Top UNHCR official warns of crisis fatigue amid ‘massive’ Lebanese displacement

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Updated 30 September 2024
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Top UNHCR official warns of crisis fatigue amid ‘massive’ Lebanese displacement

Top UNHCR official warns of crisis fatigue amid ‘massive’ Lebanese displacement
  • Raouf Mazou, assistant high commissioner, laments killing of colleagues in Israeli strikes last week
  • ‘We all become numb … We simply don’t have the normal reaction of outrage that we should normally have’

NEW YORK CITY: With the Lebanese prime minister warning that up to 1 million people might be displaced amid war in his country, a top official with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees official has sounded the alarm on the “numbing” of the world to human suffering, and the difficulty of responding to crises in Lebanon, Sudan and elsewhere.

A “massive increase in displacement” is taking place in Lebanon, warned Raouf Mazou, UNHCR assistant high commissioner for operations, appealing for the international community to overcome its crisis fatigue and support a humanitarian response to the conflict.

He was speaking to Arab News in New York City on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly.




A smoke plume erupts after an Israeli airstrike targeted the outskirts of the village of Ibl al-Saqi in southern Lebanon on September 30, 2024. (AFP)

It comes as Israel ramped up its aerial campaign across Lebanon, with strikes into the heart of Beirut and elsewhere killing hundreds of people last week.

The escalation has compounded woes for the UN’s refugee agency, which is battling crises in some of the world’s most impoverished and conflict-ridden countries.

Two of its workers were killed last week in Lebanon. The UNHCR said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by the deaths.

Dina Darwiche, from the UNHCR’s Bekaa office in the country’s east, was killed alongside her youngest son as an Israeli missile struck her home on Sept. 23. Ali Basma, who worked with the agency’s Tyre office in the south, was also confirmed dead.




Men inspect destroyed houses that used to host displaced people from three families and their local relatives, after an Israeli strike in Maaysrah, north of Beirut, Lebanon, September 27, 2024. (Reuters)

“On our colleagues, it’s the drama of the context where civilian populations are the victims of indiscriminate bombing, indiscriminate airstrikes — this is what we’re observing,” Mazou told Arab News.

“They weren’t at work at the time when it happened. They were living their normal lives. But it reminds us of how civilians are exposed.

“In addition to that, we also have situations where colleagues in the course of their duty are targeted or find themselves killed.

“And that’s another concern that we have: humanitarian workers being exposed to danger as they’re performing their functions.




Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the Shiyah neighbourhood of Beirut's southern suburbs on September 28, 2024. (AFP)

“In this specific case it wasn’t — they weren’t at work — but still, this is something that to us, of course, is extremely concerning.”

The escalation in Lebanon is “not something the world needs right now,” Mazou added, warning that the “massive numbers” being displaced in the country also include the 80,000 Lebanese who fled to neighboring Syria in the past week, according to the government.

In response to the conflict, the UNHCR is executing its contingency plans and beginning distribution of pre-positioned aid, but urgently needs assistance as part of a wider international response, Mazou said, adding that it will also “strengthen its presence” to protect the most vulnerable.

But with conflicts in the region already raging in Sudan, Gaza, Syria and Yemen, there is a “difficulty” in mobilizing adequate resources for Lebanon, he said.

“We have core relief items already pre-positioned in the region which we can give fairly fast. We have the presence of colleagues. The presence of colleagues is absolutely essential. There are many other items that are necessary and which we’ll provide,” he added.

“We’re now coming up with an appeal that we’re going to issue, to ask for support from the international community.

“But that’s happening at a time when it’s already difficult to mobilize resources. There are many other crises around the world, so it’s already difficult. And now we have another crisis added to the existing one.

“So we’re very worried. We hope we’ll be able to mobilize, but we’re really appealing to the international community to provide the resources that are required.”

For Mazou, the proliferation of conflict has not only tested the logistical strength of the UNHCR, but has also “numbed” the global community to human suffering.

