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OpenAI appoints new boss as Sam Altman joins Microsoft in Silicon Valley twist

Sam Altman participates in a discussion during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in San Francisco. (AP)
Sam Altman participates in a discussion during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in San Francisco. (AP)
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Updated 21 November 2023
Reuters
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OpenAI appoints new boss as Sam Altman joins Microsoft in Silicon Valley twist

OpenAI appoints new boss as Sam Altman joins Microsoft in Silicon Valley twist
  • Hundreds of OpenAI employees, including other top executives, threatened to join them at Microsoft in an open letter addressed to OpenAI’s four-member board that called for the board’s resignation and Altman’s return
Updated 21 November 2023
Reuters
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SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI named ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear as interim CEO, while outgoing chief Sam Altman moved to backer Microsoft, in a surprise turn of events that clouded the future of the startup at the heart of the artificial-intelligence boom.
The appointments, settled late on Sunday, followed Altman’s abrupt ousting just days earlier as CEO of the ChatGPT maker and ended speculation that he could return.
By Monday, close to all of OpenAI’s more than 700 employees threatened to quit in a letter demanding the resignation of the board and reinstatement of Altman and former President Greg Brockman, according to a copy viewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter. The document was signed by employees including OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, the board member who fired Altman.
“I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company,” Sutskever said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.
Hours later, Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sought to quell fears of a collapse at OpenAI. Altman wrote on X that his top priority “remains to ensure openai continues to thrive” and said he was “committed to fully providing continuity of operations.
Nadella during a CNBC interview said he was open to people staying at OpenAI or coming to Microsoft. He noted, however, that governance at the ChatGPT maker needed to change no matter where Altman ended up.
Microsoft has rushed in to attract some of the biggest names that left OpenAI, including co-founder Brockman, to keep key talent out of the hands of rivals including Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com while seeking to stabilize the startup in which it invested billions of dollars.
OpenAI’s newly appointed interim head moved quickly to dismiss speculation that its board ousted Altman due to a dispute over the safety of powerful AI models. Shear vowed to open an investigation into the firing, consider new governance for OpenAI and continue its path of making available technology like its viral chatbot.
“I’m not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models,” Shear said.
The startup dismissed Altman on Friday after a “breakdown of communications,” according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
The organization that governs OpenAI is a nonprofit. Its four-person board as of Friday consisted of three independent directors holding no equity in OpenAI, as well as Chief Scientist Sutskever.
In the letter calling for the board’s resignation, employees also demanded the appointment of two new independent directors, such as former Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, a former United States representative.
“Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI,” the employees said in the letter.
“Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join,” they added.
An OpenAI spokesperson referred Reuters to Altman’s comment on the goal to make the startup thrive.

DIFFERENT IDEALS
For years, OpenAI employees have been split between different ideals, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Some — including many who joined before 2022 — are focused on building artificial general intelligence (AGI) safely with sufficient guard rails, while others recruited after the success of ChatGPT are more keen on quickly building and launching products in the tradition of Silicon Valley startups, one of the people said.
Shear said prior to his appointment as interim CEO that he was “in favor of slowing down” AI’s rapid development.
Analyst Richard Windsor, of Radio Free Mobile, said in a note: “This weekend was simply the detonation of a bomb that has been waiting to go off.”
Altman is becoming CEO of a new research group inside Microsoft and will be joined by other departing OpenAI colleagues who quit following his ouster, Nadella said in posts on X.
Those joining Altman at Microsoft include senior researchers Szymon Sidor and Jakub Pachocki, according to Brockman.
Microsoft has bet heavily on the startup, releasing what it called AI copilots to business customers based on OpenAI’s technology. OpenAI researchers have viewed Microsoft’s vast reserves of computing power as essential to the development of superintelligent machines.
SemiAnalysis, a research and consulting firm, said in a note on Monday that any attempt by OpenAI’s nonprofit board to slow down AI’s development out of safety concerns had backfired.
“Now the world’s largest corporations without clear oversight/commitment to safe and responsible AGI is in the drivers seat,” the note said.
Microsoft had supported a return by Altman to OpenAI, according to sources, a move that seemed likely only hours prior to Monday’s announcements.

