Egypt Underscores Measures for Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine
Elderly people, wearing protective face masks amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, await vaccination at a health center in Qatameya, Cairo, Egypt, Mar. 22, 2021. (Reuters)
Egypt Underscores Measures for Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine
Elderly people, wearing protective face masks amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, await vaccination at a health center in Qatameya, Cairo, Egypt, Mar. 22, 2021. (Reuters)
Egypt underlined on Monday the health procedures that must be followed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The government, meanwhile, denied allowing citizens to receive the vaccine without having registered on the dedicated online platform and prior to receiving a text message with details of their appointment.
The cabinet stressed that the Health Ministry has provided vaccine doses sufficient for applicants registered on the ministry’s platform, and who already received a message with the time and location of their appointment.
The measure is aimed at ensuring the organization of the vaccination process and avoid overcrowding at centers to respect preventive measures.
The Ministry had recently confirmed that it has received 5 million vaccine shots. Four hundred inoculation centers have been set up throughout the country.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Hala Zayed said Monday that during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, its community communication teams have reached over 250,000 people living in seven governorates to provide health awareness on the pandemic.
The teams are ensuring citizens and tourists learn the importance of adhering to preventive and precautionary measures against COVID-19. They also explained to citizens the importance of getting the vaccine shot.
Khaled Megahed, assistant minister of health and population for information and awareness, said that teams were deployed on Monday in Cairo, Alexandria and Fayoum, while on Sunday, they started in Ras El-Bar city in Mayat governorate, Baltim city in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate and also in the Giza and Port Said governorates.
On Monday, Egypt reported 1,188 new coronavirus cases, bringing the tally to 246,909 since the outbreak began in February.
The health ministry reported 61 new deaths, while 546 more people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total to 182,024.
This picture taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip shows destroyed buildings in the Palestinian territory on May 15, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Israel’s Gallant Demands Clarity on Post-war Gaza Governance, Opposes Military Rule
This picture taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip shows destroyed buildings in the Palestinian territory on May 15, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was publicly challenged over post-war plans for the Gaza Strip on Wednesday by his own defense chief, who vowed to oppose any long-term military rule by Israel over the ravaged Palestinian enclave.
In a televised news conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that, since soon after the conflict erupted with a shock Hamas attack on Oct 7, he had tried to promote a blueprint for an alternative Gaza administration made up of Palestinians.
Those efforts "got no response" from various decision-making cabinet forums under Netanyahu, said Gallant, who comes from the prime minister's Likud party.
"I call on the prime minister to announce that Israel will not rule over Gaza militarily," Gallant said. "An alternative to Hamas governance should be established ... Indecision will erode the military gains (of the war)."
There was no immediate response from Netanyahu, who earlier on Wednesday issued a statement that appeared to be a riposte to similar remarks aired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Netanyahu has said Israel, if it achieves its war goal of dismantling Hamas' government and military apparatus in Gaza, would retain overall security control over the territory. He has stopped short of describing this scenario as an occupation.
He has also balked at proposals for the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which wields some governance in the occupied West Bank, to move back into a post-war Gaza.
Netanyahu has accused the PA of being hostile to Israel, but his governing coalition also relies on ultra-nationalist partners which want the PA dismantled and for Jewish settlements to be expanded to Gaza.
Blinken Says Israel Needs a Clear and Concrete Plan for Gaza’s Futurehttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5019021-blinken-says-israel-needs-clear-and-concrete-plan-gaza%E2%80%99s-future
People walk in front of a devastated school building in the al-Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City in the northern part of the Palestinian territory on May 15, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Blinken Says Israel Needs a Clear and Concrete Plan for Gaza’s Future
People walk in front of a devastated school building in the al-Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City in the northern part of the Palestinian territory on May 15, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement. (AFP)
Israel needs a clear and concrete plan for the future of Gaza where it faces the potential for a power vacuum that could become filled by chaos, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
The remarks drew an apparent Israeli riposte, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying post-war planning was impossible without first completing the demolition of Hamas.
Washington and Israel agree that Hamas cannot continue to run Gaza after the Palestinian group's gunmen ignited the conflict with a cross-border killing and kidnapping spree last October.
