Archiv: Rechenschaftspflicht / Verantwortung / accountability / responsibility


13.11.2024 - 18:30 [ United Nations ]

Sudan: Allies of warring generals ‘enabling the slaughter,’ Security Council hears

Ms. DiCarlo condemned not only the RSF attacks but also the indiscriminate airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in civilian-populated areas such as the capital Khartoum and El Fasher, a major city in North Darfur hosting thousands of internally displaced which has been besieged for months by the RSF.

“Both warring parties bear responsibility for this violence,” she stressed.

She added that as the rainy season nears its end, both sides continue to escalate their military operations, recruit new fighters and intensify their attacks, fuelled by “considerable” external support and a steady flow of arms.

“To put it bluntly, certain purported allies of the parties are enabling the slaughter in Sudan. This is unconscionable, it is illegal, and it must end.”

(…)

The situation in Sudan has been in a freefall since the war erupted last April.

It is now the world’s worst displacement crisis, with more than 11 million people driven from their homes – nearly three million among them into neighbouring countries as refugees, according to the UN relief coordinating office, OCHA.

The war has also unleashed a severe hunger crisis, affecting millions.

13.11.2024 - 17:09 [ Middle East Eye ]

Gaza death toll tops 43,700, with 47 killed in past day

Israeli forces have killed at least 47 Palestinians and wounded 182 in the last 24 hours across Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

This brings the death toll in the besieged enclave since 7 October 2023 to 43,712, with more than 103,258 wounded. At least 10,000 people are still missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.

13.11.2024 - 12:43 [ Middle East Eye ]

Video: Massive Israeli strike hits makeshift tents in ‚humanitarian zone‘

An Israeli air strike hit makeshift camps for displaced Palestinians in the so-called Israeli-designated „humanitarian zone“ in al-Mawasi near Khan Younis on Wednesday.

Footage posted on local media showed a massive explosion after the air strike.

13.11.2024 - 12:31 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli forces strike tents of displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah

No description has been added to this video.

13.11.2024 - 12:20 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli drones shooting children in Gaza deliberately ‚day after day‘, UK surgeon tells MPs

A retired NHS surgeon who recently returned from working at a hospital in Gaza said he treated children „day after day after day“ who had been deliberately targeted by Israeli drones following bomb attacks.

In harrowing testimony to British MPs on Tuesday, Nizam Mamode said of all the conflicts he had worked in, including the genocide in Rwanda, he and other experienced colleagues in Gaza had „never seen anything on this scale ever“.

He said at least once or twice daily, there were „mass casualty incidents,“ meaning that 10 to 20 people were killed and up to 40 seriously injured. He estimated that at least 60 percent of the people treated at these times were women and children.

12.11.2024 - 17:12 [ Middle East Eye ]

Death toll in Gaza rises to 43,665

At least 103,076 Palestinians have been wounded since the war began, the ministry added.

A total of 62 Palestinians were killed and 147 wounded over the past 24 hours.

12.11.2024 - 16:59 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli air strike kills at least 11 Palestinian civilians in Rafah

Several bodies are pictured after an Israeli air strike killed at least 11 Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza (MEE)

12.11.2024 - 16:54 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli forces kill Palestinian camper near Egypt border ‚without threat‘

The body of Yassin Abu Ruwais, 18, from the village of Bir Haddaj in the Negev region, was found by travellers passing through the area of the Halutza Sands southwest of Beersheba, according to Haaretz.

His father, Suleiman Abu Ruwais told news outlet Arab48 his son had gone on an overnight camping trip with his friends at a desert tourist spot, not far from his village.

„On Friday evening, news and rumours spread that the Israeli army had shot a young man from the village. A few minutes later, I received the news that he was my son Yassin and that he had been transferred by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba,“ Suleiman said.

„I went to the hospital immediately and there I learnt that he had died.“

11.11.2024 - 13:51 [ Middle East Eye ]

Gaza death toll reaches 43,603

The Palestinian health ministry is reporting that at least 43,603 Palestinians have been killed and another 102,929 wounded in Gaza by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023.

It added that the latest figure includes 51 Palestinians who were killed and 164 who were wounded in the last 24 hours.