 

 

Topics: ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) Microsoft

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US, South Korea and Japan urge stronger international push to curb North Korean nuclear program

Updated 7 sec ago
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US, South Korea and Japan urge stronger international push to curb North Korean nuclear program

US, South Korea and Japan urge stronger international push to curb North Korean nuclear program
Updated 7 sec ago
SEOUL, South Korea: The national security advisers of the United States, South Korea and Japan called on Saturday for a stronger international push to suppress North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles and its military cooperation with other countries amid concerns about its alleged arms transfers to Russia.
The meeting in Seoul came as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in years, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accelerating the expansion of his nuclear and missile program and flaunting an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons.
The United States and its Asian allies have responded by increasing the visibility of their trilateral security cooperation in the region and strengthening their combined military exercises, which Kim condemns as invasion rehearsals.
In a joint news conference after the meeting, Cho said the three security advisers reaffirmed North Korea’s obligations under multiple UN Security Council resolutions that call for its denuclearization and bans any weapons trade with other countries.
“We agreed to strengthen a coordination among the three countries to secure the international community’s strict implementation” of the UN Security Council resolutions, Cho said.
Cho said the three also highly praised South Korea, the US, Japan and Australia announcing their own sanctions on North Korea over its spy satellite launch last month. North Korea argues it the right to launch spy satellites to monitor US and South Korean military activities and enhance the threat of its nuclear-capable missiles.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have also expressed concerns about a potential arms alignment between North Korea and Russia. They worry Kim is providing badly needed munitions to help Russian President Vladimir Putin wage war in Ukraine in exchange for Russian technology assistance to upgrade his nuclear-armed military.
Following the meeting, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington is working with Seoul and Tokyo to strengthen defense cooperation. He said they also seek to improve response to North Korean missile testing and space launch activities, including a real-time information sharing arrangement on North Korean missile launches that the countries plan to start in December.
Sullivan said the countries will also respond to North Korean cybercrimes, cryptocurrency money laundering and other efforts to bypass US-led international sanctions aimed at choking off funds going to its nuclear weapons and missile program.
“When it comes to the DPRK, we are keeping our eye on the ball, because it continues to represent a threat to international peace and security and regional peace and security,” Sullivan said, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Sullivan held separate bilateral talks Friday with South Korea’s national security office director, Cho Tae-yong, and Japan’s national security secretariat secretary general, Takeo Akiba.
Sullivan also met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
At a dinner reception for Sullivan and Akiba on Friday, Yoon said it is critical the three countries continue to build on his August summit with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David, where they vowed to deepen security and economic cooperation.
South Korea’s presidential office said Sullivan expressed support for the South’s recent decision to partially suspend a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on reducing border tensions, which had established border buffers and no-fly zones, to strengthen front-line surveillance of the North.
At their one-on-one meeting Friday, Cho and Akiba discussed building broader “international solidarity” in dealing with North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. They said it poses a threat “not only to the Korean Peninsula, but also to the regional and international community as a whole,” Seoul said.
The US, South Korean and Japanese national security advisers last held a trilateral meeting in June in Tokyo.
The discussions between the national security advisers in Seoul came after the US, South Korean and Japanese nuclear envoys met in Tokyo for separate talks on North Korea.
The nuclear envoys shared their assessments about North Korea’s recent satellite launch and weapons development and discussed ways to more effectively respond to North Korea’s cyber theft activities and other illicit efforts to evade US-led international sanctions and finance its weapons program, the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministries said.
South Korean intelligence officials have said the Russians likely provided technology support for North Korea’s successful satellite launch in November, which followed two failed launches.
North Korea has said its spy satellite transmitted imagery with space views of key sites in the US and South Korea, including the White House and the Pentagon. But it hasn’t released any of those satellite photos. Many outside experts question whether the North’s satellite is sophisticated enough to send militarily useful high-resolution imagery.
Kim has vowed to launch more satellites, saying his military needs to acquire space-based reconnaissance capabilities.
South Korean intelligence and military officials have said North Korea may have shipped more than a million artillery shells to Russia beginning in August, weeks before Kim traveled to Russia’s Far East for a rare summit with Putin that sparked international concerns about a potential arms deal. Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied US and South Korean claims about the alleged arms transfers.

