HUMANITY

CAIRO — An Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal expected to take effect on Sunday has sparked hope for life-saving aid to reach Palestinians, but aid agencies warn of obstacles from destroyed infrastructure, massive need and collapsed law and order.

Announcing the truce, United States President Joe Biden said on Wednesday it would “surge much needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians.”

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called it “a moment of hope and opportunity” but said “we should be under no illusions how tough it will still be to get support to survivors.”

On the ground in the territory, where nearly all 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry nothing will be enough to meet the need.

“Everything has been destroyed. Children are on the streets. You can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Amande Bazerolle said by phone from Gaza.

Speaking from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Mohammed Al-Khatib, of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said local aid workers haven’t stopped for 15 months even though they themselves are displaced.

“Everyone is exhausted,” he said.

In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect from winter rains and biting winds, Gavin Kelleher, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said.

Even if the bombs stop, agencies like his have to focus on the basics of emergency response, including bringing in “tarpaulins, rope and fixtures to close gaping holes” in buildings.

“At least until we stop seeing children dying of hypothermia,” he said via text message from Gaza.

By last week, hypothermia had killed at least eight people – four newborns, three infants and one adult – according to a health ministry toll used by the World Health Organization.

On Wednesday, Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News reported coordination was underway to reopen the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border. It was one of the main humanitarian entry points but has been closed since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in May.

The truce is based on a plan Biden presented in mid-2024 that foresaw a surge in aid to 600 trucks per day, or more than eight times the December average reported by the United Nations.

The World Food Programme said Thursday it had enough food for one million people “waiting outside Gaza or on its way.”

On the Egyptian side of the border, a source in the Egyptian Red Crescent said up to 1,000 trucks are waiting “for their entry into Gaza.”

But with air strikes continuing to pound the territory, where aid groups and the UN have regularly accused Israel of impeding aid flows – which Israeli denies – aid workers were skeptical.

MSF’s Bazerolle said the promise of hundreds of trucks a day “is not even feasible technically.”

“Since Rafah has been destroyed, the infrastructure is not there to be able to cope with that level of logistics,” she explained, with bombs audible in the background.

Aid that does arrive is subject to looting by both armed gangs and desperate civilians.

“The Israelis have targeted the police, so there’s no one to protect the shipments” from looting, which Bazerolle said will continue “as long as there’s not enough aid entering.”

After more than a year of the “systematic dismantling of the rule of law” in Gaza, NRC’s Kelleher called for “the resumption of a Palestinian civilian police force.”

The situation is especially dire in northern Gaza.

Bazerolle, who says MSF missions in the area have been targeted by Israel, says the group hopes to send teams to the north “to at least treat patients where they are,” in the absence of hospitals.

According to the WHO, only one hospital, Al-Awda, is partially functioning in the north.

WHO’s Rik Peeperkorn said that, in addition to hospital capacity, his agency will focus on “the very basic things” including water, electricity and waste management systems in Gaza.

Still, the displaced will hope to head back – including Khatib himself – if the truce holds.

Many, he said, “will return to find their entire neighborhoods destroyed” and without food or shelter.

“People aren’t even talking about rebuilding their houses, but just the most basic essential needs,” he continued.

“We’re closing one chapter of suffering and opening a new one,” he predicted, before adding: “At least there is some hope of the bloodshed ending.”

AN-AFP

LONDON — The UN has warned that nearly one in five children around the world live in areas affected by war.

The global body’s children’s agency UNICEF has said 473 million children face the worst violence seen since the Second World War, with the number having almost doubled since 1990.

The UN said it had identified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children, the highest number on record.

It added that around 44 percent of the nearly 45,000 victims of Israel’s war in Gaza were children, whilst there had been more child casualties in the war in Ukraine in the first nine months of 2024 than in the entirety of the previous year.

“By almost every measure, 2024 has been one of the worst years on record for children in conflict in UNICEF’s history, both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“A child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of school, malnourished, or forced from their home — too often repeatedly — compared with a child living in places of peace.

