Harness momentum from Assad’s fall and Lebanon ceasefire to end war in Gaza, says UK envoy
Harness momentum from Assad’s fall and Lebanon ceasefire to end war in Gaza, says UK envoy/node/2583552/middle-east
Harness momentum from Assad’s fall and Lebanon ceasefire to end war in Gaza, says UK envoy
Palestinian girl holds glasses as she stands amid the damage at a tent camp sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, December 18, 2024. (Reuters)
NEW YORK CITY: The UK’s deputy permanent representative to the UN on Wednesday told members of the Security Council that the fall of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and November’s ceasefire agreement in Lebanon offer a moment of hope to the people of the region.
He called for the momentum generated by these developments to be harnessed and used to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, secure the release all Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other militant groups, and end the humanitarian crisis and the suffering of civilians in the battered enclave.
Ambassador James Kariuki was speaking during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the latest report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the implementation of the council’s Resolution 2234. Adopted in 2016, it demands that Israel cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and calls for immediate steps to prevent violence against civilians, including acts of terror.
Kariuki called on Israeli authorities to halt the illegal expansion of settlements on Palestinian land and to hold violent settlers to account.
“Continued instability and settler violence in the West Bank should not be tolerated by Israel, and the culture of impunity must end,” he said. “This does nothing to bring about peace and security for Palestinians or Israelis.”
The secretary-general’s quarterly report, covering the period from September to December, states that the “relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the large number of civilian casualties, the blanket destruction of Palestinian neighborhoods, and the worsening humanitarian situation by the day are appalling.”
The Israel’s military operations in Northern Gaza, which has been under siege since early October, “are making the conditions of life untenable for the Palestinian population,” it adds.
Kariuki said northern Gaza must not be cut off from the south.
“The UK is clear: There must be no forcible transfer of Gazans from, or within, Gaza. There must be no reduction of the territory of the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“Israel’s expansion of military infrastructure and the destruction of civilian buildings and agricultural land across the Strip is unacceptable.”
In his report, Guterres condemned Israel’s use of “explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas, that has caused massive casualties and damage to residential buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques and UN premises.”
He again denounced the terror attacks by Hamas that targeted Israeli towns on Oct. 7, 2023, and the taking of more than 250 hostages.
Kariuki echoed this condemnation and reiterated his country’s demand for “the immediate and unconditional release” of all hostages.
The envoy also described the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza as appalling. More than 45,000 Palestinians have died since the Oct. 7 attacks, and the past two months have been the worst for aid efforts since the conflict began, he said.
“The UN has reported a shocking increase in cases of acute malnutrition in children, and that Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees, per capita, in the world,” Kariuki added.
“The UK continues to urge Israel to do much more to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and to abide by their international obligations. This includes facilitating rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian aid and basic services to the Palestinian people.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees plays a crucial role in delivering this life-saving aid, he said, and the UK has committed an additional $16.5 million of funding for the agency, raising its total contributions since April to $52 million.
US has given at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since war in Gaza began, report says
The reports say that without the US assistance, Israel would not have been able to sustain its concerted campaign against Hamas in Gaza
Updated 07 October 2025
AP
WASHINGTON: The United States under the Biden and Trump administrations has provided at least $21.7 billion in military assistance to Israel since the start of the Gaza war two years ago, according to a new academic study published Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel that provoked the conflict.
Another study, also published by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, says the US has spent roughly $10 billion more on security aid and operations in the broader Middle East in the past two years.
While the reports rely on open source material for most of their findings, they offer some of the most comprehensive accountings of US military aid to close ally Israel and estimated costs of direct American military involvement in the Middle East.
The State Department had no immediate comment about the amount of military aid provided to Israel since October 2023. The White House referred questions to the Pentagon, which oversees only a portion of the assistance.
The reports, which draw on publicly available notifications to Congress, were released as President Donald Trump presses for an end to the war in Gaza. Israeli and Hamas officials launched indirect talks in Egypt this week after Hamas accepted some elements of the US plan that Israel also said it supported.