“We all become numb. There’s a new conflict, there’s a new crisis — we simply don’t have the normal reaction of outrage that we should normally have,” he said.

The result is that many of the countries receiving refugees from the world’s conflicts — some of which are already impoverished and unstable — are unable to provide sufficient protection and support.

Host countries are often “in very difficult situations” themselves and, faced with accepting millions of refugees, are too often left to handle the problem alone, Mazou said.

“They provide a global public good by receiving refugees, but they need the support of the international community.




Children walk on the street as displaced people take shelter at a square after fleeing the Israeli strikes in central Beirut, in Lebanon September 30, 2024. (Reuters)

“If you don’t give that support, at the end of the day it’s the victims who are again exposed to more danger.”

Chad, for example, hosts about 2 million refugees, including from Sudan. “That’s completely untenable for a country that’s fairly poor, and also a country that’s suffering from the economic impact of the war in Sudan.

“The whole eastern part of Chad … now finds itself in a situation where it can no longer benefit from the economic trade that was taking place.

“It’s the countries which are receiving these refugees, whether it’s Chad, whether it’s the Central African Republic, whether it’s Libya, whether it’s Egypt — countries which are struggling in providing the protection and the system that’s required. They need the support of the international community,” Mazou said.

A lack of international support in the humanitarian response to crises has dire effects on the ground, meaning a greater risk of famine, sexual violence against women, and children losing access to education, he warned.

“The consequences are that you don’t provide the basic assistance that’s required, whether it’s food assistance with the risk of famine, women finding themselves exposed to sexual violence, or children who absolutely don’t have access to school. Children in Sudan haven’t had access to school for all this time.”




Displaced Sudanese queue for food aid at a camp in the eastern city of Gedaref on September 23, 2024. (AFP)

The civil war in Sudan has pushed the UNHCR’s mandate to its limit. After 17 months of conflict, the country is now victim to the world’s worst hunger crisis, and humanitarian agencies are struggling to respond.

More than 10 million people have been forcibly displaced from Sudan, pushed into neighboring countries and beyond, with the UNHCR recently declaring emergencies in Uganda and Libya related to the conflict.

At the UN this week, Filippo Grandi, the UNHCR’s high commissioner, recounted two visits to Sudan earlier this year, describing conditions there as “apocalyptic” and urging donors to fill the “severely underfunded” response plan.

“I can, frankly, hardly think of any other conflict where our, by now, chronic inability to bring about peace … is more in evidence than the Sudan conflict,” he said.

“If people don’t die because of bullets, they starve to death. If they manage to survive, they must face disease, or floods, or the threat of sexual violence and other horrifying abuse, which if perpetrated in other places would make daily headlines. It doesn’t in this situation.”

With famine declared at a displacement camp in El-Fasher in North Darfur, the UN’s main food relief body, the World Food Programme, is struggling to deliver aid to the country amid blocking by government forces and their Rapid Support Forces paramilitary rivals.

Humanitarian workers operating in Sudan have also been targeted or killed in deliberate attacks.

For Mazou and the UNHCR, opening access to aid in Sudan is of the utmost priority. “For us, it’s first making sure that humanitarian access is granted. We’ve been talking to the parties to the conflict. They know that they have the responsibility, they have accountability that they must provide humanitarian access. But that’s something that we keep on repeating,” he said.

“And then we need to have the resources to make sure that we can carry the humanitarian assistance that’s required to the populations in need in asylum countries first.

“I think it’s important in today’s world to underline the fact that asylum countries are willing to provide asylum, and that’s not the case everywhere,” he added, citing Chad, the CAR, Libya and Egypt.

Disputes, rivalries and buck-passing among developed countries on the issue of hosting refugees has been a matter of chronic concern for the UNHCR.

Grandi, as well as a host of humanitarian leaders, have long cited the contrasting reactions of many European countries to the Syrian and Ukrainian refugee crises as evidence of “double standards.”

