Latest news with #humanitarian
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Sudan's Military Accepts UN Proposal of a Weeklong Ceasefire in El Fasher for Aid Distribution
Sudan's military agreed to a proposal from the United Nations for a weeklong ceasefire in El Fasher to facilitate UN aid efforts to the area, the army said Friday. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called Sudanese military leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and asked him for the humanitarian truce in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, to allow aid delivery. Burhan agreed to the proposal and stressed the importance of implementing relevant UN Security Council resolutions, but it's unknown whether the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces would agree and comply with the ceasefire. 'We are making contacts with both sides with that objective, and that was the fundamental reason for that phone contact. We have a dramatic situation in El Fasher,' Guterres told reporters on Friday. No further details were revealed about the specifics of the ceasefire, including when it could go into effect. Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and the rival RSF escalated into battles in the capital, Khartoum, and spread across the country, killing more than 20,000 people. The war has also driven more than 14 million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine. UNICEF said earlier this year that an estimated 61,800 children have been internally displaced since the war began. Guterres said on Friday that a humanitarian truce is needed for effective aid distribution, and it must be agreed upon several days in advance to prepare for a large-scale delivery in the El Fasher area, which has seen repeated waves of violence recently. El Fasher, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of Khartoum, is under the control of the military. The RSF has been trying to capture El Fasher for a year to solidify its control over the entire Darfur region. The paramilitary's attempts included launching repeated attacks on the city and two major famine-stricken displacement camps on its outskirts.
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
UN Chief Slams US-Backed Gaza Aid Operation: ‘It Is Killing People'
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that a US-backed aid operation in Gaza is "inherently unsafe," giving a blunt assessment: "It is killing people." Israel and the United States want the UN to work through the controversial new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but the UN has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement. "Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people," Guterres told reporters. Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being "strangled," aid workers themselves are starving and Israel as the occupying power is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave. "People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence," Guterres told reporters. "It is time to find the political courage for a ceasefire in Gaza." Since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19, allowing limited UN deliveries to resume, the United Nations says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid from both the UN and GHF operations. A senior UN official said on Sunday that the majority of those people were trying to reach GHF sites. Responding to Guterres on Friday, Israel's Foreign Ministry said Israel's military never targets civilians and accused the UN of "doing everything it can" to oppose the GHF aid operation. "In doing so, the UN is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF's humanitarian operations," it posted on X. A GHF spokesperson said there have been no deaths at or near any of the GHF aid distribution sites. "It is unfortunate the UN continue to push false information regarding our operations," the GHF spokesperson said. "Bottom line, our aid is getting securely delivered. Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome the UN and other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza." GHF uses private US security and logistics firms to operate. It began operations in Gaza on May 26 and said on Friday so far it has given out more than 48 million meals. The US State Department said on Thursday it had approved $30 million in funding for the GHF and called on other countries to also support the group. Israel and the United States have accused Hamas of stealing aid from the UN-led operations, which the group denies.
The National
4 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
Trump says ceasefire in Gaza possible within 'next week'
President Donald Trump on Friday said he expects a ceasefire in the war in Gaza to be reached within a week. Speaking from the Oval Office during the signing of a peace accord between Congo and Rwanda, Mr Trump said he had earlier been speaking with people involved in reaching a truce in the 20-month-old war. 'We think within the next week, we're going to get a ceasefire,' he said. He added that the US was supplying money and food to the war ravaged coastal enclave. 'We're involved because people are dying and I look at those crowds of people that have no food, no anything, and we're the ones that are getting it there,' he said. Mr Trump's comments follow months of stalled efforts to bring an end to the war in Gaza that ignited on October 7, 2023, after the Iranian-backed group Hamas attacked Israel. It also comes days after the Trump administration conducted strikes on Iran's three nuclear sites. At least 54,084 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the war's start, and much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble. A brief ceasefire that was reached in January – a day before Mr Trump took office – collapsed in March. Israel moved to block the entry of food aid and assistance, compounding the suffering of the approximately two million Gaza residents who are facing dire food shortages. The Trump administration advanced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private aid group, to address the concerns over famine in the Strip. But the group has drawn intense scrutiny after scenes of chaos and bloodshed unfolded at aid distribution sites. Since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near GHF its four aid centres while seeking food, according to local health authorities. The GHF, backed by Israel and the US, has denied that deadly incidents have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points. They say they've handed out more than 46 million meals. The UN and other aid groups have refused to work with the GHF, calling them a 'death trap.' 'The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,' said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs (UNWRA). 'This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN including UNRWA,' he wrote on X. The US State Department on Thursday said that it is providing $30 million in direct funding to the group. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Thursday published a report quoting unnamed soldiers saying they were ordered to deliberately fire live bullets at crowds near distribution centres to disperse them, even when they posed no threat.
