WHO has been preparing for ‘worst-case scenario’ in Lebanon, regional chief tells Arab News

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WHO has been preparing for ‘worst-case scenario’ in Lebanon, regional chief tells Arab News

WHO has been preparing for ‘worst-case scenario’ in Lebanon, regional chief tells Arab News
  • Dr. Hanan Balkhy says agency conducted hundreds of sessions in mass casualty training, health workforce training and EMT training
  • Expresses concern over the  “significant amounts of pressure and stress” that medical staff in Gaza are operating under

NEW YORK: The escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is of “grave concern” for the World Health Organization, and the agency is exerting substantial efforts in ensuring that countries in the region are “ready for the worst-case scenario when it comes to health preparation,” WHO’s regional chief has told Arab News.

Dr. Hanan Balkhy, a Saudi physician who was appointed to the role of director for the Eastern Mediterranean in January this year following a distinguished career in medicine, made the comment while she was in New York City last week to rally support for critical public health initiatives.

“When it comes to the health preparation, we were able over the past months to pre-place emergency kits within Lebanon and with a few other neighboring countries to at least sustain some of the commodities that would be needed in case the escalation reached a very high point,” she told Arab News.

“We work very closely with the ministers of health, within the ministries themselves, and we make sure that we can train people on certain skills that we know will be necessary.”

The agency has conducted “hundreds” of training sessions — including mass casualty training, health workforce training and EMT training — within Lebanon and other WHO member states in the region.

Some of those countries have already faced significant pressure on their healthcare systems as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza, Balkhy said.




An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon. (AFP)

“There’s big pressure on the member states that are surrounding the Occupied Palestinian Territories, from receiving the (Palestinian) patients and taking care of them, but now there’s actual escalation of war in southern Lebanon.

“So, with that in mind, we’re trying to put together at least the basics that are needed for the worst-case scenario.”

Balkhy voiced concern over the recent pager and walkie-talkie explosions across Lebanon.

On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah operatives exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in an Israeli attack, killing dozens, including two children, and injuring thousands more.

Most of the dead are believed to have been fighters, based on death notices posted online by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militia.




A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display. (AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has called for an “independent, thorough and transparent investigation” into the mass explosion, adding that “simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.”

The device explosions led to “very complex injuries in the face and in the hands,” said Balkhy.

Doctors in Lebanon say they had never seen the kind of maiming that resulted from the pager attacks. Described some of the wounds as “horrific,” they said the injuries have ranged from puncture wounds in the face, amputated hands, ruptured eyeballs, abdominal wounds, ruptured bones, and broken jaws.

“We’re looking and seeking to find experts that can help us in identifying the best methods of treatment and how we can support the Lebanese Ministry of Health,” Balkhy said, pointing to “empathy” between member states and “a strong sense of solidarity.”




People gather outside a hospital in the city of Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around the country. (AFP)

Balkhy also oversees WHO operations in Gaza, where the healthcare system is “on its knees” according to the UN.

“None of the healthcare facilities are fully functioning,” said Balkhy who witnessed the stark reality of the situation during a visit to Gaza and the West Bank in July.

Over 500 healthcare workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the war in October last year, and where out of 36 hospitals, 17 remain only partially functional. Primary healthcare and community-level services are frequently suspended in the battered enclave, due to insecurity, attacks and repeated evacuation orders.

More than 22,500 Palestinians have suffered life-changing injuries since Israel launched its military campaign in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 during which militants gunned down civilians and snatched people in towns, along highways and at a techno music festival.




A man sits near the destroyed Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on September 17, 2024. (AFP)

Medical staff operating in Gaza are under “significant amounts of pressure and stress,” Balkhy said, with surgeons forced to operate in increasingly makeshift facilities, often without access to basic medical equipment.

“The healthcare facilities are not just buildings. They are buildings, they are medication and instruments, and commodities, they are also the health workforce.

“There’s not one single individual (in Gaza) who has not been faced (with) being asked to move from one point to another.

“Many of them have moved many, many times, but also with the deaths and the losses within their family.”

Yet healthcare workers “continue to stand on their feet and provide care when appropriate,” Balkhy added.