“This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars.”

UNICEF added that there had been a significant increase in sexual violence toward young women and girls, and highlighted an explosion of reports in Haiti where rape and sexual assault cases increased 1,000 percent in 2024.

Malnutrition, too, is a major cause of trauma for children in conflict zones, with UNICEF focusing in particular on its effects in Sudan and Gaza.

Around half a million people in five conflict-affected countries, it added, are affected by famine.

Gaza is also the center of a crisis regarding access to healthcare, with a polio outbreak detected in July this year. The UN responded with a mass vaccine campaign, which has so far reached 90 percent of the enclave’s children despite the hazardous conditions.

But beyond Gaza, the UN said, 40 percent of the world’s unvaccinated children live in or near conflict zones.

UNICEF added that over 52 million children lack access to education, with Gaza and Sudan again at the forefront of this crisis.

Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria have also seen swathes of their education infrastructure destroyed.

The charity War Child, meanwhile, reported earlier in December that 96 percent of children in Gaza believe death is imminent, with almost half describing trauma that made them feel dying would be desirable.

“Children in war zones face a daily struggle for survival that deprives them of a childhood,” Russell said.

“Their schools are bombed, homes destroyed, and families torn apart. They lose not only their safety and access to basic life-sustaining necessities, but also their chance to play, to learn, and to simply be children. The world is failing these children. As we look towards 2025, we must do more to turn the tide and save and improve the lives of children.”

AN, Dec 28, 2024

GAZA — Berdepan dengan kekurangan makanan utama selepas hampir 14 bulan perang, rakyat Palestin menggambarkan hari yang panjang memburu tepung dan roti di Semenanjung Gaza dilanda konflik.

Setiap pagi orang ramai berkumpul di luar beberapa kedai roti yang dibuka di wilayah Palestin, ketika orang ramai berusaha untuk mendapatkan sekantong roti di tempat pengedaran.

Sejak meletusnya perang di Gaza tahun lalu, badan amal dan pertubuhan bantuan antarabangsa telah berulang kali memberi amaran tentang tahap krisis kelaparan bagi hampir dua juta orang.

Penilaian disokong Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) bulan lalu memberi amaran tentang kebuluran yang melanda di utara Semenanjung Gaza di tengah-tengah bantuan makanan yang hampir terhenti selepas Israel melancarkan serangan di kawasan itu.

Barangan keperluan seperti air, hasil segar dan ubat-ubatan juga terhad.

Penduduk Gaza di seluruh wilayah telah memberitahu AFP dalam beberapa bulan kebelakangan ini bagaimana mereka bangun pada waktu fajar hanya untuk memastikan mereka boleh mendapatkan sedikit tepung atau roti, dengan ketersediaan semasa mencecah paras terendah sepanjang masa.

Di bandar selatan Khan Yunis, jurugambar AFP melihat berpuluh-puluh orang di tempat pengedaran, badan bertindih antara satu sama lain.

Di atas kepala masing-masing, semua orang cuba menghulurkan tangan sejauh mungkin untuk meraih roti bulat.

Seorang kanak-kanak kecil, mukanya dipenuhi air mata, memerah duit syiling di antara jari-jarinya ketika dia melalui kerumunan orang dewasa.

“Saya berjalan kira-kira lapan kilometer (lima batu) untuk mendapatkan roti,” kata Hatem Kullab, seorang pelarian Palestin yang tinggal di kawasan kejiranan khemah sementara, kepada AFP.

Ia adalah di tengah-tengah salah satu daripada kerumunan ini bahawa dua wanita dan seorang kanak-kanak telah mati dipijak dalam rempuhan di sebuah kedai roti di bandar Gaza tengah Deir el-Balah pada Jumaat.

