Gaza now a ‘graveyard’ for thousands of children: UN

A Palestinian man mourns at the funeral service of a baby from his extended family who was killed in the Israeli bombardment in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. (AFP)
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Updated 31 October 2023
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Gaza now a ‘graveyard’ for thousands of children: UN

  • WHO warns of ‘imminent public health catastrophe’ amid mass displacement

JERUSALEM/GENEVA: The Gaza Strip has become a graveyard for thousands of children, the UN said on Tuesday, as it feared the prospect of more dying of dehydration.

Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping at least 240 others, according to Israeli officials.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said the strikes have killed more than 8,500 people, mainly civilians.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said there was a risk that the number of child deaths directly from bombardment could become eclipsed.

“Our gravest fears about the reported numbers of children killed becoming dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands were realized in just a fortnight,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder said in a statement.

“The numbers are appalling; reportedly more than 3,450 children killed; staggeringly this rises significantly every day.”

“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.”

He said the more than 1 million children living in the Gaza Strip were also suffering from a lack of clean water.

“Gaza’s water production capacity is a mere five percent of its usual daily output. Child deaths — particularly infants — to dehydration are a growing threat,” he said.

UNICEF is calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, with all access crossings into Gaza opened for the safe, sustained and unimpeded access of humanitarian aid, including water, food, medical supplies, and fuel.

“And if there is no ceasefire, no water, no medicine, and no release of abducted children? Then we hurtle toward even greater horrors afflicting innocent children,” said Elder.

“There are certainly children who are dying who have been impacted by the bombardment but should have had their lives saved,” Elder told reporters in Geneva, via video-link.

He said that without greater humanitarian access into the Gaza Strip, “then the deaths from the attacks, they could absolutely be the tip of the iceberg.”

Elder said that according to figures from health faculties in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, some 940 children were missing.

Others are suffering from trauma or severe stress, he said, such as the four-year-old daughter of a UNICEF colleague who has begun harming herself by ripping out her hair and scratching her thighs until they bleed.

UN humanitarian agency spokesman Jens Laerke added: “It’s almost unbearable to think about children buried under rubble, but (with) very little opportunity or possibility for getting them out.”

The World Health Organization said that a “public health catastrophe” is imminent, amid overcrowding, mass displacement and damage to infrastructure.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier warned of the risk of civilian deaths not directly linked to Israeli bombardment.

Asked if people were dying from complications other than those from the bombardment, Lindmeier said: “Indeed they are.”

“We have 130 premature infants that are dependent on incubators, of which 61 percent approximately are in the north,” he said.

The UN humanitarian office in a statement earlier said water supplies to southern Gaza came to a halt on Monday “for unknown reasons.”

Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said that his country is assuming a defensive posture on the Lebanese front in order to avoid overstretching its forces as it focuses on waging the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hanegbi added that, “the day after Hamas,” Israel would apply “the lessons learned” against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants.


Gaza rescuers say Israeli air strikes kill 25

A displaced Palestinian woman cooks near an unexploded ordnance, with explosive materials left behind by Israeli troops (AFP)
Updated 58 min 26 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say Israeli air strikes kill 25

  • The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201
  • Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18

GAZA:: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children.
Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.
“Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency told AFP.
In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.
“We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,” Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.
Since Israel resumed its offensive last month, at least 1,827 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians, according to the ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.
The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During that attack, Palestinian militants abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.


Syrian Airlines announces resumption of direct flights to the UAE

Workers give maintenance to a Syrian Arab Airlines Airbus A320-200 aircraft at Damascus international airport (AFP)
Updated 20 April 2025
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Syrian Airlines announces resumption of direct flights to the UAE

  • Syrian Airlines said that it is working to expand its network as quickly as possible

DUBAI: Syrian Airlines on Sunday officially announced the resumption of direct flights between Syria and the UAE, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

The initial phase will include exceptional flights to Dubai and Sharjah.

According to a statement on the airline’s official Facebook page, four weekly flights will operate between Damascus and Dubai on Saturdays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with plans to expand to daily services soon.

Flights to Sharjah will run on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays, with efforts underway to increase them to daily flights.

Damascus-Abu Dhabi routes will operate on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Syrian Airlines said that it is working to expand its network as quickly as possible, pending the necessary approvals from relevant authorities.

Travelers are encouraged to contact the airline’s offices inside or outside Syria for more information.