But the allies are at odds over Israel's quest for "total victory" over Hamas, including in the southern city of Rafah, where the United States has warned against any major operation that might endanger displaced Palestinians massing there.
"We do not support and will not support an Israeli occupation. We also of course, do not support Hamas governance in Gaza ... We’ve seen where that's led all too many times for the people of Gaza and for Israel. And we also can't have anarchy and a vacuum that's likely to be filled by chaos," Blinken said during a press conference in Kyiv.
The US top diplomat has held numerous rounds of talks with Israel's Arab neighbors on a post-war plan for Gaza. Israel says it intends to keep overall security control and has balked at proposals for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which wields limited rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to take charge.
"It's imperative that Israel also do this work and focus on what the future can and must be," Blinken said. "There needs to be a clear and concrete plan, and we look to Israel to come forward with its ideas."
In a statement, Netanyahu appeared to push back against the criticism, though he did not refer directly to Blinken.
Israel, he said, has sought out Palestinians not aligned with Hamas to take charge of local civic management in Gaza - only to see them deterred by threats of Hamas retaliation.
"All the talk about 'the day after', while Hamas remains intact, will remain mere words devoid of content," Netanyahu said. "Contrary to what is being claimed, for months we have been engaged in various efforts to resolve this complex problem. Some of the efforts are covert and it is good that this is so."
Citing widespread support among Palestinians for the Oct. 7 attack, Netanyahu said, in an apparent reference to the PA: "We will not allow them to establish a terrorist state from which they will be able to vigorously attack us."
Ireland to Recognize Palestinian Statehood ‘This Month’, Says Minister https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018581-ireland-recognize-palestinian-statehood-%E2%80%98-month%E2%80%99-says-minister%C2%A0
15 May 2024, Australia, Canberra: Protesters hold flags at a pro-Palestine rally outside Parliament House in Canberra. (dpa)
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Ireland to Recognize Palestinian Statehood ‘This Month’, Says Minister
15 May 2024, Australia, Canberra: Protesters hold flags at a pro-Palestine rally outside Parliament House in Canberra. (dpa)
Ireland is certain to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the country's foreign minister said on Wednesday, without specifying a date.
"We will be recognizing the state of Palestine before the end of the month," Micheal Martin, who is also Ireland's deputy prime minister, told the Newstalk radio station.
In March the leaders of Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta said in a joint statement that they stand ready to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Ireland has long said it has no objection in principle to officially recognizing the Palestinian state if it could help the peace process in the Middle East.
But Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza has given the issue new impetus.
Last week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Spain, Ireland and Slovenia planned to symbolically recognize a Palestinian state on May 21, with others potentially following suit.
But Ireland's Martin on Wednesday shied away from pinpointing a date.
"The specific date is still fluid because we're still in discussions with some countries in respect of a joint recognition of a Palestinian state," said Martin.
"It will become clear in the next few days as to the specific date but it certainly will be before the end of this month.
"I will look forward to consultations today with some foreign ministers in respect of the final specific detail of this."
Last month during a visit to Dublin by Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said the countries would coordinate the move together.
"When we move forward, we would like to do so with as many others as possible to lend weight to the decision and to send the strongest message," said Harris.
The Gaza war followed Hamas's October 7 attack against Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
Arab League Calls for Swift Action to Stop Israeli Aggression Against Palestinianshttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018526-arab-league-calls-swift-action-stop-israeli-aggression-against-palestinians
Arab League Calls for Swift Action to Stop Israeli Aggression Against Palestinians
A previous meeting of the Arab League (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Arab League has called on the Security Council to take swift measures to stop Israel's aggression, destruction, and war against the Palestinian people, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
In a statement issued on Wednesday on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the “Nakba”, the General Secretariat of the Arab League stressed the international, legal and moral responsibility of the Security Council to maintain international peace and security, and to uphold international resolutions.
The Arab League urged the Security Council to immediately compel the Israeli occupation forces to cease their war and aggression, and to submit to the will of the international community to achieve peace, and restore the Palestinian people's right to return to their homeland and to build their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The Arab League reiterated its condemnation of Israel's war of aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip and West Bank, urging the international community to intervene immediately and enforce its resolutions.