10.11.2024 - 14:44 [ Statista.com ]

1.25 Million Have ‚Top Secret‘ Access in the U.S.

(April 14, 2023)

Peo0le with clearance and access to „Top Secret“ U.S.federal government information, by employee type
Government 605.579
Contractor 472.576
Other 173.803
Total 1.251.958

As of Oct.1, 2019
Source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence via Federation of American Scientists

10.11.2024 - 14:30 [ Washington Post ]

TOP SECRET AMERICA: National Security Inc.

(July 20, 2010)

The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

It is also a system in which contractors are playing an ever more important role. The Post estimates that out of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. There is no better example of the government‘s dependency on them than at the CIA, the one place in government that exists to do things overseas that no other U.S. agency is allowed to do.

(…)

Contractors kill enemy fighters. They spy on foreign governments and eavesdrop on terrorist networks. They help craft war plans. They gather information on local factions in war zones. They are the historians, the architects, the recruiters in the nation‘s most secretive agencies. They staff watch centers across the Washington area. They are among the most trusted advisers to the four-star generals leading the nation‘s wars.

10.11.2024 - 12:00 [ Middle East Eye ]

Instead of looking inwards, white liberals are blaming Arab Americans for Trump‘s victory

(November 8, 2024)

Democrats actually benefitted from Trump‘s rise, which presented an opportunity for them to win votes freely by positioning themselves as the only alternative to outright fascism.

Yet, instead of looking inwards for answers on why Harris lost to a candidate as problematic as Trump, these liberal Democrats chose to reprimand minorities. Signalling a sense of superiority, they could not hide their racism, implying that it was incumbent upon these minority communities to vote within the guidelines provided by their liberal saviours.

By this logic, Arabs, Muslims and Latinos must vote for a Democrat no matter what.

10.11.2024 - 11:44 [ Middle East Eye ]

Gaza death toll reaches 43,603

The Palestinian health ministry is reporting that at least 43,603 Palestinians have been killed and another 102,929 wounded in Gaza by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023.

It added that the latest figure includes 51 Palestinians who were killed and 164 who were wounded in the last 24 hours.

09.11.2024 - 00:20 [ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ]

Six-month update report on the human rights situation in Gaza: 1 November 2023 to 30 April 2024

I. INTRODUCTION
1. This report presents grave concerns regarding the human rights situation in occupied Gaza since the last report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the UN Human Rights Council, and covers a period of six months, from 1 November 2023, when the last Human Rights Council report covered the events on the ground,1 up to 30 April 2024.2 The report is based on monitoring and documentation by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The High Commissioner has asked Israel for access to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) in order to investigate human rights violations on and since 7 October 2023, pursuant to its mandate, which so far has not been granted.

09.11.2024 - 00:05 [ France24.com ]

Nearly 70 percent of people killed in Gaza women and children, UN finds

The majority of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip have been women and children, a UN report found Friday. The UN also found that 80 percent of all verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that children aged five to nine made up the largest group of victims.
(…)
The report also tackled the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians among the nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza so far, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

08.11.2024 - 21:27 [ Puls24.at ]

Erneut UNO-Soldaten im Libanon verletzt

(November 7, 2024)

„Der israelische Feind zielte auf ein Auto, als es den Awali-Checkpoint in Sidon passierte“, erklärte die libanesische Armee. Dies habe zum Tod von drei Insassen geführt. Bei den Verletzten handle es sich um vier malaysische UNIFIL-Soldaten und drei libanesische Soldaten.

Österreichische UNO-Soldaten seien auch im Konvoi gewesen, aber nicht verletzt worden, teilte das Verteidigungsministerium der APA auf Anfrage mit.

08.11.2024 - 21:13 [ Reuters ]

UN peacekeepers say Israel‘s destruction of their property breaches international law

In its latest accusation, UNIFIL said the IDF used excavators and a bulldozer to destroy part of a fence and concrete structure at a U.N. peacekeeping position in southern Lebanon on Thursday. Peacekeepers had also observed Israeli troops this week removing a barrel that marks blue line, it said.
„The IDF‘s deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable UNIFIL property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701,“ UNIFIL said, referring to a U.N. resolution that mandates a cessation of hostilities in southern Lebanon after a previous war.