The reports, which are sharply critical of Israel, say that without the US assistance, Israel would not have been able to sustain its concerted campaign against Hamas in Gaza. They note that tens of billions of dollars in future funding for Israel is projected under various bilateral agreements.
The main report says the US provided $17.9 billion to Israel in the first year of the war — when Democratic President Joe Biden was in office — and $3.8 billion in the second year. Some of the military assistance has already been delivered while the remainder will be supplied in the coming years, it said.
That report was produced in conjunction with the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The institute has been accused by some pro-Israel groups of being isolationist and anti-Israel, charges the organization denies.
A second report analyzing US spending on broader Middle East activities, such as strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iranian nuclear facilities, puts those costs at between $9.65 billion and $12 billion since Oct. 7, 2023, including between $2 billion and $2.25 billion for the attacks in Iran and associated costs in June.
UN chief ‘strongly condemns’ Houthis detaining nine more UN personnel in Yemen
The move came after the UN in August said the Iran-backed Houthi rebels had seized at least 11 of its employees as part of a wave of detentions after an Israeli strike killed the rebels’ prime minister
Updated 07 October 2025
AFP
WASHINGTON: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday denounced the arbitrary detention of nine more United Nations workers in Yemen by Houthi rebels, along with the seizure of assets and facilities in areas under Houthi control.
“Most recently, the Houthi de facto authorities detained nine additional UN personnel, bringing the total number of arbitrarily detained UN staff to 53 since 2021,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“These actions hinder the UN’s ability to operate in Yemen and to deliver critical assistance,” the statement continued.
The UN last month relocated its top humanitarian coordinator in Yemen from the capital Sanaa, which is under Houthi control, to the government-held city of Aden.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government established its headquarters in the southern city of Aden after the rebels drove them out of Sanaa in 2014.
The move came after the UN in August said the Iran-backed Houthi rebels had seized at least 11 of its employees as part of a wave of detentions after an Israeli strike killed the rebels’ prime minister.
“The United Nations will continue to work tirelessly, and through all available channels, to secure the safe and immediate release of all arbitrarily detained personnel, as well as the return of UN agency offices and other assets,” Dujarric said.
Stop making civilians ‘pay with their lives and future’: UN chief’s plea on anniversary of Oct. 7
Marking 2 years since the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Antonio Guterres calls for end to hostilities in Gaza and unconditional release of all hostages held in the territory
NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for an immediate halt to hostilities in Gaza, Israel and the wider region, as he urged leaders to stop taking action that causes civilians to “pay with their lives and their futures.”
Marking the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups against Israel, he also reiterated his demand for the unconditional release of all hostages still held in the territory.
“End the suffering for all,” Guterres said of the situation in Gaza. “This is a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale that defies comprehension.”
Hamas’s “large-scale terror attack” two years ago left more than 1,250 Israelis and foreign nationals dead. More than 250 people, including women, children and the elderly, were abducted and taken to Gaza.
The ensuing assault on the territory by the Israeli military has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and hundreds of thousands have been injured. The UN believes these figures to be underestimates, given the possibility that thousands of bodies remain buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
“The horror of that dark day will be forever seared in the memories of us all,” Guterres said of the events of Oct. 7.
“Two years later, hostages remain captive in deplorable conditions. I have met with hostages’ families and survivors who shared their unbearable pain.”
He urged all those involved to “release the hostages, unconditionally and immediately,” and to make moves toward achieving a permanent ceasefire agreement and a credible political process that prevents further bloodshed.
US President Donald Trump’s recent peace proposal represented “an opportunity that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end,” Guterres said.
He also stressed that the rule of international law must always be respected, and reaffirmed the UN’s commitment to support for peace efforts.
“After two years of trauma, we must choose hope. Now,” he added.
The memory of victims of the conflict must be honored not only with remembrances, Guterres said, but through actions that lead to a “just and lasting peace in which Israelis, Palestinians and all the peoples of the region live side by side in security, dignity and mutual respect.”