“Bagi mendapatkan sebuku roti, anda memerlukan lapan hingga 10 jam sehari penuh,” kata abang kepada salah seorang wanita yang terbunuh, menggambarkan pengalaman pahit kakaknya ketika dia cuba mendapatkan roti untuk memberi makan kepada 10 ahli keluarga.

“Penderitaan yang dilalui kakak saya dialami oleh semua rakyat Palestin,” kata Jameel Fayyad kepada AFP, mengkritik apa yang disifatkannya sebagai pengurusan kedai roti yang lemah.

Kemarahan Fayyad sebahagian besarnya ditujukan kepada Israel, tetapi dia juga menyalahkan Program Makanan Sedunia (WFP) dan “peniaga yang ingin membuat wang di belakang orang.”

Penduduk Palestin dari Semenanjung Gaza memberitahu wartawan AFP bahawa adalah amat sukar untuk mencari beg tepung seberat 50 kilogram (110 paun) yang akan bertahan beberapa minggu sebelum perang.

“Tiada tepung, tiada makanan, tiada sayur-sayuran di pasar,” kata Nasser Al-Shawa, 56, yang seperti kebanyakan penduduk, terpaksa meninggalkan rumahnya kerana pengeboman dan tinggal bersama anak-anak dan cucunya di tengah Gaza.

Shawa, yang kini tinggal di rumah rakannya di Deir el-Balah, berkata beg seberat 50 kilogram berharga antara 500 dan 700 shekel ($137 dan $192). Sebelum perang, harganya sekitar 100 shekel.

Di Gaza di mana lebih separuh daripada bangunan telah musnah, pengeluaran hampir terhenti. Kilang tepung, gudang menyimpan tepung dan kedai roti industri tidak dapat berfungsi kerana ia telah rosak teruk akibat serangan.

Bantuan kemanusiaan semakin mengalir tetapi kumpulan bantuan telah berulang kali menyelar banyak kekangan dikenakan ke atas mereka oleh Israel, yang dinafikan negara itu.

Dalam tamparan terbaharu, agensi PBB yang menyokong pelarian Palestin (UNRWA) mengumumkan pada Ahad ia menghentikan penghantaran bantuan ke Gaza melalui titik lintasan utama dengan Israel.

UNRWA berkata penghantaran telah menjadi mustahil, sebahagiannya disebabkan oleh rompakan oleh kumpulan samseng.

Bagi Layla Hamad, yang tinggal di dalam khemah bersama suami dan tujuh anaknya di Al-Mawasi di selatan Gaza, keputusan UNRWA adalah “seperti peluru di kepala.”

Dia berkata keluarganya kerap menerima “kuantiti kecil” tepung daripada UNRWA.

“Setiap hari, saya fikir kita tidak akan bertahan, sama ada kerana kita akan dibunuh oleh pengeboman Israel atau kelaparan,” katanya. “Tiada pilihan ketiga.”

Majoriti syarikat swasta yang dimiliki Israel pada masa lalu membenarkan membawa masuk makanan ke Gaza berkata mereka tidak lagi mampu berbuat demikian.

Peperangan di Gaza meletus selepas serangan Hamas pada 7 Oktober 2023, ke atas Israel selatan, yang mengakibatkan kematian 1,208 orang, kebanyakannya orang awam, menurut pengiraan AFP berdasarkan data rasmi.

Kempen ketenteraan balas dendam Israel di Gaza telah membunuh sekurang-kurangnya 44,502 kematian, juga kebanyakan orang awam, menurut data daripada kementerian kesihatan Gaza dikendalikan Hamas yang dianggap PBB boleh dipercayai.

AN-AFP

GAZA — Itimad al-Qanou, a Palestinian mother struggling to feed her seven children, feels abandoned by everyone.

She sometimes feels that death is the best way to end her family’s suffering after a year of war that has turned Gaza into a bombed-out wasteland gripped by hunger.

“Let them drop a nuclear bomb and end it. We don’t want this life we’re living; we are dying slowly. Have mercy on us. Look at these children,” said the mother of three boys and four girls aged between eight and 18.

