Tag: UN

  • On this day: International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

    On this day: International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

    November 29 is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, observed by the United Nations every year.

    On this day, back in 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution known as the Partition Resolution (Resolution 181), calling for the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem as a separate body under a special international regime.

    This, however, never became a reality and only Israel was created as a free entity.

    Israel took over East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967 even though the Old City under the occupation is religiously significant for Muslims, Christians alongside Jews. While Israel has declared the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1980, the international community deems it an occupied territory to-date whereas Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they are fighting for.

    In 1977, on November 29, the UN General Assembly adopted an official observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

  • UN goodwill ambassador scorecard: How many spoke up for Palestine?

    UN goodwill ambassador scorecard: How many spoke up for Palestine?

    Since October 7 when Netanyahu declared war on Gaza and commenced bombardment that many experts are calling a genocide, social media users have expressed outrage against celebrities remaining silent about the atrocities, especially those who work with UNICEF. The UN body provides protection and aid for children from marginalised communities in countries like Syria and Vietnam.

    But as the genocide of Gaza goes on, several people have noticed how prominent big names have remained silent.

    Social media feels it’s absolutely necessary to point out that any person with a massive platform and influence has a responsibility to condemn a genocide or at least ask for a ceasefire. If you’re the goodwill ambassador of an organisation that is advocating for the rights of children, then the onus lies on you to speak out when it matters.

    We have a list of big names who are working with UNICEF, and what was their stance on the death toll in Gaza.

    Selena Gomez

    Selena, the most followed person on Instagram, sparked outrage when she posted a vague statement on her social media accounts, writing that she was against the murder of little children, and was taking a break because of the violence. She also added that “an Instagram post doesn’t change anything,” leading many to criticise the actress for being a hypocrite for using her 430 million followers to promote products, but not to stop a genocide.

    Later, Selena announced she was deleting her account because of the backlash, causing further outrage. She then signed the petition calling for a ceasefire, and donated to charities in both Israel and Palestine. Social media was still not happy because the CEO of Rare Beauty, Selena’s beauty brand, has publicly expressed his Zionist ties.

    Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry

    Orlando released a neutral statement on October 14 on his Instagram account expressing his grief on the innocent lives lost both in Israel and Palestine, calling for an end to the war. Then the celebrity couple signed the open letter calling President Biden to bring all hostages home and ending the Hamas.

    David Beckham

    The former football star and UNICEF ambassador released a statement on his Instagram stories expressing his grief on lives lost on both sides and called for the violence to stop.

    Priyanka Chopra

    Priyanka was among the several South Asian celebrities who signed the petition calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and had also not attended the Diwali party held by Kamala Harris at the White House.

    Alyssa Milano

    The actress released a statement criticising the calls for ‘no ceasefire’ at the Israeli march held in Washington, and called for a radical peace movement that helps the innocent children of Palestine.

    Amitabh Bachchan

    The Bollywood giant was previously seen taking a selfie with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a 2018 event. He has not released a statement about the death toll of children and women killed in Gaza.

    Leo Messi

    The Argentinian football player is a UNICEF ambassador and has made no public statement about the children killed in Gaza.

    Millie Bobby Brown

    ‘Stranger Things’ star Millie Bobby Brown has not commented anything about the lives lost in Gaza,

    Serena Williams

    Famous tennis star Serena Williams has said nothing on the innocents killed in Gaza.

    Liam Neeson

    The actor has not said anything on the mass atrocities committed in Gaza.

    Jackie Chan

    The prominent Asian actor has said nothing about the civilian lives lost in Gaza.

  • New York police arrest hundreds at Jewish protest urging Gaza ceasefire

    New York police arrest hundreds at Jewish protest urging Gaza ceasefire

    Hundreds of people were arrested Friday when police broke up a large demonstration of mostly Jewish New Yorkers who had taken over the main hall of Grand Central station in protest of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, police and organizers said.

    The New York Police Department said at least 200 people had been arrested, while protest organizers put the number at more than 300.

    Photos from the scene showed long lines of young people standing in handcuffs and wearing black sweatshirts with the words “Not In Our Name” and “Cease Fire Now” printed in white.

    The massive sit-in was called by the group Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City, which said thousands of its members had attended the protest, blocking the main concourse of the city’s central rail station.

