Latest news with #PalestinianTerritories
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel will not renew visa of top UN humanitarian official
Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said visas for UN staff were recently renewed for shorter periods than usual. Israel has declined to renew the visa for Jonathan Whittall, the senior UN aid official for the Palestinian territories, a UN spokesperson said on Friday, adding there were intensifying threats of reduced access to suffering civilians. Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said visas for UN staff were recently renewed for shorter periods than usual and access requests to Gaza were denied for multiple agencies. Kaneko said permits for Palestinian staff to enter east Jerusalem were also withheld. "Last week, it was indicated to us that our current Head of Office, Jonathan Whittall, won't have his visa extended by Israeli authorities beyond August. This came immediately after remarks he made at a press briefing about starving people being killed while trying to reach food," Kaneko said. Israel's mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel has previously dismissed UN criticism as being biased. Gaza is in the midst of an Israeli military assault following a deadly October 2023 attack by Hamas terrorists. Terrorists murdered over 1,200 people during their violation of an existing ceasefire and took over 250 hostages - 50 of whom remain in captivity, and less than half of whom are understood to be alive. Tensions between Israel and the UN Released and rescued hostages have testified about experiencing and witnessing abuses in Hamas captivity, including acts of sexual violence and torture. Israel has come under mounting criticism from the UN during its war in the Palestinian enclave, which has internally displaced Gaza's entire population. Solve the daily Crossword
Malay Mail
a day ago
- Health
- Malay Mail
‘We have nothing to feed them': Gaza's children cry for food, but there's nothing left
NUSEIRAT (Palestinian Territories), July 21 — As malnutrition surges in war-torn Gaza, tens of thousands of children and women require urgent treatment, according to the UN, while aid enters the blockaded Palestinian territory at a trickle. Gaza's civil defence agency told AFP it has noted a rising number of infant deaths caused by 'severe hunger and malnutrition', reporting at least three such deaths in the past week. 'These heartbreaking cases were not caused by direct bombing but by starvation, the lack of baby formula and the absence of basic healthcare,' civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. Ziad Musleh, a 45-year-old father displaced from Gaza's north to the central city of Nuseirat, told AFP: 'We are dying, our children are dying and we can't do anything to stop it.' 'Our children cry and scream for food. They go to sleep in pain, in hunger, with empty stomachs. There is absolutely no food. 'And if by chance a small amount appears in the market, the prices are outrageous — no one can afford it.' At a food distribution site in a UN-school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat on Sunday, children entertained themselves by banging on their plates as they waited for their turn. Several of them had faces stretched thin by hunger, an AFP journalist reported. Umm Sameh Abu Zeina, whose cheekbones protruded from her thin face as she waited for food in Nuseirat, said she had lost 35 kilograms (77 pounds). 'We do not eat enough. I don't eat, I leave the food I receive for my daughter,' she said, adding that she had a range of health conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes. The father of Yahya Fadi al-Najjar, who died due to malnourishment, holds his body during the funeral at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 20, 2025. — AFP pic Depleted stocks Gazans as well as the UN and aid organisations frequently complain that depleted stocks have sent prices skyrocketing for what little food is available in the markets. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned in early July that the price of flour for bread was 3,000 times more expensive than before the war began more than 21 months ago. WFP director Carl Skau, who visited Gaza City in early July, described the situation as 'the worst I've ever seen'. 'A father I met had lost 25 kilograms in the past two months. People are starving, while we have food just across the border,' he said in a statement. After talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down, Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza on March 2, allowing nothing in until trucks were again permitted at a trickle in late May. As stocks accumulated during the ceasefire gradually depleted, the Palestinian territory experienced the worst shortages since the start of the war. 'Our kitchens are empty; they are now serving hot water with a bit of pasta floating in it,' said Skau. 'I'm always hungry' The effects of malnutrition on children and pregnant women can be particularly dire. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said last week that its teams are seeing the highest number of malnutrition cases ever recorded by its teams in Gaza. 'Due to widespread malnutrition among pregnant women and poor water and sanitation levels, many babies are being born prematurely,' said Joanne Perry, an MSF doctor in Gaza. 'Our neonatal intensive care unit is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator.' Amina Wafi, a 10-year-old girl from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, said she thinks of food constantly. 'I'm always hungry. I always tell my father, 'I want food', and he promises he'll bring me something but there is none, and he simply can't,' she told AFP. MSF said that patients at its Gaza clinics do not heal properly from their wounds due to protein deficiency, and that the lack of food causes infections to last longer than they would in healthy individuals. Hamas's 2023 attack led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 58,895 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry. The UN considers these figures to be reliable. — AFP
Arab News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
‘No life without water': settler attacks threaten West Bank communities
KAFR MALIK, Palestinian Territories: From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes.'There is no life without water, of course,' he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110,000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it – making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources.'The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping' water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring.'The water just goes into the dirt, into the ground,' Olayan said, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water two days after the latest attack, Israeli settlers – some of them armed – splashed in pools just below the spring, while Olayan monitored water pressure and cameras from a software showed normal pressure in the pipes pulling water from the wells and the large pipe carrying water up the hill to his village of Kafr he said maintenance teams dared not venture down to the pumping station out of fear for their the start of the war in Gaza, deadly settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become week, settlers beat a 20-year-old dual US citizen to death in the nearby village of Sinjil, prompting US ambassador Mike Huckabee to urge Israel to 'aggressively investigate' the Qassis, chairman on the board of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which manages the Ein Samiyah spring, said he viewed the attacks as a tool for Israeli land grabs and annexation.'When you restrict water supply in certain areas, people simply move where water is available,' he said at a press conference.'So in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way,' he the start of the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians and officials have become increasingly vocal in support of annexing the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since prominent among them is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, who said in November that 2025 would be the year Israel applies its sovereignty over the Palestinian accused Israel's government of supporting settler attacks such as the one on Ein Israeli army said that soldiers were not aware of the incident in which pipes were damaged, 'and therefore were unable to prevent it.'The damage to Ein Samiyah's water facilities was not an isolated recent months, settlers in the nearby Jordan Valley took control of the Al-Auja spring by diverting its water from upstream, said Farhan Ghawanmeh, a representative of the Ras Ein Al Auja said two other springs in the area had also recently been taken Dura Al-Qaraa, another West Bank village that uses the Ein Samiyah spring as a back-up water source, residents are also concerned about increasingly long droughts and the way Israel regulates their water rights.'For years now, no one has been planting because the water levels have decreased,' said Rafeaa Qasim, a member of the village council, citing lower rainfall causing the land to be 'basically abandoned.'Qasim said that though water shortages in the village have existed for 30 years, residents' hands are tied in the face of this challenge.'We have no options; digging a well is not allowed,' despite the presence of local water springs, he said, pointing to a well project that the UN and World Bank rejected due to Israeli law prohibiting drilling in the lands chosen for drilling sit in the West Bank's Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli NGO B'Tselem reported in 2023 that the legal system led to sharp disparities in water access within the West Bank between Palestinians and nearly all residents of Israel and Israeli settlements have running water every day, only 36 percent of West Bank Palestinians do, the report Dura Al-Qaraa, Qasim fears for the future.'Each year, the water decreases and the crisis grows – it's not getting better, it's getting worse.'
