Given the risks, you might expect the ever-more apocalyptic warnings of World War III, now almost daily trotted out by the politicians and the military, to be more obviously reflected in the behaviour of financial markets. Even comparatively localised wars tend to be deeply damaging to the economies involved, though there are exceptions which I’ll […]
Read More‘It’s painful, but we need to see’: UN human-rights expert on Gaza fatigue
Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Francesca Albanese. The 49-year-old is the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, an Italian […]
Read MoreHumanitarian crisis in Gaza to deepen as aid is frozen
Funding cuts from the US and other international donors will likely hit the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency operations over the coming month, adding to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and raising difficult questions for Washington about how best to deliver aid as the war drags on. On Wednesday, a key group of Republican senators […]
Read MoreUN aid agency ‘saving Gazan kids’, says Penny Wong
Penny Wong has signalled she wants to quickly reinstate funding to the UN’s aid agency in Gaza accused of aiding Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis, declaring it is “the only organisation” delivering assistance to 1.4 million desperate Palestinians. The Foreign Minister said the allegations against UNRWA needed to be urgently investigated and “those responsible” […]
Read MoreCIA chief eyes Middle East talks for Gaza hostage deal
US Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns plans to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in coming days for talks on a potential Gaza hostage deal, a source familiar with the matter says. The Washington Post, which first reported Burns’ trip, said Israel has proposed a two-month pause in fighting to allow for the […]
Read MoreUS ‘deplores’ Israeli attack on UN training centre in Gaza
Gaza: The United Nations said Israeli tanks struck a huge UN compound in Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians, causing “mass casualties”, but Israel denied its forces were responsible and suggested Hamas may have launched the shelling. The attack, which the UN said hit a vocational training centre housing 30,000 displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s […]
Read More‘Horrible Reality’ For Gaza Children
4 February 2024, Herald-Sun: Geneva: The UN estimates at least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip have been left unaccompanied or separated nearly four months into the war. “Each one has a heartbreaking story of loss and grief,” said Jonathan Crickx, spokesman for the UN children’s agency Unicef in the Palestinian territories. “This figure corresponds to 1 per cent of the overall displaced population – 1.7 million people,” he said. Each one “is a child who is coming to terms with a horrible new reality”.
Read MoreIsrael denies bombing Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance in Gaza, killing six people
The Israeli military has denied it was behind the bombing of an ambulance in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday, which killed four medics and two other people. Key points: A bomb which hit an ambulance in central Gaza on Wednesday killed six people, including four members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society The organisation […]
Read MoreUN deplores Israel’s refusal to grant access to Gaza
The United Nations humanitarian office says Israeli authorities are systematically denying it access to northern Gaza to deliver aid and this had significantly hindered the humanitarian operation there. “The operations in the north have become increasingly more complicated,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of office for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs […]
Read MoreAfter 3 months of devastation in the Israel-Hamas war, is anyone ‘winning’?
7 January 2024, The Conversation, by Ian Parmeter, Australian National University: The conflict still has a long way to run and may be headed towards stalemate. From a geopolitical perspective, here’s where the main players stand at the start of the new year.
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