GAZA: Gaza will no longer be “liveable” by 2020 unless urgent action is taken to improve water supply, power, health, and schooling, the United Nations’ most comprehensive report on the Palestinian enclave said on Monday.
“Action needs to be taken now if Gaza is to be a liveable place in 2020 and it is already difficult now,” UN humanitarian coordinator Maxwell Gaylard told journalists when the report was released yesterday.
Five years into an Israeli blockade supported by Egypt, and living under one-party rule, Gaza’s population of 1.6 million is set to rise by 500,000 over the next eight years, say the authors of the UN’s most wide-ranging report on the territory.
Gaza has one the youngest populations in the world, with 51 percent of people under the age of 18.
“Action needs to be taken right now on fundamental aspects of life: water sanitation, electricity, education, health and other aspects,” Gaylard said.
Since 2007, Gaza has been under the control of the Islamist Hamas organization, an armed political movement, which rejects permanent peace with Israel. They fought a three-week war in January 2009, and Israel is resisting international pressure to lift its blockade, which it says prevents arms reaching Hamas.
Gaza has no airport and no sea port. The border is tense, with frequent clashes over rocket or mortar fire from Gaza and air strikes by Israel. Gaza rockets hit Israeli land on Sunday, damaging a factory in the town of Sderot, east of the enclave.
Israel partly eased restrictions in mid-2010, and Gaza’s crippled economy began to revive from rock bottom. Real GDP is estimated to have risen by 28 percent in the first half of 2011 as unemployment fell to 28 percent in 2011 from 37 percent.
But the report, involving expertise from more UN agencies and making projections further into the future than before, said growth over the next eight years would be slow, since Gaza’s current isolation renders its economy essentially non-viable.
The people in the narrow coastal strip live mainly on UN aid, foreign funding and a tunnel economy, which brings in food, construction materials, electronics and cars from Egypt.
But the smuggling trade is no solution. Robert Turner, director of operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said Gaza by 2020 will need 440 more schools, 800 more hospital beds and over a 1,000 additional doctors.
Gaylard called on international donors to increase their aid to a population, which is 80 percent aid dependent. “Despite their best efforts the Palestinians in Gaza still need help,” he said. “They are under blockade. They are under occupation and they need our help both politically and practically on the ground.” Israel in fact withdrew from Gaza in 2005, removing troops and settlers after 38 years of occupation.
A lack of clean drinking water is the greatest immediate concern, said Jean Gough of the UNICEF. The report projects a 60 percent increase in the enclave’s water needs, while urgent action is already needed to protect existing water resources.
By 2016, Gaza’s aquifer may become unusable, she said. Palestinians are already drilling deeper and deeper to reach groundwater and there is a need for more desalination plants. A seawater plant costing about $350 million is planned.
The UN says only a quarter of Gaza wastewater is treated. The rest, including raw sewage, goes into the Mediterranean Sea.
Gaylard said Gaza needs peace and security to improve the lives of its people. “It will certainly have to mean the end of blockade, the end of isolation and the end of conflict.” There is as yet no sign of an end to the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
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Analysts say much may depend on the future of relations with the new Egypt, whose Islamist leaders are sympathetic to Hamas but also committed to the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Hamas is also supported by Iran, which is extremely hostile to Israel.
Aside from its tunnel network, Gaza imports via Israel. UN figures show, for example, that 46,500 tones of building materials came into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel in September 2011, while 90,000 tones came via the tunnels.
It also gets electricity and fuel from Israel.
Rebuilding homes and factories smashed in the winter war of 2009 is Gaza’s biggest task, and construction is the source of most of its growth in employment in the past two years.
Gaza not ‘liveable’ by 2020 barring urgent action: UN
Gaza not ‘liveable’ by 2020 barring urgent action: UN
Kuwait’s emir dissolves parliament, suspends some constitution articles
CAIRO: Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah dissolved the parliament and suspended some of the constitution’s articles for not more than four years, the emir said in a televised speech aired on state TV on Friday.
Developing...
Lebanon’s Hezbollah says fires rockets at Israel after deadly strike
- Hezbollah fighters fired “a salvo of Katyusha rockets” at Israel’s north
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired Katyusha rockets at Israel on Friday in retaliation for strikes, which state media said killed two people in the south of the country.
Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire following the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked war in Gaza.
Hezbollah fighters fired “a salvo of Katyusha rockets” at Israel’s north “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on... civilians, most recently in Tayr Harfa,” the group said in a statement.
In a separate statement, the group also claimed a rocket salvo on an army base in northern Israel, later saying its fighters launched a second attack with “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at troops who were assessing the damage at the base.
Earlier Friday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said a first responder from a rescue group affiliated with a Hezbollah-allied movement and a telecoms technician were killed “as a result of the Israeli aggression on Tayr Harfa.”
The rescuer belonged to the Risala Scout association, affiliated to Shiite Amal movement, while the technician worked for Power Tec, which undertakes maintenance work for private mobile service provider Touch.
The technician and colleagues from Ogero telecom provider were carrying out “maintenance on the transmission poles,” the NNA said, adding they had sought permission from the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, or UNIFIL.
The Risala Scout association, which operates in south Lebanon, said the rescuer was killed when his team went to a location that had come under Israeli bombardment.
“The second strike came quickly, and one of the young men was martyred,” a source from the association told AFP.
A source within Touch said the strike hit a team that had been doing maintenance work in Tayr Haifa.
“We lost communications with them because the station was hit,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“There were people from our team and from another company that does maintenance work for us, and there were also paramedics,” the source added.
