ROME: The United Nations World Food Programme urged the international community and “all donors” Thursday to help feed millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and rebuild the war-ravaged area.
The UN agency said it had provided more than 15,000 tons of food since a fragile January 19 ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, feeding more than 525,000 people, but that much more needed to be done.
“We call on the international community and all donors to continue supporting WFP’s life-saving assistance at this pivotal moment,” said Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau following a visit.
“The scale of the needs is enormous and progress must be maintained. The ceasefire must hold,” he said in a statement.
“In critical sectors beyond food — water, sanitation, shelter, even getting children back into school — we need to work together,” he said, insisting that “this requires funding.”
Helping Gazans become self-sufficient could be through re-establishing commercial markets and local food systems, such as farming and fishing, the agency said.
Skau’s visit to Gaza came as Israel and Hamas resumed negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, which has paused 15 months of relentless fighting and bombing following Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack.
UN’s World Food Programme needs 'all donors' support for Gaza's aid mission
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UN’s World Food Programme needs 'all donors' support for Gaza's aid mission
- The UN agency provided more than 15,000 tons of food since January 19
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