European countries positioned on the edges of the continent — including Spain, Greece, Croatia and Italy — have engaged, openly or secretly, in violent pushback policies to turn back refugees at their borders, according to a series of reports published by Amnesty International in recent years.

In the years preceding the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many of the countries neighboring the latter had complained of an inability to shoulder the burden of hosting refugees from outside Europe, Mazou said.

But following the outbreak of the war, these countries “received several million” Ukrainian refugees, in a sign that “people do realize that it’s their responsibility to provide asylum” in a crisis, he added.

“That’s something that we must all underline,” Mazou said. “Not only the high commissioner, but a number of humanitarian leaders have stressed the importance of supporting countries regardless of where they’re located, to make sure that the assistance that’s required is provided.”

With the UNHCR drawing on all its resources to meet the mounting demands of refugees fleeing crises around the world, Mazou highlighted international support as the backbone of his agency’s operations.  

“We have to put in place mechanisms, and to respond to the needs of the people,” he said. “We continue to appeal to make sure that the needs of all refugees around the world are responded to, and that we’re in the position of mobilizing for all countries around the world and not just one crisis.”


’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family
Updated 14 sec ago
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’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family
  • The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Alaa Al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in an Israeli air strike.
The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare.
“When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying,” said Ali Al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa’s husband.
Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives.
The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi Al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit.
Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital.
When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted.
The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock.
Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war.

The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure” near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review.
“I couldn’t recognize the children in the shrouds,” Alaa’s sister, Sahar Al-Najjar, said through tears. “Their features were gone.”
“It’s a huge loss. Alaa is broken,” said Mohammed, another close family member.
According to medical sources, Hamdi Al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital.
Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions.
Adam had one hand amputated and suffers from severe burns across his body.
“I found my brother’s house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath,” Ali Al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children’s bodies.
Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness.
“I don’t know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves.”
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he added with a weary sigh. “Death is sometimes kinder than this torture.”
 

 


Israel’s US ambassador called home over interview remarks

Israel’s US ambassador called home over interview remarks
Updated 46 min 56 sec ago
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Israel’s US ambassador called home over interview remarks

Israel’s US ambassador called home over interview remarks
  • Ambassador Yechiel Leiter accuses opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of levelling “blood libels” at the Israeli leader

JERUSALEM: Israel’s ambassador to Washington is being summoned home on the instructions of a government disciplinary body to discuss comments he made in a podcast interview, the foreign ministry said Sunday.
Ambassador Yechiel Leiter had made an appearance on a podcast run by the right-wing US online media platform PragerU, in which he accused opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of levelling “blood libels” at the Israeli leader.
“The Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eden Bar-Tal, will summon the ambassador in Washington, Dr. Yechiel Leiter, for a hearing regarding statements he made during a media interview,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement.
The spokesman said the summons was “in accordance with the instructions of the Discipline Department at the Civil Service Commission.”
Although the role of Israeli ambassador to the United States is a political appointment and Leiter was selected by Netanyahu, Israeli diplomats are typically expected to refrain from making political statements.
In the interview with PragerU, Leiter accused “extremists on the left” and the Israeli media of trying to topple Netanyahu’s government.
“It’s the extremists, and there is nothing they won’t do to bring Netanyahu down, and it’s a calumny that needs to be called out,” he said, accusing Netanyahu’s detractors of levelling “blood libels against your own PM.”
Leiter also dismissed as “insanity” claims that the premier was prolonging the war in Gaza to remain in power, adding: “How dare they say something as malicious as that?“
A poll published by Israel’s Channel 12 News on Saturday showed that 55 percent of the public believes Netanyahu is more interested in remaining in power than ending the war or freeing the hostages still held in Gaza.
A former adviser to Netanyahu, Leiter is originally from the United States and lived in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.
His son, Moshe Leiter, was killed in combat in November 2023 in the Gaza Strip.