Man who fired shotgun outside New York synagogue cited events in the Mideast, federal agent says

Man who fired shotgun outside New York synagogue cited events in the Mideast, federal agent says
Updated 09 December 2023
AP
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Man who fired shotgun outside New York synagogue cited events in the Mideast, federal agent says

Man who fired shotgun outside New York synagogue cited events in the Mideast, federal agent says
  • Mufid Fawaz Alkhader was arrested a short distance away from the temple after laying down the shotgun, police said
  • Alkhader, an Iraqi-born US citizen, told investigators he felt affected by events in the Middle East
Updated 09 December 2023
AP

ALBANY, New York: A man who fired a shotgun into the air outside a synagogue in New York’s capital city is an Iraqi-born US citizen who told investigators he felt affected by events in the Middle East, a federal agent said in a court filing.

No one was injured by the gunfire Thursday afternoon outside Albany’s Temple Israel, but children attending preschool had to shelter in place while police searched the area.
Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, 28, was arrested a short distance away from the temple after laying down the shotgun, police said. He said “Free Palestine” when officers arrested him, according to Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins.
Federal prosecutors charged Alkhader with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person — a charge authorities said was related to his admitted use of marijuana. He could also face state charges. Hawkins said the episode was being investigated as a possible hate crime.
The episode happened on the first night of Hanukkah amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza. Threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have increased across the US during the war, which entered its third month on Friday.
Speaking from the synagogue on Friday during Shabbat services, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned the shooting episode, saying her top priority is to ensure everyone has the ability to practice their religion safely.
“I wanted to come here tonight and recognize that the tranquility of this wonderful community has been upended,” she told worshippers. “All hate crimes must be condemned and not tolerated here.”
Alkhader, who lives in Schenectady, which is near Albany, waived his right to remain silent and spoke with law enforcement officers after his arrest, a task force officer with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a court filing.
The officer’s affidavit didn’t detail what Alkhader said about his motivation, but the officer wrote that he offered that “the events in the Middle East have impacted him.”
A person who answered the door at Alkhader’s address in Schenectady and identified himself as his father declined to be interviewed, but said his son was mentally ill.
After a brief appearance in federal court Friday morning, Alkhader was sent back to detention. He entered the court shackled and wearing a green jacket over his orange jail uniform. At times, he seemed to have difficulty following instructions from the judge.
“My English is limited,” he told the judge softly. He said he speaks Arabic.
Federal prosecutors and Alkhader’s public defender, Timothy Austin, declined to comment after the appearance. There was no date set for a preliminary hearing or a possible detention hearing.
FBI spokesperson Sarah Ruane praised the “swift coordination” between federal, state and local law enforcement.
Hank Greenberg, a member of Albany’s Temple Israel and spokesperson for the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York, decried what he called the “heartbreaking reality” that Jewish houses of worship need police protection.
“Even with this grieving and suffering and fear we’re experiencing,” he said, “at the same time we know we will endure and prevail as we have in the past.”

Topics: War on Gaza New York Mufid Fawaz Alkhader Israeli-Hamas war

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Top White House cyber aide says recent Iran hack on water system is call to tighten cybersecurity

Top White House cyber aide says recent Iran hack on water system is call to tighten cybersecurity
Updated 09 December 2023
AP
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Top White House cyber aide says recent Iran hack on water system is call to tighten cybersecurity

Top White House cyber aide says recent Iran hack on water system is call to tighten cybersecurity
  • A recent global study by the cybersecurity firm Sophos found nearly two-thirds of health care organizations were hit by ransomware attacks in the year ending in March, double the rate from two years earlier but dipping slightly from 2022
Updated 09 December 2023
AP