    Pictures showed the terminal packed with protesters who held up banners reading “Palestinians should be free” and “Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living.”

    Organizers called the peaceful sit-in “the largest civil disobedience New York City has seen in 20 years.”

    Rabbis launched the event by lighting Shabbat candles and reciting the Jewish prayer for the dead, known as the kaddish.

    “While Shabbat is typically a day of rest, we cannot afford to rest while genocide is unfolding in our names,” said Rabbi May Ye, in a statement released by organizers.

    “The lives of Palestinians and Israelis are intertwined, and safety can only come from justice, equality, and freedom for all,” the rabbi said.

    Israel launched its bombardment of Gaza after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping over 220 others, according to Israeli officials.

    The Hamas-run health ministry said Friday that Israeli strikes on Gaza had now killed 7,326 people, more than 3,000 of them children.

  • Palestinian Health Ministry provides credible casualty figures: UN

    Palestinian Health Ministry provides credible casualty figures: UN

    While US President Joe Biden has questioned the reliability of the death toll coming from Gaza, the United Nations has verified that the figures provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health have a history of being credible.

    “In the past, the five, six cycles of conflict in the Gaza Strip, these figures were considered as credible and no one ever really challenged these figures,” the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said while speaking to the media on Friday.

    On Thursday, the Health Ministry released a 212-page document with names and identity numbers of those killed in Israeli air raid since October 7, having collected the data from morgues and hospitals.

    The list consists of 6,747 people killed in the Israeli attacks, including 2,665 children whereas 529 bodies are yet to be identified.

    Anadolu Agency has said that 8,400 people have been killed including at least 7,028 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis.

  • Biden has ‘no confidence’ in Gaza death toll: What do we know about day 20

    Biden has ‘no confidence’ in Gaza death toll

    In his latest statement, US President Joe Biden has said that he has “no confidence in the number that Palestinians are using” to report on the death toll in the Gaza Strip, which, according to the Palestinian health ministry, is over 6,500.

    “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” Biden said.

    Previously, US intelligence officials also doubted the reported killings of 471 people in Gaza’s Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing on October 17. While the official number was provided by the Gazan authorities, the US believed the number fell between 100 and 300.

    According to the latest update by Al jazeera, the health ministry in the besieged enclave has claimed that killings in Gaza have crossed 7,000 as a result of Israeli air strikes including 2,913 children, 1,709 women and 397 elderly, the health ministry in the besieged enclave reported.

    West Bank

    Israel continues to raid Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, arresting more than 1,450 since October 7 and killing more than 100.

    Netanyahu talks about ground attacks on Gaza

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel is getting ready for a ground operation in Gaza, however, he has not said when it is to start.

    “We are in a war for our sovereignty, for our existence, and we have set ourselves two fundamental objectives: to eradicate Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities and to do everything possible to bring the hostages … back home,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

    Another failed UN Security Council resolution on Gaza

    A US-led resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses” ended up in vain as Russia and China vetoed whereas the United Arab Emirates voted against it.

    Albania, France, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States voted in favour while Brazil and Mozambique abstained.

    China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun told the council after the vote that, “The draft does not reflect the world’s strongest calls for a ceasefire, an end to the fighting, and it does not help resolve the issue,

    “At this moment, ceasefire is not just a diplomatic term. It means the life and death of many civilians.”

    Previously, a Russia-led resolution urging for “humanitarian ceasefire” also failed to get enough votes in favour as only Russia, China, UAE, and Gabon voted in favour while UK and the US opposed it.

    Countries that abstained included Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland

    12 aid trucks sent but no fuel

    The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported to have received 12 trucks with food, medicine and medical supplies.

    Only 74 trucks have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since October 7 while fuel is yet to be supplied.

    Credit: Al Jazeera

  • Israel picks fight with United Nations: What do we know about day 19

    Israel picks fight with United Nations: What do we know about day 19

    Israel versus the United Nations

    Israel has refused to issue visas to United Nations officials after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obliquely condemned Israeli orders to evacuate Gazans from the north to the south. Above all, he also said Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 did not happen “in a vacuum” as the Palestinians have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.

    According to Al Jazeera’s reporter Gabriel Elizondo, Israel was “furious” and its officials called on the UN chief to resign.

    Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who was at the debate, “was so upset”, said Elizondo, “that he cancelled a meeting with the secretary-general that was supposed to happen Tuesday afternoon”.

    Additionally, the UN had been raising concerns over the lack of fuel in Gaza and the potential pause in its operations. In response to one of the UN’s posts on Tuesday, the Israeli military suggested the UN should approach Hamas for fuel supplies.

    The Israeli military claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that Hamas has more than 500,000 litres of fuel in tanks inside Gaza.

    “Ask Hamas if you can have some,” the military wrote.

    103 killed in occupied West Bank

    Increasing Israeli raids since October 7 in the occupied West Bank have resulted in 103 deaths.

    Syrian army attacked by Israel

    The Israeli military claims to have targeted Syrian army infrastructure and mortar launches, asserting that it was a response to Syrian aims at Israel.

    “Lebanon was never an aggressor”: Ambassador

    During the UN Security Council meeting, Lebanon’s ambassador, Hadi Hachem, stated that his country “is exerting every effort to disassociate” from this “bloody conflict”.

    He added that Lebanon was never an aggressor.

    “It has always been a victim of aggression by Israel since the [1960s].”

    Referring to Gazans, he said “There is no law or doctrine that justifies the systematic killing of a population that lives in an open-air prison for more than a half a century.”

    Hachem also shed light on the killings of 13 journalists in Gaza (including the killing of Lebanese journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon) because of Israeli attacks, “proof” of Israel’s “policy to suppress freedoms”.

    Earlier in the debate, the US accused Iran and its proxies of destabilising the region, claims the Iranian ambassador categorically rejected.

    600,000 Palestinians displaced

    The UN is reportedly sheltering nearly 600,000 Palestinians who have been internally displaced in 150 facilities whereas at least 40 UNRWA installations have been affected following Israeli attacks.

    “Our shelters are four times over their capacities. Many people are sleeping on the streets as current facilities are overwhelmed,” the agency said in a post shared on X.

  • Only 20 trucks of aid allowed into Gaza

    Only 20 trucks of aid allowed into Gaza

    The Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza has finally been opened for aid trucks into Gaza on Saturday.

    Al Jazeera reports that Hamas’s media office confirmed that “The relief aid convoy that is supposed to enter today includes 20 trucks that carry medicine, medical supplies, and a limited amount of food supplies [canned goods],”

    The World Health Organization took to X to highlight that its trucks consists of trauma supplies for 1,200 people, portable trauma bags for on-the-spot stabilisation for 235 people, medication for chronic diseases for 1,500 people, essential health supplies for 300,000 people for three months.

    It is, however, important to note that the besieged Gaza Strip has a population of 2.3 million people.

    Humanitarian workers have been saying that 20 trucks are not enough for the catastrophe caused by Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip. So far, more than 4,000 people have been killed while more than 12,000 are injured.

    The UN reported that there is a severe dearth of food and drinking water while sanitation facilities, water wells, reservoirs, and pumping stations have been destroyed due to air raids.

    Hamas’s media office has also stated that this aid “will not change the catastrophic medical conditions in Gaza”.

    Previously, US President Joe Biden visited Israel and announced the agreement to allow 20 trucks in Gaza through Egypt.

  • Seven hospitals, 21 health centres out of service: What do we know about day 14

    Seven hospitals, 21 health centres out of service: What do we know about day 14

    Church Attack

    The Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church, a shelter for several Palestinian families in Gaza, was struck by Israeli bombing on Thursday night.

    Muslims and Christians, together, were seeking refuge under its roof however, Israel military targeted the Church killing and injuring dozens.

    According to Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office, 18 Christian Palestinians were among the killed.

    Israel air strike destroys al-Omari Mosque

    In another Israeli air raid, the historic al-Omari Mosque in the northern Gaza Strip has been razed.

    Humanitarian aid stuck at the closed Rafah crossing

    Humanitarian aid consisting of food, medicine, water purifiers, hygiene products and blankets have been stacking up in Egypt’s Sinai region at El Arish airport.

    It had been decided that Rafah border, the gateway to Gaza, would open but as of Friday morning, it remains closed.

    Some report that it could open on Saturday.