Why fury over Israeli actions in Gaza and West Bank may lead to EU sanctions

Why fury over Israeli actions in Gaza and West Bank may lead to EU sanctions
Updated 52 min 43 sec ago
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Why fury over Israeli actions in Gaza and West Bank may lead to EU sanctions

Why fury over Israeli actions in Gaza and West Bank may lead to EU sanctions
  • Calls rise for arms embargo, ICC referrals and greater aid access after Israeli military fire in Jenin forces foreign ministers to scatter
  • Trade deal with Israel under review amid alarm over Gaza famine warnings, West Bank settler violence, international law violations

LONDON: Watching the widely circulated footage of Israeli soldiers firing “warning shots” in the direction of a delegation of foreign diplomats visiting a refugee camp in the Palestinian city of Jenin on Wednesday, it was hard to resist the conclusion that the Israeli military had lost its collective mind.

Luckily, no one was injured in the incident. But in a manner of speaking, Israel shot itself in the foot.

The extraordinary provocation took place as Israel was already facing a rising wave of condemnation — internally and externally — and the threat of international sanctions for its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

International support for Israel, so unified in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militant groups, in which 1,200 Israelis and others were killed and 251 more were taken hostage, has steadily crumbled in the face of outrage after outrage, which collectively have left more than 50,000 Palestinians dead and much of Gaza reduced to uninhabitable rubble.

Last Tuesday, the day before the shooting incident in Jenin, the European Union announced that it was reviewing its political and economic relations with Israel – no hollow threat from a bloc that is Israel’s biggest trading partner.

“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic,” Kaja Kallas, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy and vice-president of the European Commission, said on Tuesday.

Israeli soldiers fired ‘warning shots’ in the direction of European diplomats visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, in the West Bank, on May 21, forcing them to scatter and sparking diplomatic outrage. (AFP)

Earlier that same day, the UN had raised the specter of thousands of babies dying of starvation “in the next 48 hours” if Israel did not allow aid trucks to enter the territory immediately.

Israel, while rejecting the suggestion that mass starvation was imminent, responded by allowing what critics condemned as a wholly insufficient token amount of aid into Gaza.

“The aid that Israel has allowed in is of course welcomed, but it’s a drop in the ocean,” said Kallas. “Aid must flow immediately without obstruction and at scale.”

She had, she added, "made these points also with my talks with Israelis … and regional leaders as well. Pressure is necessary to change the situation.”

IN NUMBERS:

• 38% Germans who now view Israel negatively.

• 10% Drop in number of Germans who view Israel positively.

Source: Bertelsmann Foundation study

 

And pressure is building up. In an unprecedented move, the EU is now reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the legal basis for its trade relations with Israel, which entered into force in June 2000.

Pressure for this review has been mounting since May 7, when Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp urged the EU to act, saying “the situation in Gaza compels us to take this step.”

Disturbed by the nightmarish scenes in Gaza and reports of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, his government, he said, “will draw a line in the sand.”

Losing European trade would be a massive blow to Israel’s economy. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner – in 2024 34.2 percent of Israel’s imports came from the EU while 28.8 percent of Israel’s exports went to the EU. The total value of the trade in goods between the two in 2024 was €42.6 billion.

“The review will specifically assess Israel’s adherence to the human rights provisions within the deal,” said Caroline Rose, a director at the New Lines Institute focused on defense, security and geopolitical landscapes.

The clause in the agreement that is now under legal scrutiny is Article 2. This states that “Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”

Other international measures are under consideration, said Rose, including “imposing a full arms embargo, referring Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC), as advocated by Pakistan, enforcing a ceasefire and humanitarian aid access, sanctioning Israeli officials, supporting recognition of a Palestinian state, dismantling illegal settlements, reforming the UN Security Council veto system, and coordinating global reconstruction aid.”