BBC News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
GHF boss defends Gaza aid operation after hundreds of Palestinians killed near sites
The head of a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid group has defended its work after repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) boss Johnnie Moore told the BBC World Service's Newshour he was not denying deaths near aid sites, but said "100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF" and that was "not true". He accused the UN and other international organisations of spreading information they could not verify. The GHF aid system has been condemned by UN agencies, and on Friday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres branded it "inherently unsafe". "Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. The search for food must never be a death sentence," the UN chief Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and 4,000 injured on their way to get aid since GHF took over aid days of GHF operations starting in late May, dozens of Palestinians were killed in separate incidents on 1 and 3 June, sparking international condemnation. Since then, the UN and aid groups have expressed alarm at the near-daily reports of Palestinians being killed near the GHF's sites, which are inside Israeli military and medics have on several occasions described Israeli forces opening fire on crowds near aid newspaper Haaretz published a story on Friday in which unnamed IDF soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians near aid distribution sites, to drive them away or disperse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the report calling the allegations "malicious falsehoods".In a statement to the BBC, the IDF said it "did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres".It added it was looking to improve "the operational response" in the aid areas and had recently added new fencing and signage, and opened new routes to reach the handout his part, the head of the GHF said "100% of the casualties are being attributed to the IDF - as best as we can tell that's also not true".In statements over the past month, the IDF have several times said they fired "warning shots" at individuals who they described as "suspects" or claimed posed a threat."We spend an extended period of time trying to understand what actually happened, if anything actually happened and whether there's a way that we can make it less likely to happen," Mr Moore said."In most circumstances we haven't been able to identify anything happening.""People need to understand that it is disinformation that people going to GHF sites are being killed, we have no evidence of that happening in proximity to our sites," he does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, to send journalists into Gaza, which limits our ability to verify what is happening on the ground in the territory. Mr Moore alleged that prior to GHF's operations the majority of UN aid trucks were being hijacked at UN has said there is no evidence for a large-scale hijacking of its aid trucks. When told this, Mr Moore said the "UN is not being honest".The volume of aid entering Gaza is still considered inadequate, despite Israel last month partially easing an 11-week blockade introduced in March. Experts have warned the territory remains on the brink of GHF is hoping to reach the milestone of providing 50 million meals in Gaza, which would equate to less than a meal a day per person since operations pushed on whether food was really getting to the people who needed it most, Mr Moore admitted the operation was "inefficient", but said 50 million meals was more than had been available a month said the GHF needs to scale up and hopefully work with organisations such as the UN."The mission is clear. We just want to feed Gazans," he Thursday, the US State Department announced $30m (£22m; €26m) in funding for the GHF, which is its first known direct contribution to the group. The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Fox News
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
President Trump predicts Gaza ceasefire ‘within the next week'
President Donald Trump predicted there will be a ceasefire in Gaza sometime "within the next week." Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump called the situation in Gaza a "terrible situation" but expressed optimism there could soon be a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. "I think it's close. I just spoke with some of the people involved," said the president, adding, "We think within the next week we're going to get a ceasefire." Trump also addressed the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying, "we're supplying, as you know, a lot of money and a lot of food to that area because we have to, I mean, you have to. In theory we're not involved in it, but we're involved because people are dying." He called on other countries to also send humanitarian aid to Gaza. "You see the the lines of people just to get one meal, essentially. But it's too bad other countries aren't helping out," he said. "Nobody's helping out where we're doing that because I think we have to on a humanitarian basis," he went on. "I look at those crowds of people that have no food, no anything. And, you know, we're the ones that are getting it there. Some of it's being taken by some bad people, you know, as you give it and you give it out, and they're supposed to be taking care of the people, and they end up stealing the food and selling it. But we have a pretty good system now, so we're helping with that." "We're working on Gaza, trying to get it taken care of and again, you know, a lot of lot of food has been sent there. And other countries throughout the world should be helping also," he said. This comes after Trump authorized U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear development sites and subsequently declared a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, ending what he called "the Twelve Day War." President Trump also took a number of questions on other matters, including one on Ukraine weapons, where he said he "may" authorize Patriot missiles for Ukraine's air defenses.