At least 402 people have been killed in Lebanon in seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also including 79 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border. Three of the soldiers were killed this week, one of them on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.
Drone strike kills rescuer, technician in south Lebanon
- Head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc dismisses Gaza peace efforts as ‘theatrics’
BEIRUT: An Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon on Friday killed a first responder from a rescue team affiliated with a Hezbollah-allied group and a telecoms technician carrying out maintenance work.
Two Israeli military drones launched the attack on a maintenance team working in the southern Lebanese village of Tayr Harfa.
The victims were identified as Youssef Fadi Jalloul, an employee of Power Tech, a company that undertakes maintenance work for MTC Touch, and Ghaleb Al-Hajj, 53, a rescuer with the Islamic Risala Scout Association, a group affiliated with Hezbollah’s ally the Amal Movement.
Several civilians injured in the attack were taken to nearby hospitals.
Israeli attacks continued amid reports suggesting Hezbollah is set to declare a public mobilization.
The latest escalation came two days after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant threatened to step up military activity in the border region in preparation for open war.
Sirens sounded in the Kiryat Shmona and Margaliot settlements warning of possible drone attacks.
Israeli drones raided Kfarkila and Blida in Marjayoun, while artillery targeted Rachaya Al-Fakhar in the eastern sector.
The outskirts of Zebqine, Yarin, and Jebbayn in the western sector were subject to heavy shelling. Israeli artillery also targeted Khiam and the Al-Labbouneh–Naqoura area.
Israeli attacks using phosphorus shells resulted in a fire in a forested area east of the town of Odaisseh.
Incendiary and phosphorus shells also struck Mount Labouneh, and areas near the towns of Naqoura and Alma Al-Shaab.
Hezbollah said that it destroyed recently installed surveillance equipment at the Israeli Misgav Am military site with a “direct hit.”
The militant group also targeted the Israeli Al-Malikiyah military site with a dawn artillery attack.
Israeli troops responded by shelling and destroying a house in the town of Alma Al-Shaab in an attack that also damaged nearby property, crops and homes.
MP Mohammed Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, warned that “what Israel is doing today in Gaza, it will do in any country it considers weak and from which it senses division and readiness for surrender.”
He described any attempt to achieve a settlement to the conflict as “theatrics,” and highlighted the importance of “cohesive ranks and understanding the seriousness of Israel’s goals.”
UN General Assembly backs Palestinian bid for membership
- Vote by 193-member General Assembly a global survey of support for Palestinian bid to become full member
- Palestinians currently non-member observer state, de facto recognition of statehood granted in 2012
NEW YORK CITY: The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.”
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favor and nine against — including the US and Israel — while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.
The General Assembly resolution “determines that the State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.
“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly before the vote. “A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state. ... It is an investment in peace.”
“Voting yes is the right thing to do,” he said in remarks that drew applause.
Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.
“As long as so many of you are ‘Jew-hating,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving,’” said UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour. He accused the Assembly of shredding the UN Charter — as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.
“Shame on you,” Erdan said.
The ambassador said on Monday that, if the measure was approved, he expected the US to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions, in accordance with American law.
An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly. If the measure is again voted on by the council it is likely to face the same fate: a US veto.
“The council must respond to the will of the international community,” United Arab Emirates UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the assembly before the vote.
The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but they will not be granted a vote in the body.
The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.
US FUNDING
The Palestinian UN mission in New York said on Thursday — in a letter to UN member states — that adoption of the resolution backing full UN membership would be an investment in preserving the long-sought-for two-state solution.
It said it would “constitute a clear reaffirmation of support at this very critical moment for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State.”
The mission is run by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas — which has a charter calling for Israel’s destruction — launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The US mission to the United Nations said earlier this week: “It remains the US view that the path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations.”
Under US law, Washington cannot fund any UN organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. The United States cut funding in 2011 for the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, after the Palestinians joined as a full member.
On Thursday, 25 US Republican senators — more than half of the party’s members in the chamber — introduced a bill to tighten those restrictions and cut off funding to any entity giving rights and privileges to the Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats.
Iraq requests end of UN assistance mission by end-2025
- Prime PM said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission
BAGHDAD: Iraq has requested that a United Nations assistance mission set up after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country end its work by the end of 2025, saying it was no longer needed because Iraq had made significant progress toward stability.
The mission, headquartered in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was set up with a wide mandate to help develop Iraqi institutions, support political dialogue and elections, and promote human rights.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission, known as UNAMI.
The mission’s head in Iraq often shuttles between top political, judicial and security officials in work that supporters see as important to preventing and resolving conflicts but critics have often described as interference.
“Iraq has managed to take important steps in many fields, especially those that fall under UNAMI’s mandate,” Sudani said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Iraq’s government has since 2023 moved to end several international missions, including the US-led coalition created in 2014 to fight Islamic State and the UN’s mission established to help promote accountability for the jihadist group’s crimes.
Iraqi officials say the country has come a long way from the sectarian bloodletting after the US-led invasion and Islamic State’s attempt to establish a caliphate, and that it no longer needs so much international help.
Some critics worry about the stability of the young democracy, given recurring conflict and the presence of many heavily armed military-political groups that have often battled on the streets, the last time in 2022.
Some diplomats and UN officials also worry about human rights and accountability in a country that frequently ranks among the world’s most corrupt and where activists say freedom of expression has been curtailed in recent years.
Iraq’s government says it is working to fight corruption and denies there is less room for free expression.
Somalia’s government also requested the termination of a UN political mission this week. In a letter to the Security Council, the country’s foreign minister called for the departure of the Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), which has advised the government on peace-building, security reforms and democracy for over a decade. He provided no reason.