Systematic Israeli Bombing of Schools and Universities Ruins Education in Gazahttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018456-systematic-israeli-bombing-schools-and-universities-ruins-education-gaza
Systematic Israeli Bombing of Schools and Universities Ruins Education in Gaza
Two Palestinian children inspect the damage to an UNRWA school following an Israeli air strike (dpa)
Tasneem Safi, 29, spends long hours with her five-year old daughter Layan, striving to teach her some of the basics of the Arabic language and mathematics, and repeating to her some of the lessons that she was receiving in kindergarten until just two days before the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7.
The war broke out only three weeks after the start of the new school year in the Palestinian territories.
Safi is one of thousands of mothers who are trying to make up for the educational gap incurred by their children in the current school year, if they were “lucky” enough to move to a safer place.
“I teach her letters, numbers, words, and simple mathematical problems. Her school journey cannot begin late,” Safi told Asharq Al-Awsat.
But the circumstances imposed by the war on Gaza do not make even these attempts successful.
Safi faces many life problems like other residents of the Gaza Strip, with interruptions in electricity, water, and food supplies, and living under bombardment, killing, and destruction.
She says her daughter always asks her where she will study after Israel destroyed the kindergarten she used to attend in the Al-Nasr neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip, and enquires about her friends as well.
“Children grow up prematurely. They think about difficult and complex things, not ABC. I feel like they are lost. I don’t know when or how they will return to education,” she remarked.
During the current war on the Gaza Strip, Israel bombed universities, schools, and kindergartens of all kinds, whether they were private or belonged to the government or to UNRWA, as part of a strategy that many residents saw as also aiming to deprive an entire generation of education.
UN experts said that the ongoing harsh attacks on educational infrastructure in the Gaza Strip have a devastating, long-term impact on the population’s basic rights to learn and express themselves, depriving another generation of Palestinians of their future.
Since the outbreak of the war, at least 625,000 students were forced to abandon the academic year, while Israel killed more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers, and 95 university professors, and injured more than 7,819 students and 756 teachers.
According to international and local statistics, 80 percent of schools in Gaza were destroyed, which indicates a deliberate attempt to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an act described as “educational genocide” by international experts.
The term refers to the systematic erasure of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure.
Reham Hamid, the mother of Rami, who was studying in an UNRWA school in Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, said that she was forced to send her 9 year-old son to a tent inside a school housing the displaced, in order for him to attend classes.
Despite initiatives to open educational classes in tents, the process did not go as it should, due to the lack of human resources, tools and space, according to Hamid.
While the Ministry of Education, whether in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, did not issue any comment on the fate of the academic year in the Strip, thousands of high school students are still waiting for any glimmer of hope in order not to lose an entire year.
Student Ramadan Makkawi said that he was feeling lost.
“We spent the most important stage in any student’s life displaced and under bombing. We think about survival, homes, family, and food instead of universities. A difficult situation to describe,” he said.
He continued: “It is clear that there is no solution. We will pay the price with our lives.”
South Lebanon War Leaves 11,000 Students Out of Schoolhttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018391-south-lebanon-war-leaves-11000-students-out-school
South Lebanon War Leaves 11,000 Students Out of School
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
The ongoing clashes in South Lebanon have disrupted the school year, as many students have fled the region with their families, while others are besieged in the towns and unable to have a safe access to the classrooms.
The Lebanese Ministry of Education has resorted to temporary solutions, including providing students with the necessary tools for online learning and housing the displaced in safe areas, that is, within schools designated to accommodate them and help them complete their educational programs with the available means.
According to the ministry’s data, around 11,000 students have forcibly left their schools this year.
Director of the ministry’s Secondary Education Department Khaled Al-Fayed said that the concerned authorities were “dealing with a difficult reality that has imposed itself on students.”
He added that efforts were deployed to limit the resulting damage as much as possible.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Fayed said that 44 schools, including 12 secondary schools, have been permanently closed in the villages witnessing military confrontations.
He added: “There are 10,800 students who are out of school, including 1,951 in secondary education.”
He noted that these educational institutions are located in the towns of Alma al-Shaab, Marwahin, Marjayoun, Mays al-Jabal, Rmeish, Aita al-Shaab, Taybeh, Aitaroun, Shebaa, al-Khiam, Bint Jbeil and Kfarshuba.