WASHINGTON: A top White House national security official said recent cyberattacks by Iranian hackers on US water authorities — as well as a separate spate of ransomware attacks on the health care industry — should be seen as a call to action by utilities and industry to tighten cybersecurity.
Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said in an interview on Friday that recent attacks on multiple American organizations by the Iranian hacker group “Cyber Av3ngers” were “unsophisticated” and had “minimal impact” on operations. But the attacks, Neuberger said, offered a fresh warning that American companies and operators of critical infrastructure “are facing persistent and capable cyberattacks from hostile countries and criminals” that are not going away.
“Some pretty basic practices would have made a big difference there,” said Neuberger, who serves as a top adviser to President Joe Biden on cyber and emerging technology issues. “We need to be locking our digital doors. There are significant criminal threats, as well as capable countries — but particularly criminal threats — that are costing our economy a lot.”
The hackers, who US and Israeli officials said are tied to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, breached multiple organizations in several states including a small municipal water authority in the western Pennsylvania town of Aliquippa. The hackers said they were specifically targeting organizations that used programmable logic controllers made by the Israeli company Unitronics, commonly used by water and water treatment utilities.
Matthew Mottes, the chairman of the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, which discovered it had been hacked on Nov. 25, said that federal officials had told him the same group also breached four other utilities and an aquarium.
The Aliquippa hack prompted workers to temporarily halt pumping in a remote station that regulates water pressure for two nearby towns, leading crews to switch to manual operation.
The hacks, which authorities said began on Nov. 22, come as already fraught tensions between the US and Iran have been heightened by the two-month-old Israel-Hamas war. The White House said that Tehran has supported Houthi rebels in Yemen who have carried out attacks on commercial vessels and have threatened US warships in the Red Sea.
Iran is the chief sponsor of both Hamas, the militant group which controls Gaza, as well as the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The US has said they have uncovered no information that Iran was directly involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the massive retaliatory operation by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza. But the Biden administration is increasingly voicing concern about Iran attempting to broaden the Israeli-Hamas conflict through proxy groups and publicly warned Tehran about the Houthi rebels’ attacks.
“They’re the ones with their finger on the trigger,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters earlier this week. “But that gun — the weapons here are being supplied by Iran. And Iran, we believe, is the ultimate party responsible for this.”
Neuberger declined to comment on whether the recent cyberattack by the Iranian hacker group could portend more hacks by Tehran on US infrastructure and companies. Still, she said the moment underscored the need to step up cybersecurity efforts.
The Iranian “Cyber Av3ngers” attack came after a federal appeals court decision in October prompted the EPA to rescind a rule that would have obliged USpublic water systems to include cybersecurity testing in their regular federally mandated audits. The rollback was triggered by a federal appeals court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Arkansas and Iowa, and joined by a water utility trade group.
Neuberger said that measures spelled out in the scrapped rule to beef up cybersecurity for water systems could have “identified vulnerabilities that were targeted in recent weeks.”
The administration, earlier this year, unveiled a wide-ranging cybersecurity plan that called for bolstering protections on critical sectors and making software companies legally liable when their products don’t meet basic standards.
Neuberger also noted recent criminal ransomware attacks that have devastated health care systems, arguing those attacks spotlight the need for government and industry to take steps to tighten cybersecurity.
A recent attack targeting Ardent Health Services prompted the health care chain that operates 30 hospitals in six states to divert patients from some of its emergency rooms to other hospitals while postponing certain elective procedures. Ardent said it was forced to take its network offline after the Nov. 23 cyberattack.
A recent global study by the cybersecurity firm Sophos found nearly two-thirds of health care organizations were hit by ransomware attacks in the year ending in March, double the rate from two years earlier but dipping slightly from 2022.
“The president’s made it a priority. We’re pushing out actionable information. We’re pushing out advice,” Neuberger said. “And we really need the partnership of state and local governments and of companies who are operating critical services to take and implement that advice quickly.”
 

 

Topics: cyberattacks Iran US

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’Mud to our knees’: teen migrant misery in France’s Calais

’Mud to our knees’: teen migrant misery in France’s Calais
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP
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’Mud to our knees’: teen migrant misery in France’s Calais

’Mud to our knees’: teen migrant misery in France’s Calais
  • NGOs estimate around 1,000 people are currently living rough in and around Calais, the French port which has for years acted as a beacon for migrants hoping to stow away on trucks crossing the Channel by ferry or through an undersea railway tunnel
Updated 09 December 2023
AFP

