WHO says needs full Gaza access during Israel-Hamas truce

WHO says needs full Gaza access during Israel-Hamas truce
UN-branded vehicles are parked at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip as medics evacuate injured people and cancer patients on October 28, 2024. (AFP/File)
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Updated 20 January 2025
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WHO says needs full Gaza access during Israel-Hamas truce

WHO says needs full Gaza access during Israel-Hamas truce

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Sunday it was ready to pour much-needed aid into Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, but that it would need “systematic access” across the territory to do so.
Much of the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure has been destroyed by the more than year-long war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas before a ceasefire took hold on Sunday.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the ceasefire, posting on social media that it would “bring great hope for millions of people whose lives have been ravaged by the conflict.”
But he added that “addressing the massive health needs and restoring the health system in Gaza will be a complex and challenging task, given the scale of destruction, operational complexity and constraints involved.”
While the United Nations’ health body was “ready to scale up the response” to address the territory’s critical needs, it said in a statement that “it is critical that the security obstacles hindering operations are removed.”
“WHO will need conditions on the ground that allow systematic access to the population across Gaza, enabling the influx of aid via all possible borders and routes, and lifting restrictions on the entry of essential items,” the agency said in a statement.
Until the truce, Israel had complete control over the volume and nature of aid allowed into Gaza.
Warning that the “health challenges ahead are immense,” the Geneva-based agency estimated the cost of rebuilding Gaza’s battered health system in the years to come at “billions in investment.”
Last week the WHO put the figure at more than $10 billion.
“Only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational, nearly all hospitals are damaged or partly destroyed, and just 38 percent of primary health care centers are functional,” the WHO said.
Basing its figures on those provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which the UN considers reliable, the WHO put the war’s toll in Gaza at more than 46,600 people killed and over 110,000 wounded.
A quarter of those wounded “face life-changing injuries and will need ongoing rehabilitation,” the UN body estimated.
Around 12,000 people need to be evacuated for urgent treatment elsewhere, it added, while warning the destruction of health infrastructure had had knock-on effects.
The WHO also expressed concern over the “breakdown of public order, exacerbated by armed gangs” interfering with aid deliveries to Gaza.


Abbas thanks China over support for two-state solution, rejection of Gaza displacement

Abbas thanks China over support for two-state solution, rejection of Gaza displacement
Updated 13 February 2025
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Abbas thanks China over support for two-state solution, rejection of Gaza displacement

Abbas thanks China over support for two-state solution, rejection of Gaza displacement
  • Palestinian Authority leader sends letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping
  • He commends Beijing’s call for international community to reach just resolution to Palestinian issue

LONDON: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for his country’s rejection of plans to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

In a letter to the Chinese leader on Thursday, Abbas commended Beijing’s call for the international community to stop the violence in the Middle East and reach a just resolution to the Palestinian issue.

Abbas said that the PA is confident in China’s support for Palestinian and Arab “efforts to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza, stop the current Israeli aggression on the cities and camps of the West Bank, accelerate the reconstruction of Gaza, reconnect it to the West Bank, move toward implementing the two-state solution, end the Israeli occupation and embody the independent, geographically integrated state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, so that we can live with all the peoples of the region in security, peace and stability,” according to Wafa agency.

Since early February, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that the US will take over Gaza and that its Palestinian inhabitants should be relocated from the enclave to other countries, including Egypt and Jordan, which have both rejected the proposal.

The PA labeled Trump’s plan — which was welcomed by the Israeli government and settler leaders — as ethnic cleansing. Arab and some European countries, including France, also denounced the US idea and called for reconstruction in Gaza without displacing its residents.


Kuwait’s PM affirms country’s diplomatic neutrality, leads delegation to Munich Security Conference

Kuwait’s PM affirms country’s diplomatic neutrality, leads delegation to Munich Security Conference
Updated 13 February 2025
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Kuwait’s PM affirms country’s diplomatic neutrality, leads delegation to Munich Security Conference

Kuwait’s PM affirms country’s diplomatic neutrality, leads delegation to Munich Security Conference
  • Kuwait committed to leading humanitarian efforts in disaster-hit countries

LONDON: Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah arrived in Germany on Thursday to participate in the 61st session of the Munich Security Conference, which is being held from Feb. 14 to 16.

Sheikh Ahmad is leading the Kuwaiti delegation at a conference that brings together hundreds of decision-makers and opinion leaders to discuss global security.

The prime minister reaffirmed Kuwait’s commitment to building strong connections with the international community while advocating for the resolution of conflicts through dialogue and supporting efforts for peace and security.

Sheikh Ahmad said Kuwait had maintained its diplomatic ties by upholding neutrality and remaining at an equal distance from conflicting parties, the Kuwait Press Agency reported.

He added that Kuwait was committed to leading humanitarian efforts in disaster-stricken countries, and actively mediating to resolve regional and international crises.

Reem Mohammed Al-Khaled, Kuwait’s ambassador to Germany, along with embassy staff, received the prime minister on his arrival.


Houthis threaten new attacks if Gazans displaced

Demonstrators, one with a portrait of Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, shout slogans during a march in solidarity with Gaza.
Demonstrators, one with a portrait of Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, shout slogans during a march in solidarity with Gaza.
Updated 13 February 2025
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Houthis threaten new attacks if Gazans displaced

Demonstrators, one with a portrait of Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, shout slogans during a march in solidarity with Gaza.
  • US President Donald Trump’s plan to move Gaza’s inhabitants and redevelop the territory has been widely condemned in the Arab world

SANAA: The Houthis on Thursday threatened to launch new attacks if the United States and Israel go ahead with plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza.
“We will take action by firing missiles and drones and launching maritime attacks if the United States and Israel implement their plan to displace” Palestinians from Gaza, Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi said in a televised speech.
US President Donald Trump’s plan to move Gaza’s inhabitants and redevelop the territory has been widely condemned in the Arab world.
The Houthis have launched scores of attacks on Israeli targets and Red Sea shipping during the Israel-Hamas war.
“I call on the armed forces to be ready to take military action in the event that the criminal Trump carries out his threat,” Houthi said on the militia’s Al-Masirah TV station.