IN NUMBERS

  • 1.9m Palestinians who have fled their homes since Oct. 7, 2023.
  • 41,150+ People killed in Gaza in fighting and Israeli bombardment.
  • 1,200 People killed in Israel during Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack.

However, the type of traumas and injuries inflicted on Palestinians have been “unprecedented” and “devastating,” requiring “very complex healthcare systems” of the type that Gaza lacks, she said.

“Those who have been working in the humanitarian field for over a decade have acknowledged that the types of compound fractures, soft tissue injuries, skull injuries … need neurosurgeons.

“You need very sophisticated orthopedic surgeons. You need very sophisticated equipment.”

In response, the WHO has worked in tandem with member states to organize medical evacuations across the Middle East and beyond.

Since October 2023, over 5,000 patients have been evacuated for treatment outside Gaza, with over 80 percent receiving care in Egypt, Qatar and the UAE, and a further 10,000 patients are currently in need of medical evacuation for specialized care.

This includes newborn babies requiring intensive care whose families are trying to evacuate them following the bombing of specialist maternity units across Gaza.




An injured Palestinian man is set for evacuation from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for the area on August 26, 2024. (AFP)

Another major concern of health officials has been the growing lack of clean water and sanitary conditions in Gaza.

Hundreds of the enclave’s water filtration and sanitation facilities were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the war.

Balkhy said that the lack of clean water makes it “very difficult” to provide the basics of healthcare.

She also highlighted the worrying proliferation of mental trauma among the population in Gaza.

“The last thing that worries me and that I saw of significance was what we will be facing from the mental stress disorders among the people who remain there and that will continue to work there.

“We will need, as the WHO, with partners, to help support, rehabilitate and address some of these issues.

“So, there’s a lot. The environment, which is a crucial part of the health and wellbeing of individuals, is extremely disturbing.




A boy walks through a puddle of sewage water past mounds of trash and rubble along a street in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on August 14, 2024. (AFP)

Balkhy described scenes of sewage “running in the streets” as well as endless rubble, adding: “It’s extremely devastating to be there on the ground.”

A significant breakthrough in the WHO’s Gaza campaign came earlier this month with the completion of the first round of a polio vaccination campaign.

A month earlier, a 10-year-old baby had been left partly paralyzed by the disease, in what was the enclave’s first reported case in 25 years.

The WHO’s campaign in central Gaza involved more than 2,000 health workers operating across 143 sites.

“We’re very happy that we were able to secure these days of tranquillity to ensure that we conducted the first round of the polio campaign,” said Balkhy.

“The whole world has their eyes on this polio campaign because the success is not just a success for the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gazans, it’s a success for the world, because pathogens know no borders, and there’s a risk that polio might again spread.”

“So, I’m very happy that that has happened.”




A child receives a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict in a school run by the UNRWA in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)

A second round of vaccination is still needed, however, to ensure optimal levels of immunization, Balkhy added.

“Every child needs to receive those two doses, between one to two months apart,” she said.

A second round is set for mid-October, and the WHO will look to “replicate what we did in the first round.

“The WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA and the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority did amazing work to make this happen together,” Balkhy said.

“But also significant credit goes to the workers on the ground.

“All those lessons learned from the first round of the polio campaign will be very much looked at in order to have a more successful and efficient second round for the polio.”




Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip on September 10, 2024. (AFP)

However, Balkhy gave warning that health authorities are only at the beginning of the campaign to rehabilitate living conditions in Gaza.

“As an infectious disease person, as an epidemiologist and as a pediatrician, we have a long way to go to rehabilitate the environment for the people in Gaza to to be living with dignity and with appropriate methods to have proper hygiene, instruments, clean water, soap and so on,” she said.

Balkhy is also focused on Sudan, where millions of people have been displaced by the country’s raging civil war, and famine has been declared in the North Darfur region.

Her latest visit to the country came two weeks ago, when she called for warring factions to abide by international law and end their attacks on healthcare facilities and workers.

The WHO reported in July that since the outbreak of the war in April 2023, more than 88 attacks in Sudan had targeted health facilities, ambulances, patients and workers.




People inspect a destroyed medical storage in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur province, on May 2, 2023. (AFP)

“It’s very important to sustain the regular people, the civilians who are not engaged in any of these wars, to be able to feel secure and that the humanitarians and the health workers can do their job,” Balkhy said.