What further complicated the situation was that the battles erupted in the South only one day before the beginning of the academic year on Oct. 8.
The students and their teachers were unable to find alternative solutions, which stirred a state of general confusion.
With the intensification of the Israeli bombing that destroyed hundreds of homes and facilities and forced the residents to flee their towns, the authorities scrambled to find temporary ways to address the crisis.
According to Al-Fayed, the ministry established 10 response centers for academic education students and 10 other centers for vocational education, distributed among areas of displacement in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and the Bekaa, in addition to a small number of buildings in the cities of Sidon and Tyre.
Despite the difficulty to reach the students who are still trapped in their villages, the Ministry of Education was able to provide them with computers to facilitate distance learning.
The ministry official pointed to the distribution of 3,200 laptops and about 3,000 tablets to students and teachers in the South. As for private schools, he said that around 20 institutions have been closed permanently, while others enjoy a kind of independence and resort to online education through applications varying from WhatsApp to Zoom.
Students in border villages are facing another problem, which is the official baccalaureate exams, as the war is likely to continue until after June, during which the examinations take place.
In a recent announcement, Minister of Education Abbas Al-Halabi decided to conduct the official exams across the country, including the South, without specifying the mechanism by which students in the border villages would be able to sit for them.
Israel Cautions that Egypt May Withdraw from Hostage Deal Mediation Effortshttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018261-israel-cautions-egypt-may-withdraw-hostage-deal-mediation-efforts
Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee Jabalia after the Israeli military called on residents to evacuate, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip May 14, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Israel Cautions that Egypt May Withdraw from Hostage Deal Mediation Efforts
Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee Jabalia after the Israeli military called on residents to evacuate, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip May 14, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Israeli officials have voiced concerns over Egypt’s probable withdrawal from a hostage deal mediation efforts in the Gaza Strip amid troubled ties between the two countries, Israeli Haaretz reported on Wednesday.
Relations tensed out between Egypt and Israel after the latter’s seizure of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing and its refusal to let humanitarian aid into Gaza.
According to the newspaper, Israeli officials expressed concern that cooperation at the military and intelligence levels with Egypt could dwindle unless the issue gets resolved.
The daily added that Israeli officials have also voiced concern that relations with Egypt could further deteriorate if the fighting in Gaza prolongs on, and if ceasefire talks fail between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz had on Tuesday accused Egypt of closing the Rafah crossing.
He said that Egypt must be "persuaded" to reopen the Rafah border crossing to "allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid" into Gaza.
His comment prompted an angry response from Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who said in a statement that Israel's seizure of the Rafah crossing and its military operations in the area were the main obstacles to aid entering Gaza.
Israel launched its Gaza operation after an attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas-led gunmen who killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.
The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, according to Gaza health officials, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Palestinians Mark ‘Nakba’ Anniversary as Thousands Flee Gaza’s Rafah https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018181-palestinians-mark-%E2%80%98nakba%E2%80%99-anniversary-thousands-flee-gaza%E2%80%99s-rafah%C2%A0
14 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: A displaced Palestinian woman from the city of Rafah fleeing the fighting stands in a building destroyed by Israeli warplanes, in light of the continuing violent fighting between Israel and Hamas. (dpa)
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Palestinians Mark ‘Nakba’ Anniversary as Thousands Flee Gaza’s Rafah
14 May 2024, Palestinian Territories, Deir al-Balah: A displaced Palestinian woman from the city of Rafah fleeing the fighting stands in a building destroyed by Israeli warplanes, in light of the continuing violent fighting between Israel and Hamas. (dpa)
Tens of thousands of civilians fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah ahead of a threatened Israeli ground offensive, as Palestinians on Wednesday mark the anniversary of their "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of 1948.
During the war that accompanied Israel's creation, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes and many took refuge in what would later become the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Wednesday's commemoration of the "Nakba" comes as multiple battles between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters across the Gaza Strip force waves of Palestinian mass displacement.
Nearly 450,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since May 6, and around 100,000 from northern Gaza, UN agencies said.
