande said, but any interruption in that support could lead to unrest in a country where sectarian tensions have already been aggravated by the Syrian crisis.
“I am extremely concerned that without continued funding we will see increased tensions and further displacement in an already tense environment,” Labande said.
REFUGEE “CATASTROPHE“
The United Nations said in mid-February that around 70,000 people had been killed in the uprising against President Bashar Assad. Since then, violence monitors say more than 10,000 people have died. The fighting has also left whole districts of the Syria’s historic cities in rubble.
The Beirut-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia estimates that 400,000 houses have been completely destroyed, 300,000 partially destroyed and a further half million suffered some kind of structural damage, so that one in three Syrian homes has been scarred by the war.
The United Nations says that so far only $400 million out of more than $1.5 billion pledged by international donors in late January to cover Syrian refugee needs for the first six months of this year has actually been committed.
It said last week the impact of the lack of funds would include a halt in 3.5 million liters of daily water deliveries to Jordan’s Zaatari camp which houses more than 100,000 refugees, mostly children.
“There’s tremendous pressure on the resources of these countries,” Moumtzis said.
“The refugees are being hosted by some of the poorest of the poor communities in Lebanon. And this is where there is a huge fragility, Lebanon in particular but also in Jordan.”
Moumtzis said he would be visiting the United States, Brussels and London to chase further donations but on the ground, aid workers said they were already feeling the pinch.
“It is a catastrophe. We are being asked to do more and more with less and less,” UNHCR’s Lebanon representative Ninette Kelley told reporters at the opening of a new registration center for Syrian refugees in the southern coastal town of Tyre.
“We simply don’t have the resources that we need in order to provide the assistance that is so desperately needed by the refugees and the help to the hosting community who so badly need it.”


Israeli settlers establish illegal outpost near Palestinian Authority’s administrative city of Ramallah

Updated 04 June 2025
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Israeli settlers establish illegal outpost near Palestinian Authority’s administrative city of Ramallah

  • Settlers establish site on ruins of displaced Palestinian family’s home
  • Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reported in May attempts by settlers to establish 15 new illegal outposts in West Bank

LONDON: Israeli settlers have established a new outpost on land belonging to Palestinians east of Ramallah, the administrative city of the Palestinian Authority.

The settlers have established the outpost on the ruins of a home belonging to a Palestinian family that was forcibly displaced nearly a year ago following a series of attacks in the village of Al-Taybeh, the Palestine News Agency reported.

Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law and have long been viewed as hindrances to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state and to achieving peace.

The PA’s affiliated Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reported in May on attempts by Israeli settlers to establish 15 new illegal outposts in the West Bank, mainly on agricultural and pastoral land.

These outposts are distributed across several governorates, including six in Ramallah and Al-Bireh; two in Salfit, Tubas, and Bethlehem; and one each in Jericho and Nablus.


Israel defense ministry says arms exports hit all time high in 2024

Updated 04 June 2025
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Israel defense ministry says arms exports hit all time high in 2024

  • “Israel again reached an all-time peak in defense exports in 2024,” the ministry said

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense ministry said Wednesday that its arms exports hit an all-time high of more than $14.7 billion in 2024, with a sharp rise in deals with Arab Gulf states, despite international criticism of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

“Israel again reached an all-time peak in defense exports in 2024, marking the fourth consecutive record-breaking year in the scope of defense agreements,” the ministry, which oversees and approves the exports of Israel’s defense industries, said in a statement.


Suspected crypto kidnappings mastermind arrested in Morocco

Updated 04 June 2025
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Suspected crypto kidnappings mastermind arrested in Morocco

  • France thanks Morocco for arresting 24-year-old after kidnappings targeting French crypto entrepreneurs

PARIS: France’s justice minister on Wednesday said that Morocco had arrested a man suspected of ordering a series of kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency entrepreneurs in France.
“I sincerely thank Morocco for this arrest, which demonstrates excellent judicial cooperation between our two countries, particularly in the fight against organized crime,” Gerald Darmanin said on X.


Turkiye’s AJet to start flights to Syria’s Damascus

Updated 04 June 2025
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Turkiye’s AJet to start flights to Syria’s Damascus

  • AJet said flights from Sabiha Gokcen airport will begin from Jun. 16
  • Flights to Damascus from Ankara will start from Jun. 17

ISTANBUL: Turkish Airlines subsidiary AJet said it will start flights to Damascus International from Istanbul and Ankara airports in mid-June.

AJet said in a statement that flights from Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport will begin from Jun. 16. Flights will initially take place four times per week before operating daily from July, it added.

Flights to Damascus from the Turkish capital Ankara will start from Jun. 17, three-times per week, the carrier also said.

Turkish Airlines resumed flights to Damascus in January after a 13-year suspension.

Turkiye, a close ally of the new government in Damascus, has pledged to support the country’s reconstruction. Ankara has already helped with the improvement and maintenance of Syria’s airports, the Turkish transport minister has said.


UAE president meets Egypt’s Sisi in Abu Dhabi

Updated 04 June 2025
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UAE president meets Egypt’s Sisi in Abu Dhabi

DUBAI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed met his counterpart Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.  
El-Sisi, who is on a visit to the UAE, arrived at the presidential airport and was received by the UAE leader along with a number of senior officials.