“We have been able to work with the Ministry of Health of Sudan to come up with very good plans on rehabilitating primary health care and some of the secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities.”

Balkhy also visited a site for internally displaced people, warning that the level of access to clean water and sanitation, as well as the risk of cholera, are “huge challenges.”

She added: “It came also during the rainy season. It was expected — none of this is a surprise. We’ve been talking about this for quite a while.

“We’ve been able to, of course, with the Ministry of Health, establish cholera treatment centers and rehydration centers.

“So, the immunization program is is moving forward. We’re trying our best — it’s not optimal. But we do hope that we will be able to access as many children as possible.”




Cholera patients are treated at a clinic in Sudan’s Red Sea State on September 25, 2024. (AFP)

At the General Assembly in New York City, Balkhy eyed a breakthrough resolution in a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance.

“It’s the silent pandemic. I have led the Directorate of Antimicrobial Resistance as the first assistant director general in Geneva for close to five years,” she said.

“The fruition of reaching to this point of a high-level meeting — hopefully the resolution has clear, objectives, clear commitments and targets for the member states to focus.”

Despite the combined burden of Gaza and Sudan, and fears mounting over a new war in Lebanon, the WHO is “ready to do its full job and its full role in supporting the elevation of health and leaving nobody behind,” Balkhy said.

That, however, requires heads of state to meet their own responsibilities, she said.

“Secure peace for the world so that we can move on with our agendas and truly walk the talk of leading to our SDGs, leaving nobody behind.

“But without peace and without everybody working together, that is not possible.

 


Israeli military begins ground invasion of southern Lebanon

Israeli military begins ground invasion of southern Lebanon
Updated 01 October 2024
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Israeli military begins ground invasion of southern Lebanon

Israeli military begins ground invasion of southern Lebanon
  • Israeli military says operation based on precise intelligence against Lebanese group Hezbollah
  • Close ally US has shown unwavering support for Israel despite concerns over civilian casualties

BEIRUT/RIYADH: The Israeli military said early Tuesday that it had started a ground invasion of Lebanon in a long anticipated operation that leaders say will support the return of displaced Israelis to northern settlements.  

Israel’s military said the operation in southern Lebanon was limited and localized and was based on precise intelligence against the Lebanese group Hezbollah, adding that the air force and artillery units were supporting ground troops.

The military said that its targets were in villages close to its border with Lebanon that pose “an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire across the border for months, forcing many residents either side of it to flee or be evacuated from danger zones.  

Lebanese residents in Aita al-Shaab reported heavy shelling and the sound of military aerial activity.

Lebanese authorities said that 95 people had been killed on Monday due to Israeli actions across the country.

Hezbollah said on Monday that it had carried out attacks against the Israeli military.

The Lebanese capital was again targeted by Israeli fire on Monday night as at least six strikes hit south Beirut. Residents received messages to evacuate target sites and many continue to sleep outside for safety or because they have nowhere else to go.

In Sidon, a strike targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Reuters reported citing two Palestinian security officials, and his fate was unknown early Tuesday.

The strike hit a building in the Ain Al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in the south of the city.

In neighboring Syria, state media said that three people had been killed, including a journalist, with air defenses intercepting “hostile” targets in the Damascus area on Tuesday.

“Our air defense systems are intercepting hostile targets in the Damascus area,” Syria’s official SANA news agency said, using a phrase usually used to refer to Israeli strikes.

Earlier, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Israel informed the US about the raids, which he said were described as “limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border.”

Before the Israeli ground troops entered Lebanon, a Western diplomat in Cairo whose country is directly involved in de-escalation efforts said Israel had shared its plans with the US and other Western allies, and conveyed the operation will “be limited.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s army is repositioning troops stationed on its southern border, a Lebanese military official told AFP.

The Lebanese army is “repositioning and regrouping forces” at the southern border following threats of an Israeli incursion, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Britain and Canada announced on Monday plans to get their citizens out of Lebanon amid fears over a wider escalation that may involve Iranian intervention to support Hezbollah.

Earlier on Monday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said in his first public speech since Israeli airstrikes killed its veteran chief Hassan Nasrallah last week that the group’s fighters are primed to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon. Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

“We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement,” he said in an address from an undisclosed location.

