UNITED NATIONS: The UN humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the 12-year conflict in Syria has pushed 90 percent of its population below the poverty line, and that millions face cuts in food aid next month because of a funding shortfall.
Martin Griffiths said that the $5.4 billion UN humanitarian appeal for Syria – the world’s largest – is only 12 percent funded, meaning that emergency food aid for millions of Syrians could be cut by 40 percent in July.
Griffiths delivered the grim news to the UN Security Council along with an appeal to members to renew the authorization for the delivery of aid to the country’s rebel-held northwest from Turkiye, which expires July 10.
But Russia’s UN ambassador, whose country is Syria’s most important ally, called the cross-border aid deliveries “a zero-sum game” that is undermining Syria’s sovereignty, discriminating against government-controlled territory, and fueling illegal armed groups including “terrorists in Idlib.”
Syria’s uprising-turned conflict, now in its 13th year, has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of its prewar population of 23 million. A deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked large swaths of Syria in February, further compounding its misery.
Griffiths, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs who returned Wednesday from Damascus, said the Syrian people are facing “profound humanitarian challenges.” He said they were gathering Thursday on the Muslim holy day Eid Al-Adha “with less food on their plates, little fuel in their stoves, and limited water in their homes” and their hardship comes at a time when the UN and its humanitarian partners have limited means to help.
Russia’s Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the emergency humanitarian appeal for $397 million to help earthquake victims was funded in the first months, but the overall UN appeal for Syria was only 12 percent funded near the end of June. And he accused the US and its allies of spending far more on weapons for Ukraine than the $55 billion the UN is seeking for global humanitarian needs this year, saying “this lays out Western priorities very clearly.”
Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward retorted that the UK’s $190 million pledge on June 15 brought their contribution to Syria to over $4.8 billion to date and said: “I look forward to Russia announcing its contribution in due course following the recent announcement that Russia spends $2 billion a year on the Wagner Group.”
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, after the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his forces staged a revolt inside Russia, that Wagner and its founder had received almost $2 billion from the Russian government in the past year.
Woodward, who visited the Turkish-Syria border earlier this month, echoed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for a 12-month extension of the authorization for cross-border aid deliveries to ensure humanitarian access to 4.1 million people in Syria’s northwest.
In January, the council approved a resolution extending humanitarian aid deliveries to Idlib for six months until July 10 as Russia demanded. Many of the people sheltering in the area have been internally displaced by the conflict. The resolution allowed for aid deliveries to continue through the Bab Al-Hawa crossing, but after the earthquake Syria’s President Bashar Assad allowed aid to go through two additional crossings at Bab Al-Salameh and Al-Rai.
US deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, who said the United States made its largest commitment to Syria of $920 million on June 15, called it “essential” to keep all three crossings open for 12 months. He cited Guterres’ latest report which said anything less would be inadequate to meet humanitarian needs in the northwest which have never been greater. The UN chief called it “a moral and humanitarian imperative.”
Russia and Syria have pressed for aid deliveries to the northwest across conflict lines and UN aid chief Griffiths said a 10-truck convoy from Aleppo recently traveled from Aleppo to Idlib safely, with aid for some 22,000 people. But Russia’s Nebenzia dismissed it as the only cross-line delivery in the last six months “clearly timed to coincide with today’s meeting.”
“Do you seriously expect us to consider the situation with cross-line convoys to be satisfactory after this?,” he asked.
Griffiths said expanding early recovery programs – another key Syrian and Russian demand – “is the humanitarian community’s best chance to support the future of the Syrian people.”
He urged a stronger international consensus on the importance of these programs and a relaxation of rules to allow not only vocational training but mentoring for young people, construction of irrigation systems without qualifying them as “development” projects, and the opening of schools regardless of whether they are described as “rehabilitated” or “reconstructed.”
UN warns that 90% of Syrians are below the poverty line, while millions face cuts in food aid
https://arab.news/n5veq
UN warns that 90% of Syrians are below the poverty line, while millions face cuts in food aid
- Griffiths said expanding early recovery programs – another key Syrian and Russian demand – “is the humanitarian community’s best chance to support the future of the Syrian people”
SDF hands over 2 Daesh members suspected in 2014 mass killing of Iraqi troops
- Iraq has, over the past several years, put on trial and later executed dozens of Daesh members over their involvement in the Speicher massacre
BEIRUT: Syria’s US-backed Kurdish-led force has handed over to Baghdad two Daesh militants suspected of involvement in mass killings of Iraqi soldiers in 2014, a war monitor said.
The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came a day after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said it had brought back to the country three Daesh members from outside Iraq. The intelligence service did not provide more details.