07.11.2024 - 17:26 [ Palestinian News and Information Agency – WAFA.ps ]

Death toll across Gaza Strip surges to 43,469, over 102,561 injured

Israeli occupation forces committed six massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the last 48 hours, resulting in the killing of at least 78 Palestinians and the injury of 214 others, according to medical reports.

Local health authorities confirmed that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 7, 2023 has risen to 43,469 reported fatalities, with an additional 102,561 individuals sustaining injuries. The majority of the victims are women and children.

07.11.2024 - 16:56 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Deutschland weitet Rüstungsexporte nach Israel aus

(October 24, 2024)

Laut Auswärtigem Amt wurden seit August Ausfuhren im Wert von 94,05 Millionen genehmigt. (…)

Die neue Zahl geht aus einer Antwort des Auswärtigen Amts auf eine Anfrage der BSW-Abgeordneten Sevim Dagdelen hervor, die der Nachrichtenagentur dpa vorliegt.

07.11.2024 - 16:25 [ Peter Beinart / New York Times ]

Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party

Over the past year, Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians — funded by U.S. taxpayers and live-streamed on social media — has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation. Many Americans roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction have no personal connection to Palestine or Israel. Like many Americans who protested South African apartheid or the Vietnam War, their motive is not ethnic or religious. It is moral.

07.11.2024 - 15:51 [ Common Dreams ]

Israel Bombs Refugee Camps After Inking $5.2 Billion Deal for US F-15 Fighter Jets

The agreement, part of a broader military aid package approved by the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress earlier this year, was finalized hours after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election to Republican nominee Donald Trump following a campaign in which she resisted calls to support an arms embargo against Israel.

07.11.2024 - 15:15 [ AmmonNews.net ]

85 thousand tons of bombs dropped by Israel on the Gaza Strip

(November 6, 2024)

According to a statement by the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority today, Wednesday, over 85,000 tons of bombs have been deployed by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the conflict on October 7, 2023.

07.11.2024 - 15:10 [ Anadolu ]

Amount of Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza surpasses that of World War II

(June 4, 2024)

Israel dropped 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza Strip since last October, exceeding World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, London combined, according to rights monitor

07.11.2024 - 10:55 [ theHill.com ]

Sanders: Democratic Party ‘has abandoned working class people’

“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy, which has so much economic power?” Sanders asked.

“Probably not,” he said in response to his own question.

07.11.2024 - 10:41 [ USA Tpday ]

‚The American people are angry and want change‘: Bernie Sanders slams Democrats for loss

Sanders, 83, highlighted several issues he believes the nation has failed to address under the Biden-Harris Administration, from wealth inequality and a worsening standard of living to high prescription drug prices and the lack of guaranteed medical leave.

Though he is an Independent, Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party, and has long championed policies like Medicare for All and a higher federal minimum wage.

07.11.2024 - 09:55 [ Wikipedia ]

Jaime Harrison

Following President Joe Biden‘s victory in the 2020 presidential election, Harrison was nominated by Biden to be the chair of the DNC, succeeding Tom Perez.[23] DNC members elected him on January 21, 2021.[24]

07.11.2024 - 09:53 [ theNation.com ]

This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe

With Trump winning his second term, it is worth noting that there was no absolutely accountability by the Democratic Party when he won in 2016. Losing an election to so dangerous and corrupt a figure as Donald Trump should cause a political party to do some major inward reflection on their own failures of policy and political strategy. Instead, all the Democrats who bore responsibility for the 2016 failure—starting with Hillary Clinton—found a way to blame anyone else but them.

07.11.2024 - 09:41 [ New York Times ]

A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat

There was also the larger error of anointing Harris without political competition — an insult to the democratic process that handed the nomination to a candidate who, as some of us warned at the time, was exceptionally weak. That, in turn, came about because Democrats failed to take Biden’s obvious mental decline seriously until June’s debate debacle (and then allowed him to cling to the nomination for a few weeks more), making it difficult to hold even a truncated mini-primary.