What Gaza’s disability crisis reveals about the devastating human cost of war
With hospitals destroyed and aid blocked, preventable injuries in Gaza are turning into lifelong disabilities, amputations, and avoidable deaths
UN experts warn that without rehabilitation, assistive technology, and proper nutrition, Gaza’s disabled face permanent exclusion and lasting trauma
Updated 07 October 2025
Sherouk Zakaria
DUBAI: Essam Al-Athamna and his family’s lives were shattered in an instant when a July 27 Israeli strike tore through the UN-run school where they were sheltering, leaving his wife Maha permanently disabled, killing their 14-year-old son Ahmed, and severely wounding their four other children.
With Essam still missing since the attack, his brother Yasser has taken on the care of the entire family, including Maha, whose right leg was amputated in the attack. Her other leg is fractured and has since become infected. With each new displacement, her survival hangs in the balance.
Originally from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, Yasser has been displaced 15 times since the war began in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. His most recent journey with Maha from Tal Al-Hawa to Al-Mawasi in Khan Younis took a full day.
People with mobility impairments who have no family or friends are often unable to collect food or other aid on their own. (AFP)
“I pushed her on a broken wheelchair for half the way through the traffic of cars and carts fleeing Gaza City,” Yasser told Arab News.
“For the rest of the journey, I carried her and the children on a tractor that dropped us in Nuseirat camp (in Deir Al-Balah). We then took a donkey cart until we finally reached Khan Younis.”
People with disabilities are among the most at risk amid the conflict — often unable to flee bombardments, cut off from aid, and with limited access to medical care.
One in four Gaza residents is now living with a disability, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reported in August that more than 134,000 people have been injured during the war, with at least 33,000 — including 21,000 children — left with permanent disabilities.
Rights groups warned that the besieged enclave is now home to the largest number of child amputees in modern history, with 10 children on average losing one or both legs every day by mid-2024.
Their plight is compounded by the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system, famine, repeated displacement, and the unsanitary conditions of makeshift camps.
Israel’s expanded ground offensive, launched on Sept. 16 in Gaza City, has deepened the healthcare crisis. (Reuters)
Now living in a tent in Khan Younis’ Hamad City humanitarian zone, Yasser regularly pushes Maha’s wheelchair 3 km over rubble-strewn streets to reach a Medecins Sans Frontieres clinic, where her wounds are dressed.
Yasser says Maha receives basic treatment at the overstretched MSF facility after waiting four hours in a long queue, only to return to a tent pitched on sand with little food, poor hygiene, and no clean water.
Medical reports seen by Arab News show that doctors in Gaza have treated Maha’s leg with external fixation, skin grafts, and a cast, but she still requires ongoing medication and a bone implant, as well as a prosthesis for her missing limb.
Yasser was told that Maha’s recovery has been slowed by malnutrition, the result of food shortages caused by Israel’s blockade on aid. “There is no food in the markets — no meat, no eggs, no milk or any other source of protein that she needs to heal,” he said.
Eighty-three percent of disabled people in Gaza have lost their assistive devices during the war. (Reuters)
Maha is unable to care for her injured children, including 16-year-old Nemah, who suffers from an untreated leg fracture, leaving her at risk of permanent disability, and 15-year-old Mohammed, who sustained shrapnel wounds to his kidney and right foot, impairing his ability to walk.
Her youngest, 4-year-old Elyas, was left disfigured after shrapnel tore through his nose and abdomen, forcing doctors to fit him with an external colostomy bag.
“I have no disinfectants, no clean water to wash their wounds, and no new colostomy bags for Elyas,” Yasser told Arab News before a nearby strike interrupted his WhatsApp voice note.
The lack of healthcare and medical supplies is turning treatable injuries into permanent disabilities, experts warn. With antibiotics scarce and hospitals overwhelmed, minor wounds can develop severe infections that lead to amputation.
Dr. Nafea Al-Yasi, an Emirati pediatric gastroenterology consultant who previously volunteered in Gaza, told Arab News that treatment cannot stop at surgeries, as war-wounded patients require rehabilitation, physiotherapy, and proper nutrition to fully recover.
“Those injured cannot heal without proper nutrition. Shrapnel wounds, if left untreated, can quickly become infected, which can worsen the injury and, in many cases, lead to death,” Al-Yasi said, noting that the absence of rehabilitation facilities in Gaza will have long-term implications for patients.