Daesh captured an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after seizing Saddam Hussein‘s hometown of Tikrit in 2014. The soldiers were trying to flee from nearby Camp Speicher, a former US base.
BACKGROUND
Daesh captured an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after seizing Saddam Hussein‘s hometown of Tikrit in 2014.
Shortly after taking Tikrit, Daesh posted graphic images of Daesh militants shooting and killing the soldiers.
Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said the US-backed force handed over two Daesh members to Iraq.
It was not immediately clear where Iraqi authorities brought the third suspect from.
The 2014 killings, known as the Speicher massacre, sparked outrage across Iraq and partially fueled the mobilization of militias in the fight against Daesh.
Iraq has, over the past several years, put on trial and later executed dozens of Daesh members over their involvement in the Speicher massacre.
The Observatory said the two Daesh members were among 20 captured recently in a joint operation with the US-led coalition in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, once the capital of Daesh’s self-declared caliphate.
Despite their defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in March 2019, the extremist sleeper cells are still active and have been carrying out deadly attacks against SDF and Syrian government forces.
Shami said a car rigged with explosives and driven by a suicide attacker tried on Friday night to storm a military checkpoint for the Deir El-Zour Military Council. This Arab majority faction is part of the SDF in the eastern Syrian village of Shuheil.
Shami said that when the guards tried to stop the car, the attacker blew himself up, killing three US-backed fighters.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was similar to previous explosions carried out by IS militants.
The SDF is holding over 10,000 captured Daesh fighters in around two dozen detention facilities, including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them.
Protesters return to streets across Israel, demanding hostage release
- Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv
TEL AVIV: Thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government do more to secure the release of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip by Islamist group Hamas.
Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv.
One of them was Naama Weinberg, whose cousin Itai Svirsky was abducted during Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and, according to Israeli authorities, was killed in captivity. In a speech she referenced a video Hamas made public on Saturday, claiming that another of the Israeli captives had died.
“Soon, even those who managed to survive this long will no longer be among the living. They must be saved now,” Weinberg said.
As the evening progressed, some protesters blocked a main highway in the city before being dispersed by police, who used water cannons to push back the crowd. At least three people were arrested.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now raging for nearly seven months.
UN Security Council seeks inquiry into mass graves in Gaza
- The UN rights office in late April had called for an independent investigation into reports of mass graves at Al-Shifa and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis
NEW YORK: The UN Security Council has called for an immediate and independent investigation into mass graves allegedly containing hundreds of bodies near hospitals in Gaza.
In a statement, members of the council expressed their “deep concern over reports of the discovery of mass graves, in and around the Nasser and Al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza, where several hundred bodies, including women, children and older persons, were buried.”
The members stressed the need for “accountability” for any violations of international law.
They called on investigators to be given “unimpeded access to all locations of mass graves in Gaza to conduct immediate, independent, thorough, comprehensive, transparent and impartial investigations.”
FASTFACT
The World Health Organization said in April that Al-Shifa, in Gaza City, had been reduced to an ‘empty shell,’ with many bodies found in the area.
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly targeted since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in the Palestinian territory following the October 7 attack on southern Israel by Gaza-based Hamas militants.
The World Health Organization said in April that Al-Shifa, in Gaza City, had been reduced to an “empty shell,” with many bodies found in the area.
The Israeli army has said around 200 Palestinians were killed during its military operations there.
Bodies have reportedly been found buried in two graves in the hospital’s courtyard.
The UN rights office in late April had called for an independent investigation into reports of mass graves at Al-Shifa and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.
Gaza officials said at the time that health workers at the Nasser complex had uncovered hundreds of bodies of Palestinians they alleged had been killed and buried by Israeli forces.
Israel’s army has dismissed the claims as “baseless and unfounded.”
The statement on Friday from the Security Council did not say who would conduct the investigations.
But it “reaffirmed the importance of allowing families to know the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives, consistent with international humanitarian law.”
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 34,943 people in the Gaza Strip, primarily women and children, the Health Ministry in the territory said.
Qatari PM and UN chief discuss Gaza developments during call
LONDON: Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani on Friday received a phone call from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, state news agency QNA reported.
During the call, they discussed developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, especially joint mediation efforts to end the war, release prisoners and detainees, and bring humanitarian aid in a sustainable manner to all areas of the besieged enclave.
They also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East region.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Mohammed received a delegation of members of the US Congress, which included Democratic Representative Derek Kilmer, Republican Representative and Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security Dave Joyce, and the Republican Representative member of the House Committee on Financial Services Lance Gooden during their visit to Doha.
