Latest news with #Gazan
RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Watch: We sing for peace, says Gaza music teacher
A music teacher in Gaza is hoping to bring some "light in darkness" to children affected by displacement by offering music lessons. Ahmed Abu Amsha lives in a makeshift camp in Al-Jundi Al-Majhool Square. The square which was once the throbbing heart of Gaza City now shelters hundreds of families living in difficult conditions. Ahmed is a guitar instructor and regional coordinator at Edward Said National Conservatory of Music. Originally from Beit Hanoun, Ahmed and his family have been displaced for over 19 months as a result of the war. Ahmed and his family have taken their instruments with them each time they fled. "They're the only thing that keeps us hopeful," said Ahmed. Ahmed is also the founder of Gaza Bird Singing (GBS). The group aims to foster the musical talents of displaced Gazan children. It has performed several shows in various displacement camps.
Irish Daily Mirror
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Daily Mirror
'Bono wrong to say activism has gotten complex especially when it comes to Gaza'
I can't believe the news today. The opening line a young Bono wrote in the 1980s to U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. The words were inspired back then by the indiscriminate shooting of civilians in Derry by heavily armed troops. He sang them again last week as U2 collected a lifetime Ivor Novello award Bono also used the occasion to belatedly raise his voice on the 600 days of slaughter in Gaza that have followed the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas. He declared: "Hamas release the hostages, stop the war. Israel be released from Benjamin Netanyahu." It was a somewhat muted take, coming as it did during the dire hours in which multiple agencies, world leaders and activists were warning that thousands of Gazan children were about to die from forced starvation. Not even so much as a "tonight thank God it's them instead of you." But then as Bono would go on to explain to us later that week, when speaking to RTE, these things are "complex." The frontman also lamented the "competitive empathy" of those who think "my emergency is more important than your emergency." It wasn't clear which emergency was competing with the plight of Gaza's children that day. Israel's vengeful assault would equate to 4,000 Bloody Sundays committed against civilians in Ireland for 600 days running. It would be comparable to the complete ethnic cleansing of northern Catholics by forcibly removing them over the border. And akin to the slaughter during the Troubles of hundreds of aid workers, paramedics and journalists. As atrocity goes, that's pretty competitive. Bono also defended the medal of honour he accepted from Joe Biden and America, the country that has bankrolled all that horror. "I kind of get the realpolitik of the situation that Joe Biden found himself in... I took that medal on behalf of all those people who don't get medals: the activists, the people who are getting killed now in Gaza ... it's deeply ironic." Indeed it is. Almost as ironic as this column wanting to hear more from Bono after years wishing he would just shut up. Wanting to hear him now use his pulpit in the US to forcefully call out the slaughter in Gaza - purely on its own merits. To sing: "I can't believe the news today" and sing it just for seven-year-old Verd al-Sheikh Khalil who survived this week's Bloody Sunday on the strip – or was it the early hours of another Bloody Monday – after an Israeli shell was fired at the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School where she was sheltering. Her five siblings and her mother all died. Verd can be seen in a video emerging bewildered from the rubble and the flames of another day's unforgettable fire. It would be welcome too to hear Bono sing…"I can't close my eyes and make it go away"… and dedicate it only to Doctor Alaa al Najjar. The lifeless bodies of nine of her 10 children were plucked from the rubble of her home as she worked at the Nasser Medical Complex, in Khan Younis tending the other dying and maimed. Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra - aged from just a few months to 12 years old. In Benjamin Netanyahu's twisted world they would be classed "on the wrong side of humanity" like the world leaders he described that way for daring to challenge this genocidal campaign. To even utter the words "Free Palestine" – as an honourable roll call of Irish artists have – is "the new Heil Hitler" the blue-rinsed butcher of Gaza absurdly declared. It is in these dark hours that Bono told us he has decided to take a backwards step from his activism, because it is hard to keep up with the complexities of it all as a "single issue" guy. In that he is wrong. It's not hard. It's as simple as it ever was. You ignore the realpolitik. And remember what it feels like when you can't close your eyes and make it go away.
