UN Official Calls For Syria Support Ahead of Donor Conference

Children seen at Al-Hol camp - AAWSAT
Children seen at Al-Hol camp - AAWSAT
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UN Official Calls For Syria Support Ahead of Donor Conference

Children seen at Al-Hol camp - AAWSAT
Children seen at Al-Hol camp - AAWSAT

A UN humanitarian official visiting northwest Syria on Tuesday urged the international community to fund crucial aid programs in the war-torn country ahead of an upcoming pledging conference in Brussels.

The Idlib region, Syria's last main bastion of armed opposition, hosts about three million people, many of whom are displaced from other parts of the country.

Existing financing "is clearly not enough to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people", said David Carden, UN deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, from Murin in Idlib province.

Aid groups have warned of donor fatigue after 13 years of war in Syria, with the international community now focused on conflicts elsewhere.

Syria's humanitarian response plan for 2024 requires more than $4 billion but is only six percent funded, Carden told AFP.

Insufficient resources are also impacting the UN's ability to truck aid across the border from Turkey and support those who need it in the county's northwest.

Ahead of the Brussels conference later this month, Carden said that "we need continued support for the Syria program".

We need to do everything we can to ensure that the people in Syria can get back on their feet and start reliving their lives," he said.

"After 13 years of conflict people are tired of handouts."

Janne Suvanto of the World Food Program, who was part of the delegation visiting Idlib, said "the food security situation in northwest Syria is very bad".

"There are over 600,000 people who are severely food insecure," he told AFP.

About 90 percent of Syrians live in poverty, according to the United Nations.

Civil war erupted in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad crushed peaceful anti-government protests in 2011.

The conflict has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions after spiralling into a devastating war involving foreign armies, militias and militants.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.