CALAIS, France: On the northern French coast, dozens of migrant teenagers are living in miserable conditions in the forest while waiting to try to cross the Channel in one of the small boats at the center of a heated immigration row in Britain.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under mounting pressure from his ruling Conservatives to take a tougher stance on the flow of migrants across the Channel ahead of a general election that will be held by January 2025.
Sunak has promised to “stop the boats” but 29,000 people have crossed one of the world’s busiest shipping routes this year in the hope of starting a new life in Britain.
Although the numbers are down on a record 44,000 in 2022, there is little sign that the crossings will stop.
NGOs estimate around 1,000 people are currently living rough in and around Calais, the French port which has for years acted as a beacon for migrants hoping to stow away on trucks crossing the Channel by ferry or through an undersea railway tunnel.
Around 130 are unaccompanied minors, who fled war, conflict or grinding poverty in the hope of making a new beginning in Britain.
Khaled, a 17-year-old migrant from war-torn Sudan who arrived in Calais in early December on the last leg of an odyssey that took him through Libya, Tunisia and Italy, lives alone in a wood, behind a railway track.
His tent is sinking into the mud and his clothes, which are hung on branches, show no sign of drying in the wintry cold.
Every night he tries to climb on the back of a truck bound for Britain — but he’s had no luck so far.
Tighter surveillance in recent years of the rail and ferry terminals, which are fenced off with barbed wire and concrete walls, have pushed growing numbers of migrants to try their luck crossing the Channel.
Since 2018, over 100,000 people have set sail for Britain in crowded inflatable boats or small fishing vessels.
For some, the crossing has proved fatal with the deadliest disaster in November 2021 when 27 migrants drowned.
Khaled said he could not afford the “at least 800-1,000 euros” ($860-$1,080) people smugglers are demanding to take him to Britain by boat.
But Niamatullah, a 17-year-old Afghan who AFP met at a migrant support center in Calais run by the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity, is just waiting for the cold snap to pass before he tries his luck.
“Life is hard here, we’re in mud up to our knees and the police keep taking all our belongings,” he complained.

Complaints of police repression have been legion in Calais since 2016 when the authorities bulldozed a sprawling migrant tented camp dubbed the “Jungle” that housed more than 9,000 people at its peak.
Successive French governments have ordered the police to routinely dismantle any new settlements, leaving migrants regularly wandering the streets in search of a place to sleep, including teens.
The only dedicated hostel for unaccompanied minors in the wider Calais region has a maximum capacity of 30.
MSF psychologist Chloe Hannebrouw said the minors were suffering from “huge psychological stress” as well as a deep sense of disillusionment.
“There is a gulf between what they expected in Europe and the conditions they find themselves in, in Calais,” she said.
With no family members to look out for them, NGOs attempt to fill the gap.
In the seaside village of Loon-Plage near Calais, Jeanne Hogard, a social worker for the Red Cross, warns a 16-year-old Sudanese girl of the danger of taking to the sea.
“Do you know the emergency number to call? Do you have a GPS,” she asks rhetorically.
Such warnings fail to make much impact among migrants, many of whom feel their prospects are better in Britain, because they have contacts there and speak the language.
“I’m not afraid. We got this far, we’ll keep going,” Nasser, a Sudanese youth, told AFP.
 

 

Topics: migrants US imigration

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US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council

US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council
Updated 39 min 25 sec ago
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US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council

US vetoes resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and backed by majority of Security Council
  • Washington’s decision to block the resolution comes amid unprecedented international calls to end the violence and ease the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza
  • The US uses its veto power despite last-gasp talks between Arab ministers and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and a heartfelt plea from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
Updated 39 min 25 sec ago
Ephrem Kossaify