Yemen’s Houthis say two killed in US stikes on Sanaa area

Updated 20 April 2025
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Yemen’s Houthis say two killed in US stikes on Sanaa area

  • The Iran-backed group reported two deaths and 11 injured in the “US aggression on Sanaa”

SANAA: At least two people were killed in overnight US strikes in and around Yemen’s capital Sanaa, media controlled by the Houthi militants reported Sunday, in the latest such air raid.
The Iran-backed group’s Al-Masirah channel, citing the militants’ health ministry, reported two deaths and 11 injured in the “US aggression on Sanaa, the capital, and the governorate.”
The channel earlier said one person was killed in an air strike on the governorate’s Bani Matar area, where a deadly US raid was reported a week ago.
Beyond Sanaa, the Houthis said Sunday that air strikes also hit Yemen’s Marib and Amran provinces.
Earlier this week, the group said that US strikes on the fuel port of Ras Issa killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 in the deadliest attack of Washington’s 15-month campaign against the Houthis.
The US military has hammered the Yemeni Houthis with near-daily air strikes for the past month in a bid to stamp out their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
Claiming solidarity with Palestinians, the rebels began attacking the key maritime route and Israeli territory after the Gaza war began in October 2023.
The US strikes began in January 2024 but have multiplied under President Donald Trump, starting with an offensive that killed 53 people on March 15.
Houthi attacks on the Red Sea shipping route, which normally carries about 12 percent of global trade, have forced many companies into costly detours around the tip of southern Africa.


Lebanese authorities detain people they say were planning rockets attacks on Israel

Updated 32 min 55 sec ago
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Lebanese authorities detain people they say were planning rockets attacks on Israel

  • Aoun said Sunday that disarming the Iran-backed Hezbollah group was a “delicate” matter
  • The army said on Sunday that its forces had confiscated rockets and launchers in south Lebanon’s Sidon-Zahrani

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities have detained several people who they say were planning to launch rockets into Israel and confiscated the weapons they were intending to use, the military said Sunday.
The army said in a statement that the arrests are linked to other detentions announced earlier this week. It added that as military intelligence was investigating that case they got information that a new rocket attack was being planned.
The army said troops raided an apartment near the southern port city of Sidon and confiscated some of the rockets and the launchers and “detained several people who were involved in the operation.” it said the detainees were referred to judicial authorities.

On Sunday, Lebanon's health ministry said an "Israeli enemy strike on a vehicle in Kaouthariyet al-Saiyad", located inland between the southern cities of Sidon and Tyre, killed "one person" and wounded two others.
It later said a separate "Israeli enemy" strike "on a house in Hula", near the border, killed one person.
The Israeli military did not immediately release any official statement on the strikes.

Disarming Hezbollah 

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Sunday that disarming the Iran-backed Hezbollah group was a “delicate” matter whose implementation required the right circumstances, warning that forcing the issue could lead the country to ruin.
Restricting the bearing of arms to the state is “a sensitive, delicate issue that is fundamental to preserving civil peace” and requires due “consideration and responsibility,” Aoun told reporters.
“We will implement” a state monopoly on bearing arms “but we have to wait for the circumstances” to allow this, he said, adding that “nobody is speaking to me about timing or pressure.”
“Any controversial domestic issue in Lebanon can only be approached through conciliatory, non-confrontational dialogue and communication. If not, we will lead Lebanon to ruin,” he added.
Hezbollah, long a dominant force in Lebanon, was left weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel, sparked by the Gaza war, including an Israeli ground incursion and two months of heavy bombardment that decimated the group’s leadership.
On Friday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the group “will not let anyone disarm” it, as Washington presses Beirut to compel the movement to hand over its weapons.
Qassem said his group was ready for dialogue on a “defense strategy,” “but not under the pressure of occupation” by Israel.
Israel has continued to conduct regular strikes in Lebanon despite a November 27 ceasefire and still holds five positions in south Lebanon that it deems “strategic.”
 