Children in their town of Deir al-Balah crowd at a charity site with empty pots, desperate for nourishment.
Aid workers distribute lentil soup from a pot. But it is never enough to stave off hunger and ease widespread panic.

Qanou says her family faces the Israeli airstrikes that have killed tens of thousands of people and flattened much of Gaza on the one side, and hunger on the other.

“No one is looking at us, no one cares about us. I ask the Arab countries to stand with us, at least to open the borders so food and supplies can reach our children,” she said.

“They are all liars; they are lying to the people. The United States is standing with Israel against us, they are all united against us.”

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid were allowed through the Erez crossing into northern Gaza on Monday.

The United States will decide this week on whether Israel has made progress toward improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and how Washington will respond.

FAMINE IMMINENT

Global food security experts said there is a “strong likelihood” that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants there.

In response to the famine warning, the head of the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, on Sunday published a list of Israel’s humanitarian efforts over the past six months. It detailed plans for supporting Gaza residents as winter approaches.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon last month told the United Nations Security Council more than one million tons of aid had been delivered during the past year and he accused Hamas of hijacking the assistance. Hamas denies such allegations.

Aside from the hunger, Gazans say they have no place to go that is safe after repeated evacuations left them living in tent encampments until they need to move again to escape more strikes.

Some say their plight is even worse than the 1948 “Nakba” or Catastrophe when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel.

“Conditions were better than what we face now. Now, we have no security, and no place,” said displaced Gazan Mohamed Abou Qaraa.

REUTERS

JERUSALEM — With virtually no food allowed into the northernmost part of Gaza for the past month, tens of thousands of Palestinians under Israeli siege are rationing their last lentils and flour to survive.

As bombardment pounds around them, some say they risk their lives by venturing out in search of cans of food in the rubble of destroyed homes.

Thousands have staggered out of the area, hungry and thin, into Gaza City, where they find the situation a little better.

One hospital reports seeing thousands of children suffering from malnutrition.

A nutritionist said she treated a pregnant woman wasting away at just 40 kilograms (88 pounds).

“We are being starved to force us to leave our homes,” said Mohammed Arqouq, whose family of eight is determined to stay in the north, weathering Israel’s siege. “We will die here in our homes.”

Medical workers warn that hunger is spiraling to dire proportions under a monthlong siege on northern Gaza by the Israeli military, which has been waging a fierce campaign since the beginning of October.

The military has severed the area with checkpoints, ordering residents to leave.

Many Palestinians fear Israel aims to depopulate the north long term.

On Friday, experts from a panel that monitors food security said famine is imminent in the north or may already be happening.

The growing desperation comes as the deadline approaches next week for a 30-day request the administration of President Joe Biden gave Israel: raise the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding.

The US says Israel must allow a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying food and other supplies. Israel has fallen far short.

In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, according to figures from Israel’s military agency overseeing aid entry, known as COGAT. In the first week of November, the average was 81 a day.

The UN puts the number even lower — 37 trucks daily since the beginning of October.

It says Israeli military operations and general lawlessness often prevent it from collecting supplies, leaving hundreds of truckloads stranded at the border.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Israel had made some progress by announcing the opening of a new crossing into central Gaza and approving new delivery routes.

But he said Israel must do more.

“It’s not just sufficient to open new roads if more humanitarian assistance isn’t going through those roads,” he said.

Israeli forces have been hammering the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabaliya refugee camp.

Witnesses report intense fighting between troops and militants.

A trickle of food has reached Gaza City.

However, as of Thursday, nothing entered the towns farther north for 30 days, even as an estimated 70,000 people remain there, said Louise Wateridge, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, speaking from Gaza City.

The government acknowledged in late October that it hadn’t allowed aid into Jabaliya because of military “operational constraints” in response to a petition by Israeli human rights groups.