Spectator
a day ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Israel is going too far
I have kept my silence on the Middle East for ten years. I left Israel in 2015, after five years as British ambassador, as the first Jew in the role. Since then, I have turned down every request to be a talking head. Neither the world nor my successors needed another ex-ambassador pundit. But I now feel obliged to break my silence, just once, to say that the Israeli government's treatment of the Gazan population is both wrong and self-defeating. And that it is not anti-Israel or pro-Hamas to say that withholding humanitarian aid is not the answer. The situation is the opposite of straightforward. It is not just that there are no easy answers; there may be no answers of any sort. The Israeli position is impossible. Israel has been provoked by her enemies and patronised by her friends in equal measure. And yet. The right answer is never to withhold humanitarian aid from two million people. The right answer is never to let children become malnourished as a matter of state policy, if not by intent, then by inevitable consequence of intended actions. It is simply wrong to traumatise and retraumatise the people of Gaza by making them flee repeatedly at short notice as part of a military campaign. These are clear, simple truths. Many of my friends will find this hard to hear. They will have a set of powerful objections. The first is that the blame for this sits with Hamas, not Israel. It is true that the attack Hamas launched on 7 October was a hideous atrocity, and an affront to humanity.
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Defense officials debunk UN accusations of halting, impeding aid delivery
The UN acted as if it lacked the capacity to move food to northern Gaza, stalling aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing, defense officials claim. Defense officials accused the United Nations on Friday of undermining efforts to supply food to Gazan civilians, adding to the existing tensions between the international body and Israel. The UN had acted as if it lacked the capacity to move food to northern Gaza, thereby stalling hundreds of aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing point, the officials claimed. Earlier this week, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said that the UN is reducing cooperation with Israel's food initiative, complicating the distribution of aid and effectively playing into Hamas's hands. On Monday, Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said there are 10,000 aid trucks on the Gaza border, cleared and ready to go. 'We've got 10,000 trucks on the border right now, cleared [and] ready to go, and we'll do everything to get them in and save lives,' Fletcher told CNN's Christine Amanpour on Monday. When she repeated the number back to him incredulously, Fletcher nodded and replied, 'Full of food.' COGAT posted a clip of the interview on X/Twitter, saying, 'Look, it's @UNReliefChief with another libelous lie.' 'There are no 10,000 trucks waiting to go into Gaza. What there are, are hundreds of trucks' worth of aid the UN hasn't picked up from the Gazan side over the last few days, after we gave you plenty of routes you can use to safely distribute the aid throughout Gaza.' On Thursday, COGAT accused UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric of lying about Fletcher's recent visits to Gaza and the UN's framing of the Gaza humanitarian aid issue. COGAT noted that while Dujarric claimed Fletcher had seen Gaza "with his own eyes a few weeks ago," the UN official had actually not visited the enclave since February. "Let's stop focusing on aid that might be in the pipeline, and start collecting the content of the 550 trucks already waiting for you inside Gaza," COGAT wrote. "For a full week now, we've been offering you alternative routes to facilitate pickup. These are areas with active military activities, and coordination is for your own safety. Mathilda Heller contributed to this report.
DW
a day ago
- Health
- DW
Middle East: UN labels Gaza 'the hungriest place on Earth' – DW – 05/30/2025
Skip next section 100% of Gazans at risk of famine 05/30/2025 May 30, 2025 100% of Gazans at risk of famine The UN has issued more dire warnings about the desperate situation unfolding in Gaza as attempts to get aid to Palestinians continue. "Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth," said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, as quoted by the AFP news agency. "It's the only defined area — a country or defined territory within a country — where you have the entire population at risk of famine. 100% of the population at risk of famine," Laerke said, rejecting claims by Israeli authorities that it wasn't the case. While the aid blockade has been partially eased in recent days, of the 900 truckloads of authorized aid, only 600 had been offloaded on the Gazan side. "This limited number of truckloads that are coming in... it's a trickle," Laerke said, describing it as "drip-feeding food." The spokesman said the mission to deliver aid was "in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations not only in the world today, but in recent history." Tommaso Della Longa, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, also said that half of the organization's medical facilities in the area were out of action due to a lack of fuel or medical equipment.
