I went to Idlib,
#Syria
to shadow a crew of volunteer doctors and within days I was sheltering from bombs as the regime, with its ally Russia, showered the region with fire.
The war in Syria has not ended. It's as deadly as ever in the NW.
@pass_blue
Louise Wateridge, senior communications officer
@UNRWA
in
#Gaza
: "There's just no words. I don't have the words to describe what we see on a daily basis. There's no humanity left here. It's, it's very degrading for the population. But really, when you talk to people, they tell
Guyana's deputy Ambassador to the UN Trishala Persaud:
"The history of colonialism has shown us, Mr. President, that no people consent to subjugation and certainly not of the kind that Israel has visited on the Palestinian people. The desire for freedom is innate."
“And what we found I don't want to even use the word evidence because evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests you're trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court.”
@nytimes
journo
@gettleman
describing his reporting in, Screams Without Words, as not
"Let me state the obvious, Israel does not care about your condemnations," said Riyad Mansour ambassador to Palestine
@Palestine_UN
to members of the Security Council.
"[Israel] dismisses your resolutions. It does not even listen to your debates. Their representative will be
"[Israel] dismisses your resolutions. It does not even listen to your debates. Their representative will be playing with his iPhone while you are talking." Ambassador Mansour
@Palestine_UN
"Let me state the obvious, Israel does not care about your condemnations," said Riyad Mansour ambassador to Palestine
@Palestine_UN
to members of the Security Council.
"[Israel] dismisses your resolutions. It does not even listen to your debates. Their representative will be
"Indeed, if one were to read this resolution without background knowledge, it would be difficult to ascertain which party in this conflict is committing the atrocities in Gaza which necessitated this draft resolution being put forward."
"In a resolution of 41 paragraph 2036
"What we have witnessed over the past 11 months – and continue to witness – calls into question the world’s commitment to the international legal order that was designed to prevent these tragedies. It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?" Joyce Msuya
"We have seen for example, recent reports of the Palestinian man who was strapped to the hood of a [Israeli] military vehicle. What accounts for this level of barbarity by one people against another? It is the cultivation and perpetuation of an ideology that dehumanizes the
"Israel appears to be operating on the premise that if you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it."
I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been
"It is worth reminding that the situation in Palestine today did not begin on seventh of October 2023. We must cast our minds back to 1948 because it was in that year that Israel first violently rejected the two state solution.
Since then, that violent rejection has continued,
Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi: "It is time to face the truth, and the truth is, unless Netanyahu [is] stopped. Unless this [Netanyahu] government is stopped, war will encompass all of us."
"We are looking at the eye of real danger."
TODAY - UN experts declare famine has spread throughout Gaza strip - “We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza."
Group of protestors chant “ceasefire now” in the General Assembly hall as member states debate a recent US veto in Security Council.
#Gaza
protestors are removed by UN security but you can still hear them chanting outside
@pass_blue
Fadwa Mahmoud co-founder of
@FamiliesSyria
. Her husband and son went missing in 2012 at the hands of the
#syrianregime
. Fadwa still doesn't know where they are and wants answers. She won't stop her advocacy work until she gets them.
@pass_blue
#syriancivilwar
"The violations of the occupying power continuously reach new levels in the face of this Council's inaction to stop this trampling of everything that the United Nations was built to achieve.
History will judge us harshly if this Council does not act to save the Palestinian
"Let me be clear, we condemn the actions of Hamas on October, 7, but we equally and strongly deplore the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which is the result of the disproportionate use of force by Israel. There's no justification for it," Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of
Resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in
#Gaza
PASSED in the
@UN
General Assembly during 10th emergency special session requested by Egypt and Mauritania.
Proposed amendments to the draft (by Austria and US) not adopted.
Palestine Ambassador to
@UN
Riyad Mansour speaking after
@CIJ_ICJ
ruling:
"We will produce a masterpiece of a resolution in the General Assembly in line with this historic decision of the ICJ.
We will study thoroughly the 140 pages of the opinion.
We will dissect every
"We will never accept that the Palestinian people's right to self determination to statehood and admission to the UN could be in any way subject to an Israeli veto.
We will not be [derailed] in our pursuit for freedom.""
@Palestine_UN
Amb Riyad Mansour.
"We will now bring the
UN deputy spokes on Gaza death toll, "This number [40,000] is an approximation, and given the large number and disturbing number of people who remain unaccounted for, who may be trapped or dead under the rubble, this number may, if anything, be an undercount."
Secretary-General
@antonioguterres
is scheduled to brief the press at approximately 12:00 pm today - NY time - on polio in Gaza.