Rose cautions that “internal divisions within the bloc could stall progress. While 17 member states support the review, countries such as Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy reportedly oppose it. Germany and Austria, in particular, have resisted punitive measures despite issuing public condemnations.”

Germany, bearing the moral weight of the Holocaust, has been a staunch supporter of Israel since its creation in 1948. But now, under new conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz, even Berlin is wavering.

Last week, out of concern for the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, Merz despatched his foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, on a fact-finding mission. Wadephul was among the diplomats scattered by the warning shots fired by the Israeli military on Wednesday, as were senior delegates from countries including France, Belgium, the UK, Italy, Canada, Russia and China. 

All the countries involved have lodged complaints with Israel about the episode, which the Palestinian Authority condemned as a “heinous crime” a “deliberate and unlawful act” which “constitutes a blatant and grave breach of international law.”

The day after the shooting in Jenin, during a visit to Lithuania the German chancellor said “we are very concerned about the situation in the Gaza Strip and also about the intensification of the Israeli army’s military operations there.

“We are urging, above all, that humanitarian aid finally reaches the Gaza Strip without delay, and also reaches the people there, because, as we hear from the United Nations, there is now a real threat of famine.”

On May 13 a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation found that over the past four years Germans had developed an increasingly negative view of Israel. In 2021 46 percent of Germans had a positive view of the country, compared with only 36 percent today, with 38 percent now viewing it negatively. Germany has seen many mass protests since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, which a majority of Germans oppose.

On May 19, two days before the Israeli military’s live-fire intimidation of international diplomats, the UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement condemning the situations in Gaza and the West Bank and strongly opposing the expansion of Israeli military operations in Gaza.

While also calling on Hamas to immediately release the remaining hostages, the statement denounced “the level of human suffering in Gaza” as “intolerable.”

The three nations added: “Yesterday’s announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate. We call on the Israeli Government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.”

Israel, warned the statement, “risks breaching international humanitarian law,” adding: “We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law.”

Israel had a right to defend Israelis against terrorism, “but this escalation is wholly disproportionate.”

As a result, “We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.”

In the West Bank, Israel must also “halt settlements which are illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians.

“We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”

On May 20, as the death toll from Israeli air strikes over the previous week reached 500, the UK summoned Israel’s ambassador to London, paused talks on a new free-trade agreement, and announced further sanctions against West Bank settlers.

Israel’s operation in Gaza was "incompatible with the principles that underpin our bilateral relationship,” David Lammy, the UK foreign minister, told parliament.

“It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous, and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

All these moves “clearly reflect growing discomfort with Israeli military actions in Gaza but also in the West Bank,” Sir John Jenkins, who served as British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria and as consul-general in Jerusalem, told Arab News.

“This has been crystallized by the issue of humanitarian aid. The UN has not handled this well itself. But it’s a real political problem for Western governments, with significant domestic implications, which is why the UK has also paused trade talks.”

However, he added, “none of this will affect the Israeli decision-making process in the short term, and Western governments will be very reluctant to do anything that helps Hamas.

“But they will be increasingly keen to see a proper plan for the endgame. The question is: How much does the Trump administration support them? The news last week of the shooting of the two Israeli diplomats in Washington will only complicate this calculation.”

Israel, increasingly isolated, nevertheless remains defiant. “The British Mandate ended exactly 77 years ago,” a spokesperson for its foreign ministry said in response to last week’s criticism from the UK. “External pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security against enemies who seek its destruction.”

Yet in Europe that external pressure is mounting. So much so that, after 20 years of campaigning virtually in the wilderness for “freedom, justice and equality” for Palestinians, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement finally finds its much-criticised methods on the cusp of becoming mainstream.

Founded in 2005, for two decades the Palestinian-led BDS and those who support it have endured international censure, based on an unquestioning acceptance of Israel’s accusation that the organization’s aims are merely a manifestation of antisemitism.