The meeting discussed the close strategic relations between Qatar and the US and ways to support and develop them.
Israel strikes Gaza as more Rafah evacuations ordered
- Fighting is escalating across the enclave with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hamas
- Israel’s move into Rafah has so far been short of the full-scale invasion that it has planned
RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes on Saturday hit parts of Gaza including Rafah where Israel expanded an evacuation order and the UN warned of “epic” disaster if an outright invasion of the crowded city occurs.
AFP journalists, medics and witnesses reported strikes from the south to the north of the coastal territory, where the UN says aid is blocked after Israeli troops defied international opposition and entered eastern Rafah this week, effectively shutting two crossings.
At least 21 people were killed during strikes in central Gaza and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah city, a hospital statement said.
Bodies covered in white lay on the ground in a courtyard of the facility. A man in a baseball cap leaned over one body bag, clasping a dust-covered hand that protruded.
The feet of another corpse poked from under a blanket bearing the picture of a large teddy bear.
In Rafah, witnesses reported intense air strikes near the crossing with Egypt, and AFP images showed smoke rising over the city.
Other strikes occurred in north Gaza, they said.
Israeli troops on Tuesday seized and closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing — through which all fuel passes into Gaza — after ordering residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate.
Israel’s military said it went into eastern Rafah to pursue Palestinian militants.
Fighting continued on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing, the military reported on Friday, before on Saturday expanding its evacuation order to more areas of Rafah’s east.
Evacuation orders
The new order, posted on social media platform X by military spokesman Avichay Adraee, said the designated areas had “witnessed Hamas terrorist activities in recent days and weeks.”
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
During their attack, militants also seized hostages. Israel estimates 128 of them remain in Gaza including 36 whom the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
A US State Department report on Friday said Israel likely violated norms on international law in its use of weapons from the United States but it did not find enough evidence to block shipments.
The State Department submitted its report two days after President Joe Biden publicly threatened to withhold certain bombs and artillery shells if Israel goes ahead with an all-out assault on Rafah, where the United Nations said 1.4 million had been sheltering.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to “eliminate” Hamas battalions in Rafah and achieve “total victory,” after the army in January said it had dismantled the Hamas command structure in northern Gaza.
But on Saturday Adraee said Hamas “is trying to rebuild” there, and ordered evacuations from the north’s Jabalia and Beit Lahia areas.
After rising criticism from Washington over the civilian impact of Israel’s war against Hamas, the threat to withhold weapons was the first time Biden raised the ultimate US leverage over Israel — its military aid which totals $3 billion annually.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that Gaza risked an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
While the army said it reopened Kerem Shalom crossing near Rafah on Wednesday, aid agencies cautioned that getting assistance through the militarised area remained extremely difficult.
Aid in limbo
A UN report late Friday cited Martin Griffiths, the UN’s aid chief, as saying closure of the crossings “means no aid.”
Israel has said its Erez crossing into northern Gaza remains open.
The State Department report said it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel has used American weapons in ways inconsistent with standards on humanitarian rights but that the United States could not reach “conclusive findings.”
The report does not affect Biden’s threat to withhold some weapons.
On Friday the White House said it did not yet see a “major ground operation” in Rafah but was watching the situation “with concern.”
Biden’s administration had already paused delivery of 3,500 bombs as Israel appeared ready to attack Rafah.
More than 100,000 people fled the city after the initial evacuation order, the United Nations said on Friday.
Israel on Saturday gave a figure of 300,000, as more Rafah residents piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again.
Malek Al-Zaza, with a trim grey beard, said he has been displaced three times now during the war and found “no food” and “no water” in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp where he has returned.
“We only have God looking out for us,” he said.
Humanitarian crisis
Israel said it had delivered 200,000 liters of fuel to Gaza on Friday through Kerem Shalom — the amount the United Nations says is needed every day to keep aid trucks moving and hospital generators working.
Reiterating his calls for a ceasefire, Guterres said: “We are actively engaged with all involved for the resumption of the entry of life-saving supplies — including desperately needed fuel — through Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.”
The evacuation order on Saturday told residents to go to the “humanitarian zone” of Al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah.
That area has “extremely limited access to clean drinking water, latrines, et cetera,” said Sylvain Groulx, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency coordinator in Gaza.
The army late Friday said rocket fire from Gaza wounded an Israeli civilian in the southern city of Beersheba. It was the first time since December that the city had come under Palestinian rocket attack.
In New York, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to grant the Palestinians additional rights in the global body and backed their drive for full membership.
Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the vote was historic, but Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the move told Hamas that “violence pays off.”