NEW YORK CITY: The US on Friday blocked international calls for the UN Security Council to take action on the situation in Gaza by demanding a ceasefire. It vetoed a resolution for which 13 of the other 14 council members voted in favor, while the UK abstained.
Washington’s veto came amid unprecedented international calls to end the violence in Gaza, including a dramatic appeal by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who this week urged the council to demand a humanitarian ceasefire. Invoking the rarely used Article 99, one of the few powers granted to a secretary-general under the UN charter, he said a ceasefire is needed to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe that could have “potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole, and for peace and security in the region.”
Article 99 gives the secretary-general the power to bring to the attention of the Security Council “any matter which, in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Friday’s vote on the draft resolution, submitted by the UAE on behalf of the Arab Group of nations at the UN, also came as Arab ministers, led by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, met Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to convince Washington not to use its veto — a power it has as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council alongside the UK, Russia, France and China — to block adoption of the resolution.
The US veto came as no surprise, as the alternate permanent representative of the US to the UN, Robert Wood, told an earlier meeting of the council on Friday morning that his country did not support the calls for an immediate ceasefire, on the grounds that “this would only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution.”
It was the refusal of Hamas to release the young women it continues to hold hostage that resulted in the breakdown of the previous truce, he added, as he repeated the US position that “this council’s failure to condemn Hamas for its Oct. 7. terrorist attacks, including its acts of sexual violence and other unthinkable evils, is a serious moral failure.”
The resolution blocked on Friday called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza and “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access.”
It expressed “grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population” and emphasized that “the Palestinian and Israeli civilian populations must be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law.”
Also on Friday morning, Guterres repeated his call for council members “to spare no effort to push for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for the protection of civilians, and for the urgent delivery of lifesaving aid.” He added that the “eyes of the world — and the eyes of history — are watching. Time to act.”
The UN chief has warned there is a high risk of a total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which could potentially result in “a complete breakdown of public order and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt.” He spoke of his fears that this could have devastating repercussions for the security of the entire region.
Guterres described apocalyptic scenes in Gaza. He said attacks by air, land and sea are so intense and widespread that “they have reportedly hit 339 education facilities, 26 hospitals, 56 healthcare facilities, 88 mosques and three churches.
“Over 60 percent of Gaza’s housing has reportedly been destroyed or damaged — some 300,000 houses and apartments. Some 85 percent of the population have been forced from their homes.”
Under such circumstances, the delivery of humanitarian aid “has become impossible,” he added, and the “people of Gaza are being told to move like human pinballs, ricocheting between ever- smaller slivers of the south without any of the basics for survival.”
Nowhere in Gaza is safe now, Guterres said.
“At least 88 UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) shelters have been hit, killing over 270 people and injuring over 900. Conditions in shelters are overcrowded and unsanitary. People nurse open wounds. Hundreds of people stand in line for hours to use one shower or toilet.”
He also warned of the “serious risk” of starvation and famine. According to the World Food Programme, 97 percent of households in Gaza do not have enough to eat and the agency’s own food supplies are running out.
Guterres also highlighted the collapse of the healthcare system in Gaza at a time when needs continue to rise, and the deaths of at least 286 health workers since the war began.
“Hospitals have suffered heavy bombardment,” he said. “Just 14 out of 36 are still functioning. Of these, three are providing basic first aid, while the others are delivering partial services.
“The unsanitary conditions in shelters and severe shortages of food and water are leading to increases in respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice and diarrhea.
“Everything I have just described represents an unprecedented situation that led to my unprecedented decision to invoke Article 99, urging the members of the Security Council to press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe, and appealing for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared.”
Ahead of the vote, Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN, asked council members: “Are we supposed to pretend we don’t know (Israel’s) objective is the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip?
“If you are against the destruction and displacement of the Palestinian people, you have to be in favor of an immediate ceasefire.
“Regardless of how good your intentions are, how genuine your efforts are, this is the moment of truth. This war is part of the assault to end the Palestinian people as a nation and to destroy the question of Palestine. If you do not share this objective, you must stand against the war.”
Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, told council members: “Calling for a ceasefire sends a clear message that Hamas is forgiven for their deliberate atrocities.
“Hamas exploits Gazans as human shields in hopes that civilian casualties will rise and the UN will call for a ceasefire. Do we want to be the actors in this show that Hamas has carefully crafted?”
Blaming Hamas for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Erdan said: “If this council wants to see a ceasefire, start by demanding it from Hamas, the party that broke the past two.”
The UAE’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Mohammed Abushahab, told the council that the scale of the destruction in Gaza surpasses even the bombing of Dresden in 1945, during the Second World War.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, equipment and personnel,” he said.
China’s permanent representative to UN, Zhang Jun, whose country co-sponsored the Emirati resolution, said that it “reflects the universal core of the international community and represents the right direction for the restoration of peace.”
He added: “This human catastrophe is too great for words to describe … any waiting or delay means more death. At this juncture, only a ceasefire can avoid the headache of regional conflagration.”

 

Topics: War on Gaza US UN veto Ceasefire Israel Gaza

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