International community ‘unjustifiably, immorally silent’ about Palestinian suffering: Tunisian FM

International community ‘unjustifiably, immorally silent’ about Palestinian suffering: Tunisian FM
Tunisia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohamed Ali Nafti addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. (AP)
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Updated 28 September 2024
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International community ‘unjustifiably, immorally silent’ about Palestinian suffering: Tunisian FM

International community ‘unjustifiably, immorally silent’ about Palestinian suffering: Tunisian FM
  • Mohamed Ali Nafti rejects foreign intervention in Libya, calls for ceasefire in Sudan
  • UN bodies, particularly Security Council, should reform to ‘improve their performance, promote their credibility’

NEW YORK CITY: Tunisia’s foreign minister on Friday expressed “concern and disappointment” for Palestinians who have been subjected to “the most despicable war crimes” and “all forms of violations of human rights” by Israel.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Mohamed Ali Nafti called out the international community for its failure to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected.

“The international community remains unjustifiably and immorally silent,” he said. “Calling for human rights and humanitarian issues to take precedence disappears when it comes to the Palestinian people.”

The international community must treat all human beings equally, without discrimination or double standards, Nafti said, adding that Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has jeopardized people’s trust in the UN and its ability to implement its own resolutions.

He said Tunisia “firmly and unconditionally” supports the rights of the Palestinian people, in particular their right to “self-determination” and “the establishment of an independent, sovereign state” with East Jerusalem as its capital. He added that Tunisia also supports Palestine’s bid to become a full UN member.

Nafti highlighted growing crises in the world such as conflicts, wars, extremism, terrorism, organized crime, and unprecedented levels of poverty, hunger and inequality.

He also spoke about the widening digital and development gap between countries in the Global North and South, and the inability of the international financial system to “respond to the development needs of the majority of states.”

These challenges indicate that “the current international system is no longer on track,” and requires joint efforts to “carry out the necessary reviews and reforms to address all the chaos, inequality and turmoil,” Nafti said.

Africa is the most affected by climate change, global crises, terrorism and instability, he added, asking for UN and international efforts to overcome these challenges.

“African solutions for African problems should be the approach for achieving the goal of silencing the guns by 2030,” he said.

Nafti called for the UN to help maintain stability and security in Libya while rejecting “all forms of foreign intervention in Libya’s internal affairs.”

He also urged parties in Sudan to stop fighting and engage in dialogue in order “to end the scourge of war and displacement causing suffering to its people.”

He emphasized Tunisia’s call for reform of the UN and its various bodies, particularly the Security Council, to “improve their performance and promote their credibility.”


Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building

Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building
Updated 09 November 2024
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Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building

Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building
  • Video footage showed some parked cars engulfed in flames as the blaze intensified

CAIRO: A large explosion on Beirut’s Hamra district on Saturday sparked a fire that engulfed several cars at a parking lot and caused smoke to spread massively across the area, local media reported.
Video footage showed some parked cars engulfed in flames as the blaze, which resulted from the electrical generator explosion, intensified.
The fire also spread to a nearby building, the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) said. 
The incident triggered panic as firefighting teams rushed to the scene, battling the blaze that remained out of control. 
Civil defense teams were working to extinguish the blaze and evacuate adjacent buildings, NNA added.


Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report

Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report
Updated 09 November 2024
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Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report

Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report
  • UN projects the number of people in Gaza facing ‘catastrophic’ food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000
  • Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault

ROME: Famine is looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid, a UN-backed assessment said Saturday.
The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”
“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” said the alert.
On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing “catastrophic” food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report classified that as IPC Phase 5 — a situation when “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.”
Since that report, conditions have worsened in the north of Gaza, with a collapse of food systems, a drop in humanitarian aid and critical water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, the committee said.
“It can therefore be assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas,” it read.
Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault launched after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas.
Israeli forces have intensified their operations in large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north since early October, where evacuation orders are in place.
Aid shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip were now lower than at any time since October 2023, said the report.
Access to food continues to deteriorate, with prices of essentials on the black market soaring. Cooking gas rose by 2,612 percent, diesel by 1,315 percent and wood by 250 percent, it said.
“Concurrent with the extremely high and increasing prices of essential items has been the total collapse of livelihoods to be able to purchase or barter for food and other basic needs,” said the alert.
The body expressed concern over Israel’s cutting ties last month with the UN aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), warning of “extremely serious consequences for humanitarian operations” in Gaza.


Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes

Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes
Updated 09 November 2024
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Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes

Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes

GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including women and children.
An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Yunis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.
A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school,” which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.
The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.

In recent months, the military has struck several schools-turned-shelters where Israel has said Palestinian militants are operating.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its troops killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, where it has been conducting a sweeping air and ground operation for more than a month to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Israeli forces also killed several militants in the area of Rafah in the territory’s south, the military added.
The military is currently engaged in a two-front war, with troops fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
“Over the past day, the IAF (air force) struck over 50 terror targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.
“Among the targets struck were military structures, weapons storage facilities and launchers,” it added.
Israel’s war in Gaza broke out after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which included those who died and were killed in captivity.
During the attack, militants abducted 251 people, 97 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 43,508 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers to be reliable.


South Sudan floods affect 1.4 million, displace 379,000: UN

South Sudan floods affect 1.4 million, displace 379,000: UN
Updated 09 November 2024
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South Sudan floods affect 1.4 million, displace 379,000: UN

South Sudan floods affect 1.4 million, displace 379,000: UN
  • The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 1.4 million people were affected by floods in 43 counties

Nairobi: Devastating flooding in South Sudan is affecting around 1.4 million people, with more than 379,000 displaced, according to a United Nations update that warned about an upsurge in malaria.
Aid agencies have said that the world’s youngest country, highly vulnerable to climate change, is in the grip of its worst flooding in decades, mainly in the north.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 1.4 million people were affected by floods in 43 counties and the disputed Abyei region, which is claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan.
“Over 379,000 individuals are displaced in 22 counties and Abyei,” it added in a statement issued late on Friday.
A surge in malaria has been reported in several states, it said, “overwhelming the health system and exacerbating the situation and impact in flood-hit areas.”
Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the world’s youngest nation has remained plagued by chronic instability, violence and economic stagnation as well as climate disasters such as drought and floods.

The World Bank said last month that the latest floods were “worsening an already critical humanitarian situation marked by severe food insecurity, economic decline, continued conflict, disease outbreaks, and the repercussions of the Sudan conflict,” which has seen several hundred thousand people pour into South Sudan.
More than seven million people are food insecure in South Sudan and 1.65 million children are malnourished, according to the UN’s World Food Programme.
The country also faces another period of political paralysis after the president’s office announced in September yet another extension to a transitional period agreed in a 2018 peace deal, delaying elections by two years to December 2026.
Key provisions of the transitional agreement remain unfulfilled — including the creation of a constitution and the unification of the rival forces of President Salva Kiir and his foe Reik Machar.
The delay has left South Sudan’s partners and the United Nations exasperated, with UN envoy Nicholas Haysom on Thursday describing it as a “regrettable development.”
All local and international parties involved “must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last, and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve,” added Haysom.
South Sudan boasts plentiful oil resources but the vital source of revenue was decimated in February when an export pipeline was damaged in neighboring war-torn Sudan.


Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s Tyre kill 7, Lebanon says

Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s Tyre kill 7, Lebanon says
Updated 58 min 47 sec ago
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Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s Tyre kill 7, Lebanon says

Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s Tyre kill 7, Lebanon says
  • The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
  • Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes

BEIRUT: At least seven have been killed and 46 others injured in an initial toll following Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon's health ministry said on Saturday.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.