On Saturday, COGAT said it allowed 11 trucks of food and supplies into Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya. But Alia Zaki, a spokeswoman for the WFP, said Israeli troops at a checkpoint forced the convoy to unload the food before it could reach shelters in Beit Hanoun.

It was not clear what then happened to the supplies.

Palestinians in the north described a desperate daily struggle to find food, water, and safety as strike-level buildings, sometimes killing whole families.

Arqouq said he goes out at night to search bombed-out buildings: “Sometimes you find a half-empty package of flour, canned food, and lentils.”

He said his family relies on help from others sheltering at a Jabaliya school, but their food is also running low.

“We are like dogs and cats searching for their food in the rubble,” said Um Saber, a widow.

She said she and her six children had to flee a school-turned-shelter in Beit Lahiya when Israel struck it.

Now they live in her father-in-law’s home, stretching meager supplies of lentils and pasta with 40 others, mostly women and children.

Ahmed Abu Awda, a 28-year-old father of three living with 25 relatives in a Jabaliya house, said they have a daily meal of lentils with bread, rationing to ensure children eat.

“Sometimes we don’t eat at all,” he said.

Lubna, a 38-year-old mother of five, left food behind when fleeing as strikes and drone fire pummeled the street in Jabaliya.
“We got out by a miracle,” she said from Beit Lahiya, where they’re staying.

Her husband scavenged flour from destroyed homes after Israeli forces withdrew around nearby Kamal Adwan hospital, she said. It’s moldy, she said, so they sift it first.
Her young daughter, Selina, is visibly gaunt and bony, Lubna said.

The offensive has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel seeks to empty northern Gaza and hold it long-term under a surrender-or-starve plan proposed by former generals.

Witnesses report Israeli troops going building to building, forcing people to leave toward Gaza City.

On Thursday, the Israeli military ordered new evacuations from several Gaza City neighborhoods, raising the possibility of a ground assault there.

The UN said some 14,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering there.

Food and supplies are also stretched for the several hundred thousand people in Gaza City.

Much of the city has been flattened by months of Israeli bombardment and shelling.

Dr. Rana Soboh, a nutrition specialist at Gaza City’s Patient Friend Benevolent Hospital, said she sees 350 cases of moderate to severe acute malnutrition daily, most from the north and also from Gaza City.

“The bone of their chest is showing, the eyes are protruding,” she said, and many have trouble concentrating.

“You repeat something several times so they can understand what we are saying.”

She cited a 32-year-old woman shedding weight in her third month of pregnancy — when they put her on the scale, she weighed only 40 kg.

“We are suffering, facing the ghost of famine hovering over Gaza,” Soboh said.

Even before the siege in the north, the Patient Friend hospital saw a flood of children suffering from malnutrition — more than 4,780 in September compared with 1,100 in July, said Dr. Ahmad Eskiek, who oversees hospital operations.

Soboh said staff get calls from Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya pleading for help: “What can we do? We have nothing.”

She had worked at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north but fled with her family to Gaza City. Now, they stay with 22 people in her uncle’s two-bedroom apartment.

On Thursday, she had had a morsel of bread for breakfast and later a meal of yellow lentils.

As winter rains near, new arrivals set up tents wherever they can.

Some 1,500 people are in a UN school already heavily damaged in strikes that “could collapse at any moment,” UNRWA spokesperson Wateridge said.

With toilets destroyed, people try to set aside a classroom corner to use, leaving waste “streaming down the walls of the school,” she said.

She said that others in Gaza City move into the rubble of buildings, draping tarps between layers of collapsed concrete.

“It’s like the carcass of a city,” she said.

AN-AP

GENEVA — The UN condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.

In a fresh report, the United Nations human rights office detailed the “horrific reality” that has unfolded for civilians in both Gaza and Israel since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.

It detailed a vast array of violations of international law, warning that many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide.”

“The report shows how civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.

It also pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”

“This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,” it continued.

“Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians.”

The report took on the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians figuring among the now nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

Due to a lack of access, UN agencies have since the beginning of the Gaza war relied on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.