Now, however, as governments in Europe, shocked by Israel’s latest actions and the seemingly deliberate starvation of two million people in Gaza, begin to adopt stances for which BDS has been calling for 20 years, as it marks its 20th anniversary the organisation and its work is being vindicated.

“For the first time ever, even the world’s most complicit governments are being forced – due to people power and moral outrage – to publicly consider accountability measures against Israel,” the BDS said in a statement.

This was “another clear sign that our collective popular BDS pressure is working. The taboo is broken – sanctions are the way forward to end Israel’s atrocious crimes.”

Nevertheless, the organization continues to be critical of the UK, France and Canada, countries which had spent 19 months “enabling Israel’s genocide with intelligence gathering and other military means.” The statements by the three “are far too late and fall dangerously short of meeting these States’ legal obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention and the Apartheid Convention.”

BDS says it is now stepping up its campaign to “transform tokenism and empty threats into tangible and effective accountability measures, starting with a two-way military embargo and full-scale trade and diplomatic sanctions.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, keenly aware as ever of his dependence upon the support of the right-wing extremists in his cabinet, went on the offensive last week.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, he said, were siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers.” Astonishingly, he added, Starmer, Macron and Carney were “on the wrong side of humanity and … the wrong side of history.”

In fact, in the wake of the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, all three countries came out in unequivocal support of Israel, and its right to defend itself.

What Netanyahu is refusing to acknowledge is that in the eyes of the world, the events of that day do not give Israel a carte blanche.

His apparent determination to continue the war seemingly in order to keep himself in power, and to support the Zionist extremists in his cabinet who want to see Palestine ethnically cleansed, is facing growing criticism within Israel itself.

One of the staunchest critics is Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister from 2006 to 2009, who recently told the BBC that what Israel was doing in Gaza was “close to a war crime.”

That earned him a rebuke from a current Israeli minister, but on Friday Olmert intensified his criticism. “A group of thugs … are running the state of Israel these days and the head of the gang is Netanyahu,” he told the BBC World Service.

He added: “Of course they are criticizing me, they are defaming me, I accept it, and it will not stop me from criticizing and opposing these atrocious policies.”

Speaking to Arab News, Ahron Bregman, a former Israeli soldier and a senior teaching fellow in King’s College London’s Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, said: “You don’t have to be an expert on international humanitarian law to conclude that what the Israelis are doing in the Gaza Strip is carrying out terrible war crimes.

“European governments can’t ignore this any longer, as their publics are furious, and, at last, they have started to react.”

Ideally, he said, “it would be the UN Security Council that instructs Israel to stop the industrial killing in Gaza and the starving of the Gazans, but the Israelis seem confident that US President Donald Trump will not let such a resolution pass.

“But who knows? Sometimes, in war, there are moments which are turning points, moments that push nations of the world over the edge and make them take action to stop wars.”

Bregman believes only two courses of action “would make the Israeli government rethink and change its criminal behaviour in Gaza.”

The first is that European countries should block trade relations with Israel — a step now being seriously considered in the European Union — and impose sanctions on the state.

But his second suggestion, coming as it does from a man who served in the Israeli army for six years and took part in the 1982 Lebanon War, shows just how far the actions of the current Israeli government have strayed from what mainstream public opinion in the country now regards as acceptable.

“Young Israelis who fought in Gaza should be stopped when trying to cross into Europe,” he said.

“They should be investigated for their actions in Gaza and arrested if there’s any suspicion of war crimes.”