He was speaking as Israeli airstrikes on targets in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a two-week long wave of attacks that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 Lebanese and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Nasrallah’s killing, along with the series of blows against the organization’s communications devices and assassination of other senior commanders, constitute the biggest blow to the organization since Iran created it in 1982 to fight Israel.
He had built it up into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force, with wide sway across the Middle East.

Now Hezbollah faces the challenge of replacing a charismatic, towering leader who was a hero to millions of supporters because he stood up to Israel even though the West branded him a terrorist mastermind.

“We will choose a secretary-general for the party at the earliest opportunity...and we will fill the leadership and positions on a permanent basis,” Qassem said.
Qassem said Hezbollah’s fighters had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km (93 miles) into Israeli territory and were ready to face any possible Israeli ground incursion.

“What we are doing is the bare minimum...We know that the battle may be long,” he said. “We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006 in the face of the Israeli enemy,” he added, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Israel, which has also assassinated leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza war, says it will do whatever it takes to return its citizens to evacuated communities on its northern border safely.

“The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one. In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities, and this includes you,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops deployed to the country’s northern border.

Hours before Hezbollah’s Qassem spoke, Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, along with his wife, son and daughter in the southern city of Tyre on Monday.

Another faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said three of its leaders died in a strike in Beirut’s Kola district — the first such hit inside the city limits.

The wave of Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon are part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, Iraq and within Israel itself. The escalation has raised fears that the United States and Iran will be sucked into the conflict.

The latest actions indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran’s most powerful ally in its “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US influence in the region.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran would not let any of Israel’s “criminal acts” go unanswered. He was referring to the killing of Nasrallah and an Iranian Guard deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, who died in the same strikes on Friday.

Russia said Nasrallah’s death had led to a serious destabilization in the broader region.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain called for a ceasefire, although they added that its support for Israel’s right to self-defense was “ironclad.”

Close ally the US has shown unwavering support for Israel despite concerns over heavy civilian casualties.


US forces accounted for after reported rocket attack in Baghdad, official says

This picture shows the entrance of Baghdad International Airport on March 14, 2023 in Baghdad. (AFP)
This picture shows the entrance of Baghdad International Airport on March 14, 2023 in Baghdad. (AFP)
Updated 01 October 2024
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US forces accounted for after reported rocket attack in Baghdad, official says

This picture shows the entrance of Baghdad International Airport on March 14, 2023 in Baghdad. (AFP)
  • A United States diplomatic facility in Baghdad came under attack late on Sept. 11 but there were no reports of casualties

BAGHDAD: Multiple Katyusha rockets were fired near Baghdad International Airport, two Iraqi military officials told Reuters early on Tuesday, but a US official disputed reports that US military forces were targeted in the incident.
“All military personnel are accounted for and military forces were not targeted as had been reported,” the US defense official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The incident was a reminder of the soaring tensions in the Middle East, as speculation swirled about whether Iran and Iran-backed groups would make good on threats to retaliate after a series of Israeli major blows against Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Two Iraqi security sources said an initial investigation showed three rockets were fired, including one that landed near buildings used by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces, causing damages and fire to some vehicles but no casualties.
The sources had previously said at least two Katyusha rockets were also fired at a military base hosting US forces and that air defenses intercepted the rockets.
But the US official said Washington was aware of reports of an attack instead on the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Complex, which is a Department of State facility.
“For details about the incident we refer you to the State Department,” the official said.
A US Department of State is assessing the damage caused by the attack, according to a spokesperson, who said there were no casualties.
Iraq, a rare regional partner of both the United States and Iran, hosts 2,500 US troops and also has Iran-backed armed factions linked to its security forces.
Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq have repeatedly attacked US troops in the Middle East since the Gaza war began.