This has sparked accusations from Israel of “parroting… Hamas’s propaganda messages” but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.

Youngest victim aged one day

The rights office said it had now managed to verify 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza, finding “close to 70 percent to be children and women.”

This, it said, indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.”

Of the verified fatalities, 3,588 of them were children and 2,036 were women, the report said.

“We do believe this is representative of the breakdown of total fatalities — similar proportion to what Gaza authorities have,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.

“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

“Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”

His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.

The main victims of Israeli strikes on residential buildings, it said, were children between the ages of five and nine, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman.

The report said that the large proportion of verified deaths in residential buildings could be partially explained by the rights office’s “verification methodology, which requires at least three independent sources.”

It also pointed to continuing “challenges in collecting and verifying information of killings in other circumstances.”

Gaza authorities have long said that women and children made up a significant majority of those killed in the war, but with lacking access for full UN verification, the issue has remained highly contentious.

Israel has insisted that its operations in Gaza are targeting militants.

But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely mirrored the demographic makeup of the population at large in Gaza, rather than the known demographic of combatants.

This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

AN-AFP

UNITED NATIONS — Myanmar’s conflict-torn Rakhine state is heading toward famine, the United Nations warned on Thursday, as the country’s civil war squeezes commerce and agricultural production.

“Rakhine’s economy has stopped functioning,” a new report from the UN Development Programme said, projecting “famine conditions by mid-2025” if current levels of food insecurity are left unaddressed.

Some two million people are at risk of starvation, it said.

Amid the fighting roiling the country, international and domestic trade routes leading into the already impoverished state have been closed, leaving the entrance of aid and goods severely restricted.

In addition to intense fighting, people in Rakhine are facing “absence of incomes, hyperinflation (and) significantly reduced domestic food production,” the UNDP report warned.

Myanmar has been racked by conflict between the military and various armed groups opposed to its rule since the ruling junta ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.

Clashes have rocked western Rakhine since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November 2023, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the junta’s 2021 coup.

With the farming economy in crisis, the UNDP predicted local food production would only cover 20 percent of the state’s needs by March or April.

Internal rice production is “plummeting,” it said, due to “a lack of seeds, fertilizers (and) severe weather conditions.”

Some 97,000 tons of rice are set to be cultivated in Rakhine this year, compared to 282,000 tons last year, according to the UNDP.

A “steep rise” in internally displaced people, meanwhile, means many fields are unable to be worked.

According to UN figures, Rakhine state recorded more than 500,000 displaced people in August, compared to just under 200,000 in October 2023.

Facing particular risk are populations including members of the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority and displaced people.

AN-AFP

CAIRO — Israeli forces stepped up bombardment across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and ordered more evacuations, creating a fresh wave of displacement from northern Gaza, to which Palestinians fear they will not be able to return.

Palestinian health officials said at least 10 people had been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school housing displaced families in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a Hamas command center embedded inside the compound that previously served as a UN-run school. It accused Hamas of exploiting civilian facilities for military purposes, which the group denies.

As Israeli tanks advanced in Beit Lahiya, a month into a new push on northern Gaza, dozens of families streamed out. They arrived at schools and other shelters in Gaza City with whatever belongings and food they could bring.

Drones hovered overhead broadcasting evacuation orders, which were also carried on social media outlets and on audio and text messages sent to residents’ phones, one displaced man said.

“After they displaced most or all of the people in Jabalia, now they are bombing everywhere, killing people on the roads and inside their houses to force everyone out,” the man told Reuters via a chat app, giving only one name, Ahmed, for fear of repercussions.

Palestinian officials say Israel is carrying out a plan of “ethnic cleansing”.

Residents say no aid has entered Jabalia, Beit Lahiya or Beit Hanoun since the operation began on Oct 5.

The Israeli military says it was forced to clear Jabalia and start clearing nearby Beit Lahiya on Wednesday in order to take on Hamas militants who it says have regrouped there.

