Over 7 lakh Gaza children displaced due to brutal Israeli strikes, says UNICEF

News Network
November 14, 2023

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The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says more than 700,000 children in Gaza have been displaced amid brutal Israeli strikes against the coastal enclave.

In a post on social media platform X on Monday, UNICEF said more than 700,000 children in Gaza have been “forced to leave everything behind.”

The UN agency also called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and “sustained and unimpeded access to provide assistance.”

The UN agency earlier warned that children in Gaza are facing a dire humanitarian situation amid an ongoing Israeli aggression which has paralyzed medical and healthcare services.

“Children in Gaza are hanging by a thread, particularly in the north,” Adele Khodr, UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Director said on Friday.

“Thousands and thousands of children remain in northern Gaza as hostilities intensify. These children have nowhere to go and are at extreme risk. We call for the attacks on health care facilities to stop immediately and for the urgent delivery of fuel and medical supplies to hospitals across all Gaza, including the northern parts of the Strip,” he said.

The UNICEF has already warned that the risk of waterborne and other diseases is rising and “particularly threatens children” amid rare access to safe water and as the total number of displaced people, which exceeded 1.5 million, are living in dreadful sanitation conditions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Palestinian has said a child is killed on average every 10 minutes in the besieged Gaza Strip, warning that “nowhere and no one is safe" under Israel's relentless onslaught on the coastal enclave.

‘West paralyzed in response to Israeli genocide in Gaza’

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur to the occupied Palestinian territories, slammed the international community, including Australia, for their failure to stop Israel from committing “the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people.”

“In the face of all of this, the international community is almost completely paralyzed,” she said in an address to the National Press Club on Tuesday.

Albanese also described the UN’s response to the atrocities in Gaza as “its most epic failure.”

“I am being generous when I say the UN is experiencing its most epic political and humanitarian failure since its creation,” she said.

“Individual member states, especially in the West, and Australia is no exception, are on the margins. Muttering notable words of condemnation for Israel’s success at best or staying silent in fear of restraining Israel’s … claimed right to self-defense. Whatever that means.”

The UN official also said from a legal perspective that Israel’s right to self-defense was “non-existent”, noting that the Tel Aviv regime had ignored proportionality in its “unrelenting bombardment of Gaza.”

“Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies, from a territory that is under belligerent occupation,” she said.

“What is being done (in Gaza) is wrong … How many more people need to die?” she asked, calling for an urgent ceasefire.

Her remarks came as Israel’s brutal aggression on Gaza is in its sixth week.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long suppression and devastation against Palestinians.

According to the Gaza-based health ministry, more than 11,240 Palestinians, including 4,630 children and 3,130 women, have been killed and 29,000 others injured in the Israeli strikes.

‘Israel committing war crimes’

Albanese also hit out at vast sections of the international community and media who she said had forgotten, or tuned out, that the conflict had started decades ago.

She noted that Palestinian people had long been subject to a “violent structure of dispossession, confiscation of land, and forcible displacement” long before the Israeli attack on October 7.

“When it is widespread and systemic is not just a war crime, it is a crime against humanity,” Albanese said, adding that “There were already war crimes being committed before October 7.”

The UN official stressed that Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory “must end” and is “apartheid by default”. 

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 14,2024

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Bengaluru: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi led union government has requested the Karnataka High Court to direct the Mandya district administration and the state government to clear a madrasa operating within the premises of the historic Jama Masjid in Srirangapatna.

The Waqf Board, opposing this move, has claimed the mosque as its property and defended the right to conduct madrasa activities there.

The matter was brought before a division bench headed by Chief Justice N V Anjaria following a public interest litigation filed by a person named Abhishek Gowda from Kabbalu village in Kanakapura taluk. The petition alleged “unauthorised madrasa activities” within the mosque.

Representing the Central government, Additional Solicitor General of India for High Court of Karnataka, K Arvind Kamath argued that the Jama Masjid was designated as a protected monument in 1951, yet unauthorised madrasa operations continue there.

He noted that concerns over potential law and order issues have so far prevented any intervention. Kamath urged the court to direct the Mandya district administration to take action and vacate the madrasa from the mosque.

In defence, lawyers for the state government and the Waqf Board contested this request, stating that the Waqf Board had been recognised as the owner of the property since 1963 and, thus, conducting madrasa activities there is lawful.

After hearing both sides, the bench adjourned the case for further arguments, scheduling the next hearing for November 20.

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News Network
November 16,2024

Mangaluru: The Kavoor police in Mangaluru, Karnataka, have arrested three individuals from Kerala in connection with two separate cybercrime cases, including one involving extortion under the guise of a "digital arrest."

City Commissioner of Police Anupam Agrawal reported that one of the arrested individuals, Nisar, a resident of Ernakulam district, posed as a CBI officer. He allegedly threatened the complainant with arrest and extorted Rs 68 lakh. A case has been filed under sections 66 (C) and 66 (D) of the IT Act, and sections 308 (2) and 381 (4) of BNS.

In another case, the Kavoor police arrested two men, Sahil K P of Thiruvannur, Kozhikode, and Muhammad Nashath of Mappila Koyilandy, Kerala, in connection with a share trade fraud. The accused are alleged to have deceived the complainant by promising substantial profits from an investment in the stock market. Trusting the fraudsters, the complainant invested Rs 90 lakh, which was subsequently lost. A case has been registered under sections 66 (C) and 66 (D) of the IT Act, and sections 318 (4) and 3 (5) of BNS.

The accused were arrested in Koyilandi and presented before the court. The operation was carried out under the guidance of City Police Commissioner Anupam Agrawal, led by Mangaluru North Sub-Division ACP Srikanth K, Kavoor Inspector Raghavendra Byndoor, Kavoor PSI Mallikarjuna Biradara, and staff members Ramanna Shetty, Bhuvaneshwari, Rajappa Kashibai, Praveen N, and Malatesh. 

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