“I don’t think the world understands what it means to be a woman living in Syria today,” explains Shatha, a woman from Deir-ez-Zor, Syria, who is a survivor of gender-based violence. “It is a life filled with danger, grief, and daily struggle.”
In recent weeks, the Biden administration has found itself facing a serious dilemma as to how to balance its commitment to Israel’s national security along with the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Biden administration’s sheer hypocrisy is reflected in its policy of dropping food packages into a devastated Gaza, while at the same time, it continues to arm Israel with missiles and heavy artillery to kill Palestinian civilians suffering hunger and starvation.
As US Congressman Ro Khanna (Democrat of California) said last week: "You can't have a policy of giving aid (to Palestinians) and giving Israel the weapons to bomb the food trucks at the same time"
A group of senators said Tuesday that under U.S. law, the Biden administratio must cut off American military assistance to Israel unless the Netanyahu government immediately stops impeding aid deliveries to the
Gaza Strip, where children are dying of starvation after months of incessant Israeli bombing and attacks on humanitarian convoys.
Estimates of mortality in the Hamas-Israel war after five months of fighting indicate a Palestinian death rate 80 times greater than the Israeli death rate. In absolute terms, the number of Palestinian deaths is 18 times greater than the number of Israeli deaths.
Born and raised in a rural area in a traditional Tajik family, Takhmina Haidarova managed to finish high school with excellent grades and wanted to go to university.
“[But] it was compulsory for my family to give higher education to boys, and girls were trained to be housewives,” she says. Her dream of higher education was instead replaced by an arranged marriage to a cousin.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini asked the UN General Assembly to urge member states to support the organization's mandate during this period of unprecedented crisis for the region and the agency. He also called for member states to facilitate a “long-overdue political process” for the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Only then, in this context, should UNRWA be allowed to transition.
Israeli troops opened fire targeting the Palestinians, gathered around food aid trucks,
killing at least 112 and injuring hundreds on 29 February. The massacre happened, about a month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered
provisional measures for Israel to refrain from all acts under the Genocide convention. Ironically Israel was supposed to report to the Court, within one month, of all measures taken in line with its order. Israel has been emboldened by a beholden US.
The Ramsys, a farming couple from northeast Syria, never thought they'd spend almost all their savings on solar panels. “We’ve paid 1,700 USD. We simply couldn't cope with darkness and being disconnected from the outside world,” Najma Ramsy tells IPS from her residence in Keshka, a small Kurdish village 70 km east of Qamishli.
Nothing could prepare me for my recently concluded mission into the Gaza Strip, where children face catastrophic conditions.
In my twenty years with UNICEF, traveling from one humanitarian crisis to the next – from famines to floods and war zones to refugee camps – I’ve simply never seen such devastation and despair as is happening in Gaza.
Growing up on a small farming station in Holetta (Ethiopia), Yvonne Pinto would accompany her agriculturist father to the farm, where she would spend her time cross-fertilizing plants. Her tiny fingers making the task easier, as she would marvel at the end product of a prospective new and higher yielding variety. These formative years laid the foundation for her career in agricultural science.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) stands as one of the most egregious violations of human rights, particularly affecting women and girls worldwide. However, when conflict and forced displacement enter the equation, the horrors of FGM are exacerbated, creating a dire situation that demands urgent attention and action. Where instability and insecurity prevail, the prevalence of FGM often intensifies, exacerbated by factors such as displacement, poverty, and the breakdown of social systems.
Israel continues to
reject calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and now readies itself for an assault on Rafah with a
Ramadan deadline for the release of all hostages. It emphatically says, it will oppose any international attempt at creating a Palestinian State, regarded as an “
unilateral recognition”. Its unrestrained bombings and ground assaults so far have resulted in close to 30,000 Palestinian deaths more than half of whom are women and children. they have brazenly ignored the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to take all measures to prevent a plausible genocide. Many thousands are facing starvation and death even when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) demanded unhindered aid flows to besieged Gaza. All these were possible due to Israel’s ‘unbounded’ impunity which emboldens it.
As negotiations within the UN Security Council and internationally continue, the humanitarian response to Gaza continues to be under threat.
There are moments when international treaties, long forgotten by the general public, suddenly spring back to life. Moments when glimpses of reality shine through the thick-laden bureaucracies of the United Nations and catch the attention of the world outside.
The International Court of Justice has declined the South African government's urgent application for further measures to prevent an "unprecedented military offensive against Rafah,” but reiterated that Israel is bound to protect civilians in the country.
South Africa argued in an urgent application that this military offensive “announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm, and destruction in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention" and of the Court's Order of January 26, 2024.
Romi Ghimire has a busy life running a non-profit organization dedicated to Nepal’s rural people, but she also feels driven to do something about Gaza. “There are a lot of issues happening in the world, but right now the genocide in Gaza is the most urgent one,” she said inside the Palestine tent at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Kathmandu on Saturday.
Together religious identity and demographics play an important
role in the decades-long conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians. If the Palestinians, who are largely Muslim and Christian, had been Jewish, they would have been allowed to live in their homes on their lands and be entitled to be Israeli citizens.
The Biden administration continues to
deny any connections between the war in Gaza and the ongoing conflicts involving U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Argentina forward Lautaro Martinez scores as Inter Milan beat Napoli in the Saudi capital Riyadh to win
the Italian Super Cup for the third consecutive time.
Two months ago, an opinion piece I wrote, "The Cries of Gaza Reach Afghanistan," was published with the hope of reminding American and other Western leaders of how quickly wars ON terror descend into wars OF terror because of their disproportionate impact on civilians and the unpredictability once unleashed.