Arab News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
US envoy urges accountability for church attack in West Bank village
TAYBEH, Palestinian Territories: The US ambassador to Israel on Saturday visited a Christian village in the occupied West Bank and urged accountability for an attack on an ancient church, which residents have blamed on Israeli settlers. In early July, the village of Taybeh was hit by an arson attack in the area of the ruins of the Byzantine-era Church of Saint George, which dates back to the fifth century. Residents blamed settlers for the assault, which comes as violence soars in the West Bank and last week saw an American-Palestinian man killed near Ramallah. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and staunch advocate for Israel, said his trip to Taybeh aimed to 'express solidarity with the people who just want to live their lives in peace, to be able to go to their own land, to be able to go to their place of worship.' 'It doesn't matter whether it's a mosque, a church, a synagogue,' he told journalists. 'It's unacceptable to commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship.' 'We will certainly insist that those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh or anywhere be found, be prosecuted, not just reprimanded. That's not enough,' he said. 'People need to pay a price for doing something that destroys that which belongs not just to other people, but that which belongs to God.' In the villages and communities around Taybeh, Palestinian authorities reported that settlers had killed three people and damaged or destroyed multiple water sources in the past two weeks alone. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence has surged in the territory since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 triggered the Gaza war. Since then, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 957 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank, according to health ministry figures. Over the same period, at least 36 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official figures. Huckabee, who has for years been an outspoken supporter of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories, on Tuesday demanded an aggressive investigation and consequences after settlers beat to death a Palestinian-American in the West Bank. It was a sign of rare public pressure against US ally Israel by President Donald Trump's administration.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Students at top British universities plead for help to escape Gaza
Malak Hani graduated from school in Gaza with the second highest grade of any student in the Palestinian territories. Then the war broke out. The education system in the enclave collapsed under Israel's bombardment, and the right to learn became one of the first casualties of the conflict. The now 19-year-old turned her hopes abroad and received a full scholarship to the University of Cambridge this year. But months later, she remains trapped in the rubble of Gaza and tangled inside a web of British bureaucracy. This is the fate of at least 40 Palestinian students, some of Gaza's brightest young minds, who have been offered scholarships to top UK universities – but have no feasible route to get there due to Home Office visa requirements. Eight of the stranded students even hold coveted Chevening scholarships, awards offered to exceptional foreign students by the Government. As it stands, UK visa protocol requires international students to provide biometrics. But the visa office in Gaza has been shut since the war began and due to border closures, they cannot travel to centres in neighbouring countries. 'I am stuck,' Malak, who lives in the west of the devastated enclave, told The Telegraph. On top of the daily horrors of living under regular aerial bombardment, she said, 'losing another year without education would be very hard on me.' She already despairs about the studying time she has lost as Israel's 21-month war against Hamas rages and ceasefire talks grind slowly on. As she waits for help from the UK, Malak teaches English, Arabic, maths, and storytelling to displaced children in makeshift classrooms. Like the other gifted students, she fears she will lose her scholarship if she doesn't reach the UK by September. But more pressingly, she harbours a darker fear. 'I may lose my life first.' France, Ireland and Italy have all already successfully evacuated incoming university students from Gaza. 'I have every reason to believe the UK will help us, I truly believe the doors will open soon,' Malak said, her voice brimming with hope. The Gazan students – who are supported by a group of academics from across top UK universities – are urging the Government to step in and help secure their safe exit from Gaza. In May, they sent an open letter to David Lammy imploring the Foreign Secretary to help, but did not receive a response. The Telegraph understands that the Government has insisted on the use of biometrics to confirm identities in order to assess whether they pose a risk to public safety. The concerns come amid Donald Trump's crackdown on international student protestors who took part in pro-Palestine rallies that paralysed top US university campuses. In March, the Trump administration arrested and moved to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar – and legal US resident – who helped lead the Gaza war protests at Columbia University. The US president has repeatedly alleged that pro-Palestinian activists, including Mr Khalil, support Hamas – an accusation protestors strongly deny. The 30-year-old was released from detention in June after a judge overruled the deportation order. 