    On Thursday, the UN chief Antonio Guterres said in Cairo that “rapid, unimpeded humanitarian access” is urgently required and that the Rafah crossing and El Arish airport “are not only critical, they are our only hope” and “lifelines” for the people of Gaza.

    100+ targets attacked Gaza overnight

    The Israeli army claims to have attacked more than 100 targets last night across Gaza Strip.

    The attacks have reportedly destroyed tunnel shafts, munitions warehouses and dozens of operational headquarters.

    Read more: Israel attacks church sheltering displaced Christians and Muslims

    7 hospitals, 21 health centres out of service

    Health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra spoke at a press briefing outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, saying that seven main hospitals and 21 health centres are now out of service.

    Forty-six members of medical teams have been killed and 23 ambulances are completely destroyed.

    “What’s going on in the Gaza Strip is a big massacre against our Palestinian people, against the Muslims and Christians … Israel is undoubtedly going to commit more massacres and the international world is witnessing [this],” he said.

    He also reported that 4,137 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7 which includes 1,661 children whereas 13,260 people are wounded.

    Palestinians harassed in West Bank

    Since October 7, raids and arrests of Palestinians have increased in the West Bank — to be specific, more than 900 have been arrested in just two weeks whereas at least 10 people have been taken from Nur Shams refugee camp last night.

    20 arrested in the Nur Shams refugee camp

    The Israeli army has arrested 20 people and killed a dozen “terrorists” during its operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

    According to Al Jazeera, at least 13 people have been killed among whom seven were children.

    Since the Hamas attack in Israel, around 900 people have been arrested from the occupied West Bank, and at least 10 people were taken from this refugee camp alone last night.

    Credits: Al Jazeera

  • ‘Dunya ne hum par aitemaad keeya’: PM Shehbaz promises to use $9.7 billion flood donations transparently

    Following substantial pledges from the international community for Pakistan’s flood rehabilitation and climate resilience building, Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif accompanied by federal ministers, held a press conference in Islamabad to discuss the figures that the country received.

    On Wednesday, the premier announced that the Geneva conference proved to be successful as the world pledged a total of $9.7 billion.

    Giving a breakdown of the amount pledged at the conference, the prime minister said Saudi Arabia committed $1 billion, followed by China $100m, Qatar $25m, Canada $18.6m, Denmark $3.8m, European Union €87m, France €380m, Germany €84m, Italy €23m and Azerbaijan $2m.

    During the conference, he said that the world trusted this government, adding that, “It is now upon us to utilise the amount on infrastructural development and for the development of other important sectors.”

    “The ball is now in our court. We now have to transparently spend every single penny on the people’s prosperity”, he affirmed.

    He added that the incumbent regime would keep up their work until the flood-affected populace was repopulated into their homes.

    Answering a question about the sit-in in South Wazirabad against terrorism, and militancy, the prime minister said the National Security Committee (NSC) discussed the issue in detail.

    Foreign Minister (FM) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari termed the PM’s foreign policy “successful”, citing the amount raised for flood victims and simultaneously dispelled the “myth” that Pakistan was isolated.

    Bilawal said the requirement of $16bn [for flood recovery] in times of Covid, as well as the crisis triggered by the Ukraine-Russia conflict, was “no joke”.

    Earlier this week, an International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan was held in Geneva which was co-hosted by Pakistan and the United Nations (UN). PM Shehbaz addressed the platform and asked the world to pour in support for Pakistan.

  • UN condemns attack on police van guarding polio workers in DI Khan

    UN condemns attack on police van guarding polio workers in DI Khan

    The United Nations has condemned the attack on a police van guarding polio workers in Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
    “It’s not the first time that we’ve seen attacks on health workers; It’s not the first time we’ve seen attacks on people trying to do polio vaccination in Pakistan and other places in the world,” UN Secretary-General’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric said.

    He added, “Sometimes we’re faced with a situation where you really run out of words, but it is despicable to target and attack people who are going out in communities in extremely challenging circumstances, trying to protect the lives of infants and babies from a preventable disease that is almost wiped out; except for a handful of countries, and that all too often is due to a security situation where people actively work against health workers.”

    Terrorists opened fire on five police officers on Thursday who were guarding polio workers in Dera Ismail Khan, injuring all of them.
    As per the details, the incident happened on Thursday afternoon. The policemen were shifted to a local hospital for treatment.