Rights groups warned that the besieged enclave is now home to the largest number of child amputees in modern history. (Reuters)
Israel’s expanded ground offensive, launched on Sept. 16 in Gaza City, has deepened the healthcare crisis, leaving only 14 hospitals still functioning across Gaza, according to the World Health Organization.
Eight of these are in Gaza City, three in Deir Al-Balah, and three in Khan Younis, with none operating at full capacity, the WHO reported on Sept. 26.
Specialized rehabilitation facilities, including the enclave’s only prosthetics hospital — Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics — and the UNRWA-run Rehabilitation Center for the Visually Impaired, have been destroyed, leaving newly-disabled Gazans with nowhere to go for timely treatment.
The plight of disabled Gazans is compounded by the collapse of the enclave’s healthcare system, famine, repeated displacement, and the unsanitary conditions of makeshift camps. (Reuters)
The absence of assistive tools, such as crutches, wheelchairs, prosthetics, or hearing devices, has exacerbated the exclusion of people with disabilities, stripping them of mobility and independence while placing them at even greater risk.
UN reports noted that evacuation orders were often inaccessible to people with hearing or visual impairments, while those with limited mobility were more likely to be killed as they are unable to flee quickly.
Meanwhile, people with mobility impairments who have no family or friends are often unable to collect food or other aid on their own, leaving them excluded from relief.
In a Sept. 23 blog post, Sara Minkara, former US special adviser on international disability rights, noted that when homes are destroyed in war, so too are the shelters that long supported people with disabilities.
“Israeli strikes that destroy or damage houses also destroy mobility aids, hearing devices, and other assistive tools,” she wrote.
According to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 83 percent of disabled people in Gaza have lost their assistive devices during the war, with most unable to afford replacements. Meanwhile, some 92 percent are unable to access food or medication.
Specialized rehabilitation facilities have been destroyed. (AFP)
This isolation is exacerbated by Israel’s restrictions on the import of wheelchairs, walkers, canes, splints, and prosthetics as “dual-use items” that can serve civilian and military purposes, preventing these essential assistive tools from being included in aid shipments.
In an Aug. 15 statement, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israeli authorities to allow the entry of more assistive technologies for people with existing and newly acquired disabilities.
He also called for expanded medical evacuations to provide specialized, immediate care for the disabled, adding that such measures were vital until a permanent ceasefire is reached.
Minkara warned of the long-term psychological toll on people with disabilities, stripped of treatment, rehabilitation services, and the chance of living a dignified life amid repeated displacement.
“Once uprooted, disabled Palestinians must start over, reconfiguring accessibility and support systems in new, temporary spaces,” she said. “And just when they adjust, displacement strikes again.”
Without wheelchair evacuation routes, accessible shelters, consistent medical care, or mental health support, people with disabilities are disempowered and left behind, she added.
People with disabilities often unable to flee bombardments, cut off from aid, and with limited access to medical care. (AFP)
The UN reported people with disabilities “being forced to flee in unsafe and undignified conditions, such as crawling through sand or mud without mobility assistance.”
Beyond the physical scars, Gaza’s war is leaving behind a generation maimed, malnourished, denied education, and carrying deep emotional trauma that will last long after the fighting ends.
“Starvation, lifelong disability, and illnesses caused by contaminated water and debris would persist, especially in the absence of a functioning healthcare infrastructure,” said Minkara, stressing that people with disabilities must be included in aid and reconstruction plans.
“As the world considers Gaza’s future, leaders must recognize that nearly every family will live with disability — physical or psychological. Planning that excludes them is planning for failure.”
Only 14 hospitals are still functioning across Gaza, according to the World Health Organization. (Reuters)
For Yasser and his brother’s family, survival itself has become a daily battle. He told Arab News that even in the newly designated “safe zone” in northwestern Khan Younis, the bombardment has not stopped.
“Last week, a neighbor just four tents away was hit in the neck by (shrapnel from) a tank shell. Everywhere we go, people are killed or wounded. At times, we’ve seen bodies lying in the street,” he said.