I've been following these developments closely - speaking to doctors who've recently worked in Gaza as well as NGOs with staff on the ground - and I
Moving event at the Turkish House tonight featuring winning photos from the İstanbul Photo Awards 10th Year, the international news photo contest organized by
@anadoluagency
Attended by - Palestine's Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour
@Palestine_UN
As one presenter said,
"The violence that Palestinian people are being subjected to is a grim continuation of more than half a century of apartheid that has been perpetrated against Palestinians by Israel.
"We South Africans know what apartheid looks like" and "We will not remain silent," Cyril
Yasmen Almashan founder of
@Caesarfamilies
rallying support outside
#UN
for the creation of a a UN-backed mechanism that reveals the fate and final whereabouts of Syrian's missing loved ones during
#civilwar
. Read more on Yasmen
@pass_blue
#Syria
"We have seen how Israel has helped spread false stories, knowing that irreparable harm would be done during the time it will take to refute them."
Including the story of the beheaded baby [and] the "highly publicized allegation of a pregnant woman, whose womb has reportedly
NOW:
@UN
General Assembly passes draft resolution on
@Palestine_UN
membership.
Yes votes: 143
No votes: 9
Abstentions: 25
2/3 majority of members present and voting.
Resolution:
UPDATE to my story for
@pass_blue
on water and sanitation situation in Gaza from Suze van Meegen,
@NRC_Norway
head of operations in Palestine. She is currently in Rafah.
"If you have access to clean water and sanitation in Rafah now you are in an extremely privileged
“If we want to stop wars on the planet, we have to punish the states and their leaders who start aggression”
@avalaina
speaking on justice for war in Ukraine.
Speaking virtually at Columbia University event on sexual violence in conflict.
"Those who continue to propagate the idea of Jordan as an alternative homeland...let me be very, very clear, that will never happen. We will never accept the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime," King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of Jordan
@KingAbdullahII
"An hour before the convening of the Security Council with the SRSG [Patten] [we] extended an invitation to the SRSG to come and visit Gaza to see the violence including sexual violence committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," said Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour
"WAKE UP!" said Ambassador Riyad Mansour
@Palestine_UN
to members of the Council.
"How long do you have to remain in denial? Wake up. Stop finding excuses. Stop imagining that you can reason with the Israeli government so it stops killing civilians by the 1000s, imposing famine,
Now - Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour
@Palestine_UN
- "We have a tall order before us," he said in reference to ending the war in Gaza and implementing the two-state solution.
Ambassador Mansour also mentioned bringing more [Palestinian] victims of the war and their
Francesca Albanese asks the media to "please do your job" and stop disseminating Israeli disinformation which "has served to justify the crimes being committed [in Palestine]."
She added: "I asked Western journalists among you, if you really resent and repent our past, if you
"Palestinians are not lesser human beings. They are entitled to the same rights, to the same respect, to the same consideration. Their lives are not less valuable or less worthy of protection," Palestine Ambassador Riyad Mansour speaking at
@UNRWA
pledging conference.
Feda Abdelhady Nasser, deputy ambassador to
@Palestine_UN
-
"Violence and terror are clearly Israel's main and only currency. Not international law, not diplomacy, not mediation, not respect for human life. There is no red line for Israel."
Over 150,000
#Syrians
have been arbitrarily detained or disappeared by the
#Syrian
government as well as by ISIS terrorists and other militant groups - including this young one. Her picture (among many others) on display outside the
#UN
@pass_blue
@Caesarfamilies
@FamiliesSyria
Failure of the
#UNSC
to act on
#Gaza
is due to the "veto by one permanent member in the Council, the United States of America, which has for decades shielded Israel from any accountability for its violations of international law," said Deputy Amb. Feda Abdelhady-Nasser of
"Lebanese people, much like the Palestinian people, have become innocent bystanders to the games of a handful of ideologues hell bent on the achievement of their political pursuits.
How much longer will we sit in this Council, only to express our concern?" Guyana's deputy
"As I stated before, effective humanitarian operations cannot be reduced to counting trucks. This is a false metric for gauging whether humanitarian assistance is
sufficient," said Sigrid Kaag the senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for
#Gaza
at
@UN
Security
While, "Switzerland is deeply shocked by the facts presented in Ms. Patten's report," they call for, "the facts to be established by the competent bodies, such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or the commission of inquiry to help identify the violations and
"Fasten your seat belts...you are [in for] a powerful trip."