'I thought I'd died.' How land mines are continuing to claim lives in post-Assad Syria

Updated 20 April 2025
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'I thought I'd died.' How land mines are continuing to claim lives in post-Assad Syria

  • Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8
  • Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard

IDLIB: Suleiman Khalil was harvesting olives in a Syrian orchard with two friends four months ago, unaware the soil beneath them still hid deadly remnants of war.
The trio suddenly noticed a visible mine lying on the ground. Panicked, Khalil and his friends tried to leave, but he stepped on a land mine and it exploded. His friends, terrified, ran to find an ambulance, but Khalil, 21, thought they had abandoned him.
“I started crawling, then the second land mine exploded,” Khalil told The Associated Press. “At first, I thought I’d died. I didn’t think I would survive this.”
Khalil’s left leg was badly wounded in the first explosion, while his right leg was blown off from above the knee in the second. He used his shirt to tourniquet the stump and screamed for help until a soldier nearby heard him and rushed for his aid.
“There were days I didn’t want to live anymore,” Khalil said, sitting on a thin mattress, his amputated leg still wrapped in a white cloth four months after the incident. Khalil, who is from the village of Qaminas, in the southern part of Syria’s Idlib province, is engaged and dreams of a prosthetic limb so he can return to work and support his family again.
While the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war came to an end with the fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, war remnants continue to kill and maim. Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8, according to INSO, an international organization which coordinates safety for aid workers.
Mines and explosive remnants — widely used since 2011 by Syrian government forces, its allies, and armed opposition groups — have contaminated vast areas, many of which only became accessible after the Assad government’s collapse, leading to a surge in the number of land mine casualties, according to a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
‘It will take ages to clear them all’
Prior to Dec. 8, land mines and explosive remnants of war also frequently injured or killed civilians returning home and accessing agricultural land.
“Without urgent, nationwide clearance efforts, more civilians returning home to reclaim critical rights, lives, livelihoods, and land will be injured and killed,” said Richard Weir, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW.
Experts estimate that tens of thousands of land mines remain buried across Syria, particularly in former front-line regions like rural Idlib.
“We don’t even have an exact number,” said Ahmad Jomaa, a member of a demining unit under Syria’s defense ministry. “It will take ages to clear them all.”
Jomaa spoke while scanning farmland in a rural area east of Maarrat Al-Numan with a handheld detector, pointing at a visible anti-personnel mine nestled in dry soil.
“This one can take off a leg,” he said. “We have to detonate it manually.”
Psychological trauma and broader harm
Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard. Days earlier a tractor exploded nearby, severely injuring several farm workers, Jomaa said. “Most of the mines here are meant for individuals and light vehicles, like the ones used by farmers,” he said.
Jomaa’s demining team began dismantling the mines immediately after the previous government was ousted. But their work comes at a steep cost.
“We’ve had 15 to 20 (deminers) lose limbs, and around a dozen of our brothers were killed doing this job,” he said. Advanced scanners, needed to detect buried or improvised devices, are in short supply, he said. Many land mines are still visible to the naked eye, but others are more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Land mines not only kill and maim but also cause long-term psychological trauma and broader harm, such as displacement, loss of property, and reduced access to essential services, HRW says.
The rights group has urged the transitional government to establish a civilian-led mine action authority in coordination with the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) to streamline and expand demining efforts.
Syria’s military under the Assad government laid explosives years ago to deter opposition fighters. Even after the government seized nearby territories, it made little effort to clear the mines it left behind.
‘Every day someone is dying’
Standing before his brother’s grave, Salah Sweid holds up a photo on his phone of Mohammad, smiling behind a pile of dismantled mines. “My mother, like any other mother would do, warned him against going,” Salah said. “But he told them, ‘If I don’t go and others don’t go, who will? Every day someone is dying.’”
Mohammad was 39 when he died on Jan. 12 while demining in a village in Idlib. A former Syrian Republican Guard member trained in planting and dismantling mines, he later joined the opposition during the uprising, scavenging weapon debris to make arms.
He worked with Turkish units in Azaz, a city in northwest Syria, using advanced equipment, but on the day he died, he was on his own. As he defused one mine, another hidden beneath it detonated. After Assad’s ouster, mines littered his village in rural Idlib. He had begun volunteering to clear them — often without proper equipment — responding to residents’ pleas for help, even on holidays when his demining team was off duty, his brother said.
For every mine cleared by people like Mohammad, many more remain.
In a nearby village, Jalal Al-Maarouf, 22, was tending to his goats three days after the Assad government’s collapse when he stepped on a mine. Fellow shepherds rushed him to a hospital, where doctors amputated his left leg.
He has added his name to a waiting list for a prosthetic, “but there’s nothing so far,” he said from his home, gently running a hand over the smooth edge of his stump. “As you can see, I can’t walk.” The cost of a prosthetic limb is in excess of $3,000 and far beyond his means.