Construction equipment awaiting Gaza entry from Egypt: report

Bulldozers and trucks carrying caravans wait to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Bulldozers and trucks carrying caravans wait to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Updated 13 February 2025
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Construction equipment awaiting Gaza entry from Egypt: report

Bulldozers and trucks carrying caravans wait to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
  • Israeli government spokesman said heavy machinery would not be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing with Egypt

RAFAH: Dozens of bulldozers, construction vehicles and trucks carrying mobile homes lined up on Egypt’s side of the Rafah border crossing on Thursday, awaiting to enter Gaza, state-linked Egyptian media reported.
Al-Qahera News, with close ties to Egyptian intelligence services, said the equipment was positioned at the crossing in preparation for entry into the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
An AFP photographer also confirmed seeing the vehicles, including trucks carrying caravans, waiting at the border.
However, an Israeli government spokesman said heavy machinery would not be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
“There is no entry of caravans (mobile homes) or heavy equipment into the Gaza Strip, and there is no coordination for this,” Omer Dostri, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on X.
“According to the agreement, no goods are allowed to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing,” he added.
Under an ongoing truce agreement, Rafah has been opened for evacuation of the wounded and sick. Other aid is also allowed to enter the territory via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
“We stand behind them (Palestinians) and hopefully better days are ahead,” Ahmed Abdel Dayem, a driver at the border, told AFP.
The situation unfolds amid growing tensions over a US President Donald Trump plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, a move that has faced staunch opposition from both countries.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called such displacement an “injustice” that Egypt “cannot take part in,” while Jordan’s King Abdullah said his country remains “steadfast” in its position against forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Egypt is set to host a summit of Arab nations later this month and announced this week that it would present a “comprehensive vision” for Gaza’s reconstruction in a way that ensures Palestinians remain on their land.
Egypt and Jordan, both key US allies, are heavily reliant on foreign aid and the US is considered one of their top donors.


International debt is creating instability, global investor says

International debt is creating instability, global investor says
Updated 13 February 2025
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International debt is creating instability, global investor says

International debt is creating instability, global investor says

DUBAI: The debt problem is not one that only the US is facing — it is a world debt problem that China, Europe and many countries are confronting, according to Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates.

During a session conducted by TV host, Tucker Carlson, at the World Governments Summit on Wednesday, Dalio said: “If you have that debt problem, you exacerbate the great conflict that’s going to happen. You create political instability. It’s a geopolitical problem.

“Climate is costly, roughly $8 trillion a year on climate, so it’s a financial thing, and now the question is this new technology and how are we going to handle that and how do we make the most to raise productivity or what is it used for. Is it used for conflict?” 

Carlson said: “You have run one of the biggest hedge funds in the world for a long time, and in order to do that you have had to think about the rest of the world in a systematic way … in doing that, you have developed this framework for understanding what’s happening now and what’s going to happen.”

Carlson then asked Dalio to discuss the five trends that he had looked at to consider what was going to happen next.

As a global macro investor for 50 years, the Bridgewater Associates’ founder said that he discovered that he needed to study history. By doing so, he observed five major forces that operate in a big cycle.

The first is that “we have a big debt issue globally, that is very important… that is a force, a financial force.” 

The second, he said, is the internal order and disorder force that goes in a cycle in which there “is greater and greater gaps and conflicts between the left and the right and populism that forces a great conflict like a civil war.

“I believe we are in a form of a civil war now, that’s going on within countries,” he said.

The third force is the great world power conflict that occurs “when a great power runs the world order and then there is a rising power that challenges that, you have a great power conflict: US-China.”

The fourth force is that throughout history, acts of nature — “droughts, floods and pandemics — have killed more people than wars and have toppled world orders more than anything else.”

The fifth big force is “man’s inventiveness, particularly of technology.”

Dalio said: “Everything that we talk about, everything that we are looking at, falls under one of those and they move in a largely cyclical way and that is the framework that we are now living out.”

Giving his sense of the scale of global debt, Dalio said that “it’s now unprecedented in all of history” and went on to explain how it worked, saying “there is a supply-demand situation.

“The way the debt cycle works is, think of credit, and our credit system as being like a circulatory system, that credit brings buying power, brings nutrients to all the system … but that credit that we buy things with, that we buy financial assets, goods and services with, creates debt.

“That debt accumulates like plaque in a system that begins to have a problem because it starts to squeeze out spending, for example the US budget, about a trillion dollars a year now goes to pay interest rates. Over the next year we are going to have over $9 trillion debt that we have to pay back and roll forward hopefully.”

So there is a supply demand issue with this debt, “one man’s debts are another man’s assets.” Dalio added: “if those assets don’t provide an adequate return, or they feel there is risk in those assets, there is not enough demand for that debt, there is a problem … that problem is that interest rates then start to rise, and those holders of the debt begin to realize there is a debt problem, and worse, on the supply and demand, that they have to sell debt.”

Dalio said that the US would run a deficit of about 7.5 percent of GDP “if the Trump tax cuts are continued,” which he expected.

“That deficit needs to be cut to 3 percent of GDP… all policymakers and the president should have a pledge to get it to 3 percent of GDP, because otherwise we are likely to have a problem,” he said.