Palestine Amb to the UN, Riyad Mansour speaking in reference to next steps to be addressed after the
@CIJ_ICJ
ruling in the Hague this morning. Emergency meeting of the Arab group starting now at the
@UN
Response from
@UN_Spokesperson
(made during
@UN
press briefing) on the group of protesters spotted in the General Assembly
@UNGA
@jvplive
@jvpliveNY
@pass_blue
:
"They were a very nice group of about 49 people. About nine of them were in the General Assembly on the top of the
Group of protestors chant “ceasefire now” in the General Assembly hall as member states debate a recent US veto in Security Council.
#Gaza
protestors are removed by UN security but you can still hear them chanting outside
@pass_blue
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has already resulted in the death of 10,703 civilians.
We condemn all attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure - they are prohibited under international law.
They
"We will not leave," said Mahmoud Abbas the president of Palestine. "Palestine is our homeland. It is the land of our fathers, our grandfathers. It will remain ours. And if anyone were to leave, it would be the occupying usurpers."
#UNGA79
Israel's envoy doesn't appear to be
“We have aggression,” Tsahkna said. “Putin gave the order. It’s documented. It’s there, so there is no question. We have to react.”
My interview with
@Tsahkna
on creating a special tribunal for the crime of aggression
#Russia
@EstoniaUN
@MFAestonia
Fact ✅
#UNGA79
Netanyahu said on Oct. 7 - "They raped and mutilated women. They beheaded men." He's repeated these claims over and over again. However:
Pramila Patten, at a press conference in March told reporters she found no evidence of wide spread rape on Oct. 7 - "Patten
"We have taken note of the mission team's determination that at least two allegations of sexual violence, which had been widely reported in the media were unfounded.
We call on all parties to be responsible and avoid sensational headlines as this risks bringing into question
Breakdown from UN spokes on what happened with the UN convoy that was stopped by the Israeli military on Monday in Gaza.
"The convoy was carrying 12 staff members on their way to support the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza. Its movements were fully coordinated with
Israeli military launches fatal airstrike on a coordinated humanitarian aid convoy organized by
@AneraOrg
in Gaza. Unconfirmed reports from Gaza said five people were killed in the airstrike.
@guardian
The attack occured hours after Israeli soldiers opened fire on a
@WFP
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...says officials are looking into the strike and would “do everything for this not to happen again.”
But this recent "strike" IS the "again" incident.
How many times have we been here? There have already been over 150 "agains" if you
Palestinian Amb Riyad Mansour, "We will keep the pressure on those who are not listening to the hundreds of millions who are in the streets, including New York City, calling for a ceasefire and a ceasefire now," in
#Gaza
@Palestine_UN
"The Middle East is hanging by a thread. It must be noted that the blind faith in achieving a total victory in Gaza for military means will only result in more innocent civilian casualties, and will not create the conditions for the release of hostages, nor will it bring peace,
Multiple protests break out as SRSG Patten speaks at
#CSW68
side event on sexual violence in conflict.
Some chant, “every time the UN lies a Palestinian woman dies.” Most are upset over Patten’s recent report on sexual violence in Israel on Oct.7.
ADOPTED: Resolution to establish an “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica” Draft tabled by Germany and Rwanda.
FAVOR - 84
AGAINST - 19
ABSTENTIONS - 68
Vote was a simple majority of member states present and voting.
"Instead of credible signs of Israel's commitment to a ceasefire what we see is ever expanding military operations and ever rising civilian casualties," said FU Cong, China's ambassador to the UN.
"The US, as the largest supplier of weapons, has enough influence over Israel. We
@EdemWosornu
@UNOCHA
: To be frank, we are running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza.
We have described it as a catastrophe, a nightmare, as hell on earth.
It is all of these, and worse.
*Security Council is meeting to discuss the humanitarian situation in
"The constant bombings, multiple displacements, sight and smell of death, dismemberment, harassment and other indignities...represent the occupying power executing its colonialist aspirations fueled by a racist and religious ideology of superiority that allows it to treat
Trucks packed with aid sitting at the
#Rafah
border crossing.
@EG_Red_Crescent
@pass_blue
#Gaza
"A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates.
The long shadow of starvation on the other.
That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage," said
@antonioguterres
US to explain their use of the veto on Feb. 20 blocking a demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in
#Gaza
@UN_PGA
calls for an immediate ceasefire and for the bombardments, in Gaza, to stop now.
Each life lost adds to the collective stain on our conscious, he added.
"There are currently 5500 pregnant women [in
#Gaza
] expected to give birth in the coming month. Every day approximately 180 women deliver under appalling conditions. The future for their newborns is uncertain," said
@Atayeshe
@UNFPA
executive director in
#UNSC
meeting on Gaza.