 

 


Here’s a look at the US military presence in the Middle East

Here’s a look at the US military presence in the Middle East
Updated 01 October 2024
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Here’s a look at the US military presence in the Middle East

Here’s a look at the US military presence in the Middle East
  • Normally, about 34,000 US forces are deployed to US Central Command, which covers the entire Middle East. That number grew in the early months of the Israel-Hamas war to about 40,000 as additional ships and aircraft were sent in
  • The US has one aircraft carrier in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been slated to leave around mid-October

WASHINGTON: The US has increased its military presence in the Middle East by several thousand troops, sending an array of fighter jets and other aircraft to bolster the protection of US forces and allies.
The decision brings the total number of American troops in the region to as many as 43,000, including more than a dozen warships.
Israel’s latest surge in attacks in Lebanon, including strikes that have killed Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallahand several of his top commanders and officials, is a significant escalation that has fueled fears of all-out war in the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has increased the readiness levels of additional US forces so they are prepared to deploy for any contingency, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said.
Austin and other leaders “remain focused on the protection of US citizens and forces in the region, the defense of Israel and the deescalation of the situation through deterrence and diplomacy,” said Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.
Here’s a look at the US military presence in the Middle East:
Troops
Normally, about 34,000 US forces are deployed to US Central Command, which covers the entire Middle East. That number grew in the early months of the Israel-Hamas war to about 40,000 as additional ships and aircraft were sent in.
It spiked to nearly 50,000 when Austin ordered two aircraft carriers and their accompanying warships to stay in the region as tensions roiled between Israel and Lebanon.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, center, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, walks as he visits a military outpost in Syria, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020. (AP)

One carrier strike group has since left and moved into the Asia-Pacific. But the decision to send more aircraft is moving the troop total to roughly 43,000.
The Pentagon recently said it was sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East. Officials have not provided details about the deployment to Cyprus but have suggested the teams are part of ongoing preparations for any needs in the region, including the possibility of an evacuation of Americans from Lebanon.
The beefed-up presence is designed both to help defend Israel and protect US and allied personnel and assets. US officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of troop deployments.
Navy warships are scattered across the region, from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Oman, and both Air Force and Navy fighter jets are strategically based at several locations to be better prepared to respond to any attacks.
Warships
The US has one aircraft carrier in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been slated to leave around mid-October. Austin has extended its deployment for about another month, according to one of the officials.
Austin has done the same to a few other carriers and warships in the region several times in the past year so that there has been the rare presence of two carriers at once.

Sailors and marines line the deck of aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) as it deploys from San Diego on Monday, Jan. 3, 2021. (AP)

A second carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, along with two destroyers and a cruiser, are in the Atlantic Ocean heading east. They will be in the European region in a few days and then travel into the Mediterranean Sea.
American military commanders have long argued that the presence of a formidable aircraft carrier — with its array of fighter jets and surveillance aircraft and sophisticated missiles — is a strong deterrent against Iran.
The Lincoln and one destroyer are in the Gulf of Oman, while four US Navy destroyers and a littoral combat ship are in the Red Sea. The USS Georgia guided missile submarine, which Austin ordered to the region last month, had been in the Red Sea and remains in US Central Command, but officials decline to say where.
There are six US warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. They are the USS Wasp amphibious assault ship with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard and two accompanying vessels and three Navy destroyers. The Wasp would be prepared to assist in any evacuation.
About a half dozen of the F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Abraham Lincoln have been moved to a land base in the region. Officials declined to say where.
Aircraft
The Air Force sent in an additional squadron of advanced F-22 fighter jets in August, bringing the total number of land-based fighter squadrons in the Middle East to four.
That force also includes a squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft, F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16 fighter jets. The Air Force is not identifying what countries the planes are operating from.

A US air force F-22 fighter jet is seen at an event during the Dubai airshow in the United Arab Emirates on November 17, 2019. (AFP)

The US was now sending in more aircraft, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said. The additional personnel includes squadrons of F-15E, F-16 and F-22 fighter jets and A-10 attack aircraft, and the personnel needed to support them. The jets were supposed to rotate in and replace the squadrons already there. Instead, both the existing and new squadrons will remain in place to double the airpower on hand.
The squadrons would not be used in any evacuation of American citizens but would be used to defend US forces and Israel if necessary, Singh said.
The addition of the F-22 fighter jets gives US forces a hard-to-detect aircraft that has a sophisticated suite of sensors to suppress enemy air defenses and carry out electronic attacks. The F-22 also can act as a “quarterback,” organizing other warplanes in an operation.
But the US also showed in February that it doesn’t have to have planes based in the Middle East to attack targets. In February, a pair of B-1 bombers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and flew more than 30 hours in a roundtrip mission in which they struck 85 Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force targets in Iraq and Syria in response to an attack by IRGC-backed militias that killed three US service members.