That means around a quarter of Gaza's population of 2.4 million people have been displaced again in about one week.
UN chief Antonio Guterres repeated his call for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow more aid into the besieged territory.
"I reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and for the release of all hostages. I call for the Rafah crossing to be re-opened immediately and for the unimpeded humanitarian access throughout Gaza," he posted Tuesday on social media site X.
The war and siege have triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with the UN repeatedly lamenting aid restrictions as famine stalks the north.
Since Israeli troops moved into eastern Rafah, the aid crossing point from Egypt has remained closed and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing lacks "safe and logistically viable access", a UN report said late Monday.
Qatar, which has been mediating peace talks, said Gazans "have not received any aid" since May 9.
A smoke plume rises during Israeli bombardment in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on May 14, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
- Attack on aid convoy -
Israeli police on Tuesday said they had opened an investigation after right-wing activists stopped and ransacked at least seven Gaza-bound aid trucks coming from Jordan, leaving food spilt on the road.
One of the activists, Hana Giat, said that with hostages still held by Hamas, "no humanitarian aid should go in before our hostages are out, safe in their homes".
Both the United States, which called it "a total outrage", and Britain, said they would raise concerns about the incident with Israel's government.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on Israeli authorities to stop the attacks and hold those responsible to account.
"I'm outraged by the repeated & still unchecked attacks perpetrated by Israeli extremists on aid convoys on their way to Gaza, including from Jordan. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are starving," Borrell posted on X late Tuesday.
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war erupted after Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Gunmen also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Israel's relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza have since killed at least 35,173 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Clashes have rocked densely crowded Rafah but also flared again in northern and central Gaza months after troops and tanks first entered those areas.
At least five people were killed, including a woman and her child, and several others wounded, in two Israeli air strikes on Gaza City on Tuesday night, according to Gaza's civil defense agency.
Israel last week defied a chorus of warnings -- including from top ally Washington which paused a shipment of bombs -- and sent troops and tanks into the east of Rafah to pursue militants.
- 'No clarity on how to stop war' -
Battles and heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported around Rafah as well as in Gaza City and Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and Nuseirat camp in the center.
At Gaza City's Al-Ahli hospital, the wounded and the dead arrived.
A shirtless man, his chest smeared with blood, lay on a hard cot hooked up to a monitor. Outside, several men carried a shrouded corpse and placed it in the shade of a tree blooming red flowers.
Despite threatening to withhold some arms over concerns of a Rafah assault, US President Joe Biden's administration informed Congress on Tuesday of a $1 billion weapons package for Israel, official sources told AFP.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel earlier Tuesday said that while Washington backed military pressure on Hamas, it was not the only way to "fully defeat" the militants.
Patel reiterated Washington's position that, without a political plan for Gaza's future, militants "will keep coming back and Israel will continue to remain under threat", leading to "this continued cycle of violence".
Momentum had been building in truce negotiations, mediator Qatar's prime minister said on Tuesday, but "what happened with Rafah has set us backward".
Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said that "right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate".
Egypt and the United States have also been mediating.
"There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don't think that they are considering this as an option," Sheikh Mohammed said.
On the eve of the "Nakba" commemoration, thousands of people took part in an annual march that took them through the ruins of villages that Palestinians were expelled from during the 1948 war that led to Israel's creation.
Eyes glistening with tears, Abdul Rahman al-Sabah, 88, recalled how members of the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary group, forced his family from al-Kassayer and "blew up our village".
UN Launches Probe into First International Staff Killed by Unidentified Strike in Rafah https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018136-un-launches-probe-first-international-staff-killed-unidentified-strike-rafah%C2%A0
Smoke billows during Israeli strikes in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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UN Launches Probe into First International Staff Killed by Unidentified Strike in Rafah
Smoke billows during Israeli strikes in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The United Nations has launched an investigation into an unidentified strike on a UN car in Rafah on Monday that killed its first international staff in Gaza since Oct. 7, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary General said.
The staffer, a retired Indian Army officer named Waibhav Anil Kale, was working with the UN Department of Safety and Security and was on route to the European Hospital in Rafah along with a colleague, who was also injured in the attack.