06.11.2024 - 13:09 [ AmmonNews.net ]

Gaza death toll rises to 43,391 since start of Israeli aggression

(November 5, 2024)

It was noted that many victims remain buried in rubble and inaccessible on roads to ambulance and civil defense teams, as the casualties count does not account for hospitals in northern Gaza due to the occupation‘s blockade and communication challenges.

05.11.2024 - 15:55 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israel’s Generals‘ Plan in north Gaza is ‚genocidal‘ and ‚perversion of law‘, say experts

Israeli media, analysts and military officials – as well as Palestinians in Gaza – say that the current campaign corresponds to the so-called „Generals‘ Plan“, also known as the Eiland Plan.
(…)
„Imposing a siege, preventing all access to food, water, medicine and shelter, all with an intention to force a population to leave, is textbook ethnic cleansing and is a grave crime under international law. It is both a war crime and a crime against humanity,“ Balakrishnan Rajagopal, a law professor at MIT and UN special rapporteur on the right to housing, told MEE.

„Forcible displacement in northern Gaza under conditions of siege with an intent to eliminate their presence is genocidal, as it aims at the destruction of a people,“ he added. „Israel also bears responsibilities as a state for all of these grave breaches of international law.“

05.11.2024 - 15:44 [ AlArabiya.net ]

Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

03.11.2024 - 16:20 [ Middle East Eye ]

Gaza death toll tops 43,300, with 27 killed in past day

Health officials report that over 60 percent of the victims are women and children.

02.11.2024 - 19:44 [ Democracy Now ]

Israeli Forces Detain, Beat and Brand Palestinians After Deadly West Bank Raid

Usama Shaheen: “At the time of dawn prayers exactly, they raided the house. They broke down the door and damaged everything in the house. Nothing was left in the house. I was beaten from the moment I left the house to when we went to Majnoune. They brought me back here. All sorts of beatings, all sorts of beatings, on my chest, on my head. It was severe. … Each one got a number on his forehead. And in the army jeep, everyone there hits you. Everyone hits you. Most of the beating is to the head, mostly to the head.”

02.11.2024 - 19:44 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israel brands Palestinian detainees in West Bank with numbers on their foreheads

Troops humiliate Palestinians swept up in West Bank raid by referring to them only by their numbers instead of by name

02.11.2024 - 19:25 [ Idan Landau ]

השמדה וטרנספר בצפון רצועת עזה: מעבר לתרמית תכנית האלופים

הביטו בשתי התמונות האלה. הן צולמו באותו יום, ה-21 באוקטובר 2024. מימין רואים שיירת עקורים, למעשה נשים וילדים, שצולמה במחנה ג‘בליה ההרוס. הגברים (מעל גיל 16) בנפרד, מרימים דגל לבן ואת תעודות הזהות שלהם. הם בדרך החוצה. משמאל רואים את מחנה הסוכות שהקימה תנועת „נחלה“ סמוך לקיבוץ בארי, כהכנה להתיישבות יהודית בעזה, אירוע שהתכבד ב-21 שרים וח“כים מן הימין. הם בדרך פנימה.

התמונות האלה מספרות חלק גדול מן הסיפור, בעיקר את סופו המסתמן והולך. סדרת אירועים מהירה מאד בשלושת השבועות האחרונים, שעדיין נמצאת בעיצומה ופרטיה מאיימים כבר להישכח, אם בכלל חדרו לתודעה, הובילה אל הנקודה המפחידה הזאת. את הסיפור אפשר להתחיל בכל נקודה לאורך ההיסטוריה, בנכבה, בנכסה, ב“אזור הסייג“ בנגב – הרי הן כל כך דומות. עקורים פלסטינים עם מיטלטליהם, רעבים ופצועים ותשושים, ולמולם – מתיישבים יהודים צוהלים, מתקדשים אל האדמה החדשה ששוטחה ופונתה עבורם. מתחטאים.

02.11.2024 - 19:20 [ Idan Landau / +972 Magazine ]

Exterminate, expel, resettle: Israel’s endgame in northern Gaza

The “Generals’ Plan,” published in early September, has a very simple goal: to empty the northern Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population. The plan itself estimated that about 300,000 people were still living north of the Netzarim Corridor — the Israeli-occupied zone that bisects Gaza — although the UN put the number closer to 400,000.

