UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations has not yet resumed using a shuttered border crossing to deliver aid to northwest Syria from Turkiye that Syria said it could use for another six months after UN Security Council approval of the route expired on Monday
The UN aid deliveries would have to be “in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian Government,” Syria’s UN Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh wrote in a letter on Thursday to the Security Council.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday the UN was still looking at the letter and consulting with a number of partners.
“That being said, we are committed to delivering life-saving assistance to millions of people in need in northwest Syria, guided by humanitarian principles and using all available means and delivery modalities,” he told reporters.
The Syrian government approved the Bab Al-Hawa crossing use after the UN Security Council this week failed to renew its authorization for the Turkish-based operation, which has been delivering humanitarian help to millions of people in rebel-held northwest Syria since 2014.
The 15-member failed to reach an agreement on Tuesday after Russia vetoed a proposed nine-month extension. Council authorization was needed because the Syrian government did not previously agree to the UN operation.
“We had prepositioned a lot of material in the area before the deadline. So we do have humanitarian aid in place, but obviously we want to get things going as quickly as we can,” Dujarric said.
Syrians who fled President Bashar Assad’s rule fear he may soon be able to choke off badly needed aid as Damascus acts to establish sway over UN assistance into the rebel-held northwest, the last major bastion of the Syrian opposition.
“Our guiding principle in Syria and everywhere else is our commitment to delivering humanitarian assistance guided by humanitarian principles of non-interference, of impartiality,” Dujarric said.
A violent crackdown by Assad on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to a civil war, with Moscow backing Assad and Washington supporting the opposition. Millions of people fled Syria with millions more internally displaced. Fighting has since abated with Assad back in control of most of Syria.
UN studying Syria aid approval before resuming deliveries
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UN studying Syria aid approval before resuming deliveries
- UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday the UN was still looking at the letter and consulting with a number of partners
- The 15-member failed to reach an agreement on Tuesday after Russia vetoed a proposed nine-month extension
Donors pledge over $2 billion for Gaza at Kuwait conference
- The conference said the funds would be dispersed over two years, with the possibility of an extension
- The initiative is designed “to mobilize efforts to support life-saving humanitarian interventions in the Gaza Strip”
KUWAIT CITY: A conference of international donors in Kuwait pledged over $2 billion in aid to Gaza Sunday as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an “immediate” ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The conference, organized by the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) and UN humanitarian coordination agency OCHA, said the funds would be dispersed over two years, with the possibility of an extension.
The initiative is designed “to mobilize efforts to support life-saving humanitarian interventions in the Gaza Strip, and to support the prospects for early recovery for the population,” IICO general manager Bader Saud Al-Sumait said.
It would be applied on five different tracks — “life-saving interventions, shelter, health, education, and economic empowerment,” Sumait said as he read the conference’s final statement.
Guterres urged an immediate halt to the war, the return of hostages held in Gaza and a “surge” in humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
“I repeat my call, the world’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid,” Guterres said in a video address.
“But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he added.
Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Sunday after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah despite an international outcry over its military incursion into eastern areas of the city, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.
“The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatized,” Guterres said.
Meeting Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, the UN chief accepted an honorary shield “on behalf of the United Nations, and especially on behalf of the almost 200 members of the UN that were killed in Gaza.”
On Friday in Nairobi, Guterres warned that Gaza faced an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 35,034 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel
- In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of “continuing violations of the Genocide Convention”
- Egypt on Sunday said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip”
CAIRO: Egypt on Sunday announced its intention to formally support South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, alleging genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Pretoria brought its case to the ICJ in December, calling on the UN court to order Israel to suspend its military operations in Gaza.
In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of “continuing violations of the Genocide Convention” and of being “contemptuous” of international law.
Egypt on Sunday said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,” according to a foreign ministry statement.
It further pointed to Israel’s systematic “targeting of civilians and destruction of infrastructure” and “pushing Palestinians into displacement and expulsion.”
South Africa has called on the world’s top court to order Israel to “immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive” in Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city where about 1.5 million Palestinians had been pushed against the Egyptian border.
Israel on Monday sent ground troops and tanks into eastern Rafah, later seizing and shutting the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Gaza risked an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and has acted as a key mediator between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, including in the current war.
It also shares the only border with the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel, but has refused to coordinate aid access through the Rafah crossing since Israeli forces seized it.
State-linked television channel Al-Qahera News on Sunday reported a high-level source denying Israeli media reports of “coordination between Israel and Egypt at the Rafah crossing.”
Egypt has also issued repeated warnings against escalation since negotiators from both Israel and Hamas departed Cairo on Thursday after talks again failed to achieve a truce.
In January the ICJ called on Israel to prevent acts of genocide following the original South African request for international action.
The court rejected a second South African application for emergency measures over Israel’s threat to attack Rafah. South Africa made a new request in early March.
Qatari emir meets US congress members
- Two sides discussed ways to strengthen relations between Qatar and the US
DOHA: Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met a delegation of US Congress members on Sunday during their visit to Doha.
The visitors were Democrats Salud Carbajal, Ami Bera and Juan Vargas (California) and Derek Kilmer (Washington) and Republicans Dave Joyce (Ohio) and Lance Gooden (Texas), the Qatar News Agency reported.
The two sides discussed ways to strengthen relations between Qatar and the US, strategic cooperation in various sectors, and regional and global developments.
The talks came a day after Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani spoke to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the situation in Gaza.
During a phone call, they discussed joint mediation efforts to end the war, the release of prisoners and detainees, and getting humanitarian aid to all areas of the enclave.
Qatar has played an intermediary role throughout the war in Gaza. Along with the US and Egypt, it was instrumental in helping negotiate the brief halt to the fighting in November that led to the release of dozens of hostages.
Israel lacks ‘credible plan’ to safeguard Rafah civilians, says Blinken
- Blinken said Biden determined to help Israel defend itself and shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was only US weapons package being withheld
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gazan city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there.
Speaking to ABC News’ This Week, Blinken said that President Joe Biden remains determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only US weapons package being withheld.
That could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah, which Israel says it plans to invade to root out fighters of the ruling Hamas militant group.
Biden has made clear to Israel that if it “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation,” said Blinken.
“We have real concerns about the way they’re used,” he continued. Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen.”
Rafah is hosting some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from elsewhere in Gaza by fighting and Israeli bombardments, amid dire shortages of food and water.
The death toll in Israel’s military operation in Gaza has now passed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel says 620 soldiers have been killed in the fighting.