On Wednesday, India's foreign ministry said its diplomatic missions were "in touch with relevant authorities" on the investigation, and helping to bring home the remains.
Israel has been moving deeper into Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than a million people had sought shelter, and its forces pounded the enclave's north on Tuesday in some of the fiercest attacks in months.
Israel's international allies and aid groups have repeatedly warned against a ground incursion into Rafah, where many Palestinians fled, and Israel says four Hamas battalions are holed up. Israel says it must root out the remaining fighters.
In a statement on Monday after Kale's death, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres reiterated an "urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for the release of all hostages," saying the conflict in Gaza was continuing to take a heavy toll "not only on civilians, but also on humanitarian workers".
Palestinian health authorities say Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza since Oct. 7 has killed more than 35,000 people and driven most of the enclave's 2.3 million people from their homes.
On Tuesday, the UN Secretary General's deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said the UN had set up a fact-finding panel to determine the responsibility for the attack.
"It’s very early in the investigation, and details of the incident are still being verified with the Israeli Defense Force," he said.
There are 71 international UN staff members in Gaza currently, he said.
Israel, which launched its Gaza operation after an attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas-led gunmen who killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, according to its tallies, has ordered civilians to evacuate parts of Rafah.
The main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA estimates some 450,000 people have fled the city since May 6. More than a million civilians had sought refuge there.
HRW Warns of Imminent Threat to Displaced Iraqis in Sinjarhttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5018071-hrw-warns-imminent-threat-displaced-iraqis-sinjar
HRW Warns of Imminent Threat to Displaced Iraqis in Sinjar
A view of the Chamishko refugee camp in Iraq, August 3, 2014. (Getty Images)
The Iraqi Migration Ministry rejected on Tuesday a Human Rights Watch report that warned against violating the rights of displaced residents from the Sinjar district if authorities plan the closure of camps in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region by next July 30.
Despite the liberation of the region from ISIS nine years ago, many Sinjar residents still live in displacement camps in Kurdistan or in diaspora countries.
On Tuesday, spokesperson of the Migration Ministry Ali Abbas Jahangir told Asharq Al-Awsat the HRW report “may be inaccurate” because the Iraqi government has linked its decision to close IDP camps in Kurdistan to three basic options that are based on international standards.
Three options
Listing the three options, Jahangir said the IDPs could either return to Sinjar, relocate to other cities under federal control, or remain in the Kurdistan Region but outside the camps.
There are 23 camps in Iraq, mostly located across Kurdistan. The camps currently host about 30,000 families or more than 150,000 people, including 25,000 families from Sinjar, according to the spokesperson.
Jahangir said the Ministry’s role is to implement the decisions of the Iraqi government, and therefore, is not concerned with ensuring services and infrastructure in the areas where the displaced people should return.
He added: “We have more than 22,000 families returning to Sinjar and we have more than 5,000 applications for return submitted.”
Jahangir said the Ministry announced a package of aid and incentives for returnees, including a one-time payment of 4 million Iraqi dinars (about $2,600) per family, social security benefits, and interest-free small business loans.
The HRW had warned on Monday that the planned closure of displaced people’s camps in Kurdistan by a July 30 deadline will imperil the rights of many camp residents from Sinjar.
Sinjar remains unsafe and lacks adequate social services to ensure the economic, social, and cultural rights of thousands of displaced people who may soon be forced to return, the organization said.
Security and political sources agree that Iraq has not been able to extend its full authority in Sinjar. They said the security of the province is still run by a group of official forces, in addition to Arab and Kurdish armed factions, including the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Voluntary return
Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “Many Sinjaris have been living in camps since 2014 and they deserve to be able to go home, but returns need to be safe and voluntary.”
She warned that given the lack of services, infrastructure, and safety in the district, the government risks making an already bad situation worse.
“Nobody wants to live in an IDP camp forever, but closing these camps when home isn’t safe is not a sustainable solution to displacement,” Sanbar said.
Although the HRW report noted the package of aid and incentives offered by the Iraqi government to encourage returnees, it found in a 2023 report that the main barriers to Sinjaris’ return were the government’s failure to provide compensation for the loss of their property and livelihoods, delayed reconstruction, an unstable security situation, and lack of justice and accountability for crimes and abuses against them.
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