During the first phase of the plan, the Israeli army would inform all of those people that they have a week to evacuate to the south through two “humanitarian corridors.” In the second phase, at the end of that week, the army would declare the whole area a closed military zone. Anyone who remained would be considered an enemy combatant, and be killed if they didn’t surrender. A complete siege would be imposed on the territory, intensifying the hunger and health crisis — creating, as Prof. Uzi Rabi, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University, put it, “a process of starvation or extermination.”

02.11.2024 - 19:04 [ Common Dreams ]

Israeli Scholar Lays Out ‚True Brutality‘ of Ethnic Cleansing Now Underway in Gaza

Much alarm has been raised over the so-called „Generals‘ Plan,“ an ethnic cleansing proposal for northern Gaza that has reportedly garnered attention in the highest reaches of the Israeli government.

But Israeli scholar Idan Landau argued in a column published in English by +972 Magazine on Friday that what the Israeli military is actually doing in northern Gaza „is even more appalling“ than the plan outlined by a group of retired generals. Landau argued that focus on the details of the Generals‘ Plan has served to obscure the „true brutality“ of Israel‘s deadly operations in northern Gaza, which has been rendered a hellscape of death and destruction by the military assault and siege.

Landau, a professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, opened his column—first published in Hebrew on his blog—by pointing to two photos: one showing a celebratory event at a camp built by an Israeli settler organization just outside of the Gaza Strip, and the other showing displaced Palestinians lined up at gunpoint amid the ruins of northern Gaza.

02.11.2024 - 18:48 [ Unicef ]

Stop the assault on Palestinians in Gaza and on those trying to help them

NEW YORK/GENEVA/ROME, 1 November 2024 – „We the leaders of 15 United Nations and humanitarian organizations urge, yet again, all parties fighting in Gaza to protect civilians, and call on the State of Israel to cease its assault on Gaza and on the humanitarians trying to help.

„The situation unfolding in North Gaza is apocalyptic. The area has been under siege for almost a month, denied basic aid and life-saving supplies while bombardment and other attacks continue. Just in the past few days, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, and thousands have once again been forcibly displaced. ……….

(…)

Signatories:

• Ms. Joyce Msuya, Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

• Ms. Nimo Hassan, MBE, Chair, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)

• Mr. Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)

• Ms. Amy E. Pope, Director General, International Organization for Migration (IOM)

• Mr. Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

• Ms. Abby Maxman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Oxfam 3

• Ms. Paula Gaviria Betancur, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (SR on HR of IDPs)

• Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

• Ms. Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director, United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat)

• Mr. Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

• Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

• Ms. Catherine Russell, Executive Director, UN Children‘s Fund (UNICEF)

• Ms. Sima Bahous, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Women

• Ms. Cindy McCain, Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP)

• Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO)

02.11.2024 - 18:38 [ Middle East Eye ]

Gaza death toll reaches 43,314

The ministry also reported that 102,019 have been injured since the fighting began last October.

In the past 24 hours alone, Israeli forces killed 55 people and injured another 192 in the besieged enclave, the statement added.

02.11.2024 - 18:33 [ Washington Post ]

Israel strikes Beirut area; U.N. warns conditions in northern Gaza ‘apocalyptic’

The Israeli military on Friday carried out overnight strikes on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital for the first time in days, while U.N. leaders warned that the conditions in northern Gaza are “apocalyptic.”

01.11.2024 - 08:35 [ al24news.com ]

Gaza: Death Toll Rises to 43,204 Dead and 101,641 Injured

(14 hours ago)

The death toll from the relentless and violent aggression against the Gaza Strip has now reached 43,204 dead and 101,641 injured as of Thursday.

01.11.2024 - 08:27 [ MondoWeiss.net ]

Israel’s Genocide Day 391: Israel kills 200 Palestinians in Gaza in a single day

(October 31, 2024)

43,204 + killed* and at least 101,641 wounded in the Gaza Strip, including 59% women, children and elderly, as of October 21, 2024.*

766+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**

(…)

* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on October 31, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.

** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of October 31, 2024.

31.10.2024 - 08:55 [ Middle East Eye ]

Gaza death toll tops 43,100, with over 100 killed in past day

(October 30, 2024)

Israeli forces have killed at least 102 Palestinians and wounded 287 in the past 24 hours across Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

This brings the death toll in the besieged Palestinian enclave since 7 October 2023 to 43,163, with more than 101,510 wounded and at least 10,000 still missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.

Health officials report that over 60 percent of the victims are children and women.

30.10.2024 - 00:00 [ Middle East Eye ]

Could Israel‘s Unrwa ban lead to its suspension from the UN?

Bjorge said the legislation is “an outrage” against a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, and that the latter must “do everything within its capacity” to protect Unrwa.

“In the face of such an outrage against it, the UN must lose no time in taking action,” he said.

“It should request the International Court of Justice for an urgent advisory opinion, which under the General Convention on the Privileges and Immunities will be binding on Israel and on the United Nations itself.

29.10.2024 - 23:55 [ webtv.UN.org ]

(Continued) The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question – Security Council, 9763rd meeting

Continuation of the Security Council Open Debate.

29.10.2024 - 23:44 [ United Nations General Secretary ]

Statement of the Secretary-General on Israeli legislation on UNRWA

28 October 2024
Statement of the Secretary-General on Israeli legislation on UNRWA

I am deeply concerned by the adoption today by the Knesset of Israel of two laws concerning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which, if implemented, would likely prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as mandated by the UN General Assembly.

29.10.2024 - 23:15 [ CNN ]

Israel has banned the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. That could be devastating for millions

Israel’s parliament has voted to ban a nearly eight-decade-old United Nations agency that provides essential services for Palestinian refugees, a move that could have devastating consequences for millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

On Monday, the Knesset passed two bills; one barring UNRWA from activity within Israel, and another banning Israeli authorities from any contact with UNRWA – revoking the 1967 treaty that allows UNRWA to provide services to Palestinian refugees in areas under Israel’s control.

29.10.2024 - 13:30 [ VoteAgainstGenocide.com ]

Vote Against Genocide: American Academic Letter

As American scholars and higher education administrators, we are deeply committed to the pursuit of truth, justice, and the common good—both in our classrooms and research, and in the broader world we engage with daily. Since October 2023, the Biden-Harris administration has failed to uphold fundamental human rights and the principles of knowledge, truth, and humanity. Their material support for genocidal atrocities has devastated entire communities in Palestine, leading to the loss of countless families in Gaza over the past year, and undermined the core values the United States professes to uphold globally. Under Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, every university has been bombed and destroyed in Gaza, more journalists have been killed than in any other conflict in recorded modern history, and the death toll is projected to exceed 186,000 according to The Lancet. Under Biden-Harris, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has prosecuted violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention, and declared Israel‘s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, unlawful, along with its associated settlement apartheid regime.

This election, on November 5th, the Democratic Party—once again with Kamala Harris at its center—has repeatedly sought our votes by positioning itself as the „lesser evil,“ urging us to abandon our moral convictions out of fear of a second Trump term under Republican leadership. Let us be clear: there is no „lesser evil“ when both parties are complicit in the same atrocities. And there is no lesser evil when they are complicit in genocide. Kamala Harris has actively funded and endorsed genocide, and we cannot reward such leadership with a Harris-Walz ticket. While the Republican Party under a Trump-Vance ticket offers no meaningful alternative, it is the Democratic Party, under Kamala Harris, that has actively supported and sanctioned these international crimes against humanity since October 2023. They must not be rewarded.

29.10.2024 - 13:20 [ AbandonHarris.com ]

Abandon Harris Campaign’s Academic Letter Urges Nationwide Vote Against Genocide

The Abandon Harris Campaign announces that an academic letter calling on Americans to vote third party in the upcoming election is quickly gaining traction across higher education institutions nationwide. Titled “A Call by American Academics to Vote Against Genocide on November 5, 2024: Vote to Abandon Harris – Vote Third Party,” the principled letter condemns the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza and urges voters to hold Kamala Harris accountable at the ballot box. The letter and its signatories can be found at voteagainstgenocide.org.