It denied press reports that people evacuated from northern Gaza would not be allowed to return and said it was continuing to allow aid into northern Gaza and the Jabalia area, where it said it was engaged in “intense combat”.

“The statement attributed to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) in the past 24 hours, claiming that residents of northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes, is incorrect and does not reflect the IDF’s objectives and values,” it said.

It said 300 trucks of aid from the United Arab Emirates had arrived at the port of Ashdod and would be sent into Gaza via the Erez crossing in the north and Kerem Shalom in the south.

The army posted new evacuation orders to residents in neighbourhoods near and inside Gaza City, citing rocket launches from there by Palestinian militants. The new orders covered the northern part of the Shati camp and three other neighbourhoods in Gaza City.

PALESTINIANS NERVOUS AT TRUMP VICTORY

Palestinian medics said Israeli fire had killed six people in Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, as well as four people in Beit Lahiya and seven in Rafah, near the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.

Later on Thursday, Palestinian media outlets said dozens of people were killed and wounded in an Israeli air strike at a house belonging to the Mabhouh family in Jabalia. The health ministry didn’t confirm the death tally.

The Israeli military said it wasn’t aware of the incident, in response to a request for comment from Reuters.

The Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia had killed about 50 militants in the past 24 hours and had helped Palestinians to exit combat zones through organised routes.

Palestinian and U.N. officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, most of whose 2.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes.

Israel’s ground campaign to annihilate the Islamist movement, now more than a year old, has turned much of the Gaza Strip into a wasteland suffering a humanitarian catastrophe.

Many Palestinians are watching nervously to see if Republican former President Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election will strengthen U.S. support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump campaigned portraying himself as a more reliable ally for Israel than incumbent President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, health authorities in the enclave say.

The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Violence has also surged across the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.

In Tulkarm, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man during a raid, medics said, adding that an Israeli drone had wounded five other people, including a mother and her son, who had learning difficulties.

Hundreds of Palestinians – including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders – have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.

The Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its casualty figures, put the number at 775, including 167 children.

Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year.

REUTERS

GAZA/JERUSALEM — Rakyat Palestin di Gaza mahu Donald Trump, yang memenangi pilihan raya AS, menamatkan perang antara Israel dan Hamas yang telah memusnahkan wilayah mereka.

“Kami dipindahkan, dibunuh … tiada apa yang tinggal untuk kami, kami mahukan keamanan,” kata Mamdouh Al-Jadba, yang dipindahkan ke Kota Gaza dari Jabalia.

“Saya harap Trump menemui penyelesaian, kami memerlukan seseorang yang kuat seperti Trump untuk menamatkan perang dan menyelamatkan kami, cukuplah, Tuhan, ini sudah memadai,” kata lelaki berusia 60 tahun itu. “Saya telah berpindah tiga kali, rumah saya musnah, anak-anak saya kehilangan tempat tinggal di selatan … Tiada apa-apa lagi, Gaza sudah habis.”

Umm Ahmed Harb, dari kawasan Al-Shaaf di timur Kota Gaza, juga mengharapkan Trump untuk “berdiri di sisi kami” dan menamatkan penderitaan wilayah itu.

“In-sya-Allah perang akan berakhir, bukan demi kita tetapi demi anak-anak kita yang tidak bersalah, mereka syahid dan mati kelaparan,” katanya.

“Kami tidak boleh membeli apa-apa dengan harga tinggi (makanan). Kami di sini dalam ketakutan, ketakutan dan kematian.”

Bagi rakyat Palestin di Tebing Barat yang diduduki, di mana keganasan juga meningkat sejak Oktober tahun lalu, kemenangan Trump adalah sebab untuk takut masa depan.

“Trump tegas dalam beberapa keputusan, tetapi keputusan ini boleh melayani kepentingan Israel dari segi politik lebih daripada mereka melayani untuk Palestin,” kata Samir Abu Jundi, 60 tahun di bandar Ramallah.