And, he added, “pilots, who caused most of the damage in Gaza, should be sent automatically for trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”
 

 


Man with US and German citizenship is charged with trying to attack US Embassy in Tel Aviv

The exterior of the US Embassy building in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, Israel. (AFP file photo)
The exterior of the US Embassy building in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, Israel. (AFP file photo)
Updated 25 May 2025
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Man with US and German citizenship is charged with trying to attack US Embassy in Tel Aviv

The exterior of the US Embassy building in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, Israel. (AFP file photo)
  • Israeli officials deported Neumeyer to New York on Saturday and he had an initial court appearance before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Sunday

NEW YORK: A dual US and German citizen has been arrested on charges that he traveled to Israel and attempted to firebomb the branch office of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, officials said Sunday.
Federal prosecutors in New York said the man, Joseph Neumeyer, walked up to the embassy building on May 19 with a backpack containing Molotov cocktails but got into a confrontation with a guard and eventually ran away, dropping his backpack as the guard tried to grab him.
Law enforcement then tracked Neumeyer down to a hotel a few blocks away from the embassy and arrested him, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York.
The attack took place against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza, now in its 19th month.
Neumeyer, 28, who is originally from Colorado and has dual US and German citizenship, had traveled from the US to Canada in early February and then arrived in Israel in late April, according to court records. He had made a series of threatening social media posts before attempting the attack, prosecutors said.
Israeli officials deported Neumeyer to New York on Saturday and he had an initial court appearance before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Sunday. His criminal complaint was unsealed Sunday.
Neumeyer’s court-appointed attorney, Jeff Dahlberg, declined to comment.
During his first term, President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital despite Palestinian objections and moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv.

 


Spain hosts European, Arab nations to pressure Israel on Gaza

Spain hosts European, Arab nations to pressure Israel on Gaza
Updated 25 May 2025
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Spain hosts European, Arab nations to pressure Israel on Gaza

Spain hosts European, Arab nations to pressure Israel on Gaza
  • The talks in Madrid aim to stop Israel’s “inhumane” and “senseless” war in Gaza, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said
  • Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with Albares on the sidelines of the meeting

MADRID: The international community should look at sanctions against Israel to stop the war in Gaza, Spain’s foreign minister said, as European and Arab nations gathered in Madrid Sunday to urge an end to its offensive.
Some of Israel’s long-standing allies have added their voices to growing international pressure after it expanded military operations against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whose 2023 attack on Israel sparked the devastating war.
A two-month aid blockade has worsened shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine in the Palestinian territory, stoking fears of famine.
Aid organizations say the trickle of supplies Israel has recently allowed to enter falls far short of needs.
The talks in Madrid aim to stop Israel’s “inhumane” and “senseless” war in Gaza, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters before the meeting opened.
Humanitarian aid must enter Gaza “massively, without conditions and without limits, and not controlled by Israel,” he added, describing the Strip as humanity’s “open wound.”
“Silence in these moments is complicity in this massacre... that is why we are meeting,” said Albares.

Representatives from European countries including France, Britain, Germany and Italy joined envoys from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Morocco, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Slovenia, who like Spain have already recognized a Palestinian state, are also taking part, alongside Brazil.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with Albares on the sidelines of the meeting.

During the meeting, they discussed relations between their countries, areas of joint cooperation, and regional and international developments including the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

After the European Union decided this week to review its cooperation deal with Israel, Albares told reporters Spain would request its “immediate suspension.”
Spain would also urge partners to impose an arms embargo on Israel and “not rule out any” individual sanctions against those “who want to ruin the two-state solution forever,” he added.
Sunday’s meeting will also promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke by video link with Arab counterparts on Sunday and would press “the need for coordinated pressure” for a ceasefire, aid and the release of Hamas-held hostages, his office said.
Barrot will also meet the Palestinian Authority’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, during a trip to Yerevan next week, the French foreign ministry announced on Sunday.
The diplomatic drive comes one month before a UN conference on the Israel-Palestinian conflicted presided over by France and Saudi Arabia.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said his country will back draft resolutions at the United Nations aimed at ramping up aid access to Gaza and holding Israel to account over its international humanitarian obligations.
Madrid’s attempt to rally a wider consensus on the war comes a year after it broke with some European allies by recognizing a Palestinian state, infuriating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Palestinian militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed almost 54,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.