 


US says ‘pleased’ with improved aid access into Sudan

US says ‘pleased’ with improved aid access into Sudan
Updated 01 October 2024
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US says ‘pleased’ with improved aid access into Sudan

US says ‘pleased’ with improved aid access into Sudan
  • “We are pleased by the significant but incremental improvements on humanitarian access,” US envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, told reporters in Nairobi

NAIROBI: The US envoy to Sudan on Monday said there had been a marked improvement of aid deliveries into the war-torn African country suffering a devastating humanitarian crisis.
Fighting erupted in April 2023 between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a plan to integrate them into the military failed.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid.
“We are pleased by the significant but incremental improvements on humanitarian access,” US envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, told reporters in Nairobi.
“We have had a couple (of) hundred trucks get through areas that were previously blocked.”
More than 25 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — face acute hunger, according to UN agencies, with famine declared in a displacement camp in the western Darfur region, which borders Chad.
The war has already killed tens of thousands of people, with the World Health Organization declaring a toll of at least 20,000 people dead, but some estimates are up to 150,000.
“The situation is extremely dire and those who are in the best position to stop it seem eager instead to accelerate” it, Perriello said.
Several rounds of peace negotiations have failed to end the fighting.
Multiple truces brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in the early stages of the war were systematically violated and the process faltered.
“One track of these efforts overall is a sense of trying to restore the basic norm that even if the war continues, certain issues of humanitarian access and civilian protection should be respected,” Perriello said, blaming “a lack of sufficient will” from the warring sides.
The latest round of US-brokered talks opened in Switzerland last month.
While an RSF delegation showed up, the Sudanese armed forces were unhappy with the format and did not attend, though they were in telephone contact with the mediators.
The talks were co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, with the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Nations completing the so-called Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan Group (ALPS).
The army objected to the UAE’s involvement in the talks, accusing the oil-rich Gulf state of arming the RSF. The UAE has repeatedly denied the allegations.
The Sudanese army on Monday rejected an accusation by the UAE that it had attacked the home of its ambassador in Khartoum.


Djibouti ‘profoundly alarmed’ by Mideast situation

Djibouti ‘profoundly alarmed’ by Mideast situation
Updated 01 October 2024
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Djibouti ‘profoundly alarmed’ by Mideast situation

Djibouti ‘profoundly alarmed’ by Mideast situation
  • Permanent UN representative: Israel insists ‘on maintaining its occupation of Palestinian territory in perpetuity’
  • Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have ‘accelerated the regional conflagration we all feared’

NEW YORK CITY: The two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is the only solution that can lead to lasting peace and security,” Djibouti’s permanent UN representative told the 79th UN General Assembly on Monday.

However, Israel insists “on maintaining its occupation of Palestinian territory in perpetuity,” Mohamed Siad Doualeh said.

Djibouti is “profoundly alarmed” by the situation in the Middle East, including the West Bank, where “violence continues unabated,” he added.

“We’re profoundly saddened by the continued loss of lives, in particular children in Gaza, the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, the indiscriminate and continued bombings, and the unlawful occupation in the form of a total siege,” Doualeh said.

Furthermore, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have “accelerated the regional conflagration we all feared,” he added.

Djibouti is hopeful that all parties involved agree to the 21-day ceasefire called for by the US and France last week, as it is imperative to avoid “all-out war” at all costs, he said.

Doualeh also spoke about the conflicts in Yemen, Ukraine and Africa, particularly Sudan, as well as Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

Such “geo-economic fragmentation and trade wars” negatively impact global economic growth and, combined with the “crisis of confidence” among UN member states, undermines the credibility of the “multilateral system,” he said.

Doualeh urged the UNGA to “redouble our efforts, overcome our divisions and undertake collective action” in order to end conflicts and put in place policies, investment programs and partnerships to make up for the delays in the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

He also emphasized the need for reform of international financial institutions so that “they’re able to respond promptly and effectively to the emergencies and the systemic shocks facing many countries in the world.”

He added: “Financial institutions must provide developing countries with greater subsidies and access to financing under favorable conditions while maintaining their risk tolerance for investments in sustainable development.”