'Unless there is direct action from the Government, there is no possibility the students will be able to travel,' said Dr Nora Parr, a researcher at Birmingham University who has been volunteering on behalf of the students. 'Here we have extraordinarily intelligent students who could benefit our own campuses and their own communities in Gaza. This is an opportunity that should not be missed,' she said. Responding to Malak's plight, Prof Graham Virgo, the head of Downing College, where she should be studying in the Autumn, said: 'We urge the Government to assist in supporting her with safe passage to travel out of Gaza.' Shaymaa Abulebda, an influential writer and scholar from Gaza, should soon be starting a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. Instead, she lives in a tent in al-Mawasi displacement camp in the ruins of southern Gaza. 'My acceptance affirmed that my research mattered and was being recognised,' the 32-year-old said, before adding that it was quickly overshadowed by the harsh reality that she cannot leave Gaza without the UK's help. Shaymaa had been teaching at the Islamic University of Gaza, where she once attended, until it was bombed in the first days of the war. 'It was heart-breaking. Even now, it's hard to process that the campuses are completely destroyed,' she said. 'The attack on the university is a direct attack on knowledge, imagination, and the right to learn.' A United Nations report in June found that more than 90 per cent of Gaza's schools have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks. The territory's last remaining university was destroyed in January 2024. The inquiry accused Israel's military of deliberately targeting education facilities, which it denies. The UN has used the term 'scholalisticide' to describe it. Shaymaa told The Telegraph: 'The situation in Gaza is unimaginably difficult. The cost of living is so high while the opportunities are none. It's totally stifling, every day is a struggle.' Her PhD, if it goes ahead, will focus on Palestinian fiction. 'As a scholar from Gaza, I feel both a personal and intellectual responsibility to preserve and amplify our literature,' she said. Colm Harmon, vice-principal for students at the University of Edinburgh, said that the work Shaymaa intends to pursue will have 'global impact'. 'Education is key to how Gaza emerges from conflict, and scholars like Shaymaa are the future foundations of that. We are proud to support her and her peers, as part of a strong effort from UK higher education,' he said. Shaymaa added: 'I know how much the UK values education, so I feel that they will certainly find a way to help before it's too late.' Dr Bahzad al-Akhras is displaced in the same sprawling camp, where he has lived in a tent with his parents and siblings for almost two years. After studying a masters in Britain, the 33-year-old returned to Gaza before the war to work as a children's mental health practitioner. Throughout the conflict, he has been carrying out advanced trauma response work with children, many who have faced being pulled from the rubble of their homes and often orphaned. Bahzad is waiting to take up PhD at the University of Manchester, where he received a full-scholarship to specialise in child mental health during conflict. Like many of Gaza's two-million-strong population, he has lost loved ones, friends and colleagues to the war that officials in the Hamas-run Strip say has killed more than 58,000. 'Life is difficult in all means,' he said, sombrely. Applying for his studies involved miles of travel, risking his life to access Wi-Fi. Mohammed Afzal Khan, the Labour MP for Manchester Rusholme, has been pushing the Government to help Bahzad. 'We need to have a fair and accessible immigration process, and the Government must do more to make that possible,' he said. Dr Rubina Jasani and Dr Sabah Boufkhed, senior lecturers at Manchester, said: 'Having Bahzad at the University of Manchester will not only help the academic field to re-think mental health needs and assessments, but could also improve mental health care in conflict and for diverse communities everywhere. 'We, as supervisors, researchers and members of the public, need to learn from his unique experience as a mental health doctor in Gaza and support the development of research that can change the world and improve people's lives.' Bahzad, who already delivers lectures and trains his colleagues on child trauma, sees his studies not as a personal opportunity, but a collective one. 'Communities are built by shared knowledge. Gaza's educational and health institutions have been hugely degraded, those of us that leave to study, will return to rebuild them.' He added: 'The UK has always shown support for Palestinian people in times of crisis. I will keep hoping they will show it now.' The Foreign Office would not comment on individual cases. A Government spokesperson said: 'We are aware of the students and are considering the request for support. Clearly the situation on the ground in Gaza makes this challenging.' * Some of the interviewees' names have been altered Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Solve the daily Crossword