"Lebanon is not asking for a charity. We are asking for our legitimate rights pursuant to international law, our right as Lebanese to live in safety, our right to protect our national sovereignty and our right to a future [away] from wars and conflicts," said Lebanon's Foreign
“There are people who want Gaza to be the graveyard of international law. In whose interest is that? Either you have the rule of law or you have the rule of the jungle. There is no in-between. At present it is the powerful and mighty that are winning," Palestinian lawyer, Raji
"We have to keep knocking on the door of the General Assembly, the door of the Security Council, until we see an end to this tragedy, and to this carnage that the Palestinian people are going through as a result of the aggression of the State of Israel against our people," Amb
All Council resolutions are legally binding - said China's Amb to UN speaking after the adoption of US resolution for ceasefire in Gaza.
Just in case there's any doubt.
@UNLazzarini
of
@UNRWA
in the
@TheEconomist
"As the war in Gaza reaches the one-year mark it continues to reveal a frightening deficit of mutual empathy. What can stop the descent into barbarism is the power of laws that are slipping into irrelevance. Without them, where
"Here's the truth, Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again." Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
@UNGA79
*Death toll in Lebanon around 700.
*Death toll in Gaza over 40,000. Lancet report said that number
NEW: Statement from UNIFIL on IDF soldiers firing on UN positions.
Recent escalation along the Blue Line is causing widespread destruction of towns and villages in south Lebanon, while rockets continue to be launched towards Israel, including civilian areas. In the past days we
Algeria's Ambassador Bendjama: "I express Algeria's full solidarity, admiration and support for the Secretary General following the incredible decision of the Israeli occupying authorities to declare him persona non grata."
"We have requested an explanation from the IDF from these shocking violations." Latest statement from UNIFIL on Israeli military "breaching and entering a UN position."
In
#Gaza
, Hospitals smell of puss. Every wound no matter how big or small is infected, said pediatric neurologist Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, relaying what she heard from a colleague in Gaza.
Dr. Kuemmerle is speaking at
#CSW68
side event
@UN
on struggles of Palestinian women
"Civilians of Gaza are not just casualties of war, but in fact, victims of a senseless ideology in which one party refused to see the other as he is, human beings deserving to to live in peace and security." Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana's UN ambassador.
Israel's use of evacuation orders and designation of humanitarian zones are purely performative they endanger rather than protect civilian life - Max du Plessis
@CIJ_ICJ
"After madam Colonna's report there is no more need to further debate
@UNRWA
" said Algeria's Ambassador the the UN Amar Bendjama.
@AlgeriaUN
UNRWA [should] be empowered again and allowed to operate across Gaza, including the North," where famine looms.
He added: "We warn
"One of the things that I think we all find frustrating here is that after nine months, what people need in the North [of Gaza] remains the same as what they needed when the war began," Scott Anderson
@UNRWA
deputy humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.
"The Secretary General is guided by the Charter and the Charter is clear in Article 25. Please read Article 25 and you will be perfectly aware of the nature of the resolutions of the Security Council," said
@antonioguterres
when asked by
@TalalAlhaj
on whether
#UNSC
resolutions
Why would Israel bomb a fertility center? The Israeli military’s press desk told Reuters that it would look into it. Judging by Israel’s record of looking into its own actions, you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for answers. No doubt Israel will just say it received
Happening now: dressed in all black, a group of protestors are walking around 44th and 45th Streets, between 1st and 2nd Ave, with the intent to pass by the
@USUN
mission 25 times to represent the 25-miles of the Gaza Strip.
@pass_blue
In Gaza, "There is a real obstruction of aid, contrary to the official narrative [of] Israeli authorities," Dr. Defourny
@MSF
"What is also extremely shocking is the hypocrisy and duplicity of Israel allies."
Humanitarians and doctors speaking on conditions in Gaza and Lebanon
Nobody has been found liable for the killing of humanitarian aid workers in Gaza.
Nobody has been found liable for the attacks on health facilities in Gaza or in Ukraine, or in Sudan.
Impunity is...I'm sorry...on to the next one...
@UNReliefChief
Griffiths stops himself during
Stop arming Israel. I repeat, stop arming Israel. All of you, all of the countries that have been providing Israel with weapons and ammunition to kill our children and our woman and Palestinian civilians. Stop arming Israel -
@Palestine_UN
Ambassador Riyad Mansour
"In the coming days, we will go to the General Assembly to make sure that it upholds its Charter responsibilities, to make sure that the determinations of the highest court in the world, the ICJ is translated into political will and momentum and to concrete actions to be pursued