Seorang lagi lelaki yang memperkenalkan dirinya hanya dengan nama samarannya, Abu Mohammed, berkata dia juga tidak melihat sebab untuk mempercayai kemenangan Trump akan memihak kepada rakyat Palestin, berkata “tiada apa yang akan berubah kecuali lebih banyak penurunan.”

Imad Fakhida, seorang pengetua sekolah di bandar utama Ramallah, Tebing Barat, berkata “kembalinya Trump ke tampuk kuasa … akan membawa kita ke neraka dan akan ada peningkatan yang lebih besar dan lebih sukar.”

Dia menambah: “Dia terkenal dengan sokongan penuh dan terbesarnya untuk Israel.”

Semasa kempennya untuk kembali ke Rumah Putih, Trump berkata Gaza, yang terletak di timur Mediterranean, mungkin “lebih baik daripada Monaco.”

Dia juga berkata dia akan bertindak balas dengan cara yang sama seperti yang dilakukan Israel selepas serangan 7 Oktober, sambil menggesa sekutu AS itu untuk “menyelesaikan tugas” kerana ia “kehilangan banyak sokongan.”

Secara lebih luas, dia telah berjanji untuk menamatkan krisis antarabangsa yang meruncing, malah mengatakan dia boleh “menghentikan peperangan dengan panggilan telefon.”

Di Gaza, kenyataan sebegitu memberi alasan untuk harapan. “Kami menjangkakan keamanan akan datang dan perang akan berakhir dengan Trump kerana dalam kempen pilihan rayanya dia berkata bahawa dia mahukan keamanan dan menyeru untuk menghentikan peperangan di Gaza dan Timur Tengah,” kata Ibrahim Alian, 33, dari Kota Gaza.

Seperti kebanyakan penduduk wilayah itu, Alian telah beberapa kali dipindahkan oleh pertempuran. Dia berkata dia juga kehilangan bapanya kerana perang.

“In-sya-Allah perang di Semenanjung Gaza akan berakhir dan keadaan akan berubah,” katanya.

Sementara itu, pekerja perbandaran merobohkan tujuh rumah di kejiranan Silwan Baitulmaqdis Timur yang diduduki pada Selasa, penduduk Palestin dan majlis perbandaran berkata, selepas mahkamah Israel menyatakan pembinaan mereka tidak sah.

AN-AFP

CAIRO — Mohammad Atteya has been separated from his family in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya for two weeks since being evacuated to hospital with a head wound.

Now he is torn by regret for leaving them in the epicentre of a massive Israeli military assault.

“They speak to me about their nights of horror, they tell me how every night they pray for their safety and they bid one another farewell. Hell is boiling there, I feel it inside my chest. I wish I hadn’t left,” he said.

While he waits in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, only a few kilometres from home but unable to return, 23 members of his extended family are sheltering in one house with barely enough to eat.

“They are eating what is left of some canned food, no fresh vegetables or fruit, no meat or chicken and no clean water,” he said.

In the month since Israel launched a renewed campaign in the border town of Beit Lahiya, one of the first targets of last year’s ground assault, multiple strikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians.

A hit on a residential building on Oct. 29 killed at least 93 people, health officials said. Israel’s military said it was targeting a spotter on the roof.

Thousands of Palestinians have been evacuated from Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia as the Israeli military roots out bands of Hamas fighters still operating from amongst the rubble.

The area has been cut off from Gaza City to the south, communication has been patchy, supplies of food dwindling and prices of whatever is available reaching exorbitant levels.

It is unclear how many civilians remain in northern Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service estimated 100,000 people remain in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, about half of those there at the start of the new Israeli campaign on Oct. 5.

The repeated bombardments have destroyed shelters and those remaining are huddled together in whatever structures still stand. “That is why every Israeli hit on a house leads to dozens of casualties,” said Atteya.

The Israeli military has disputed some of the casualty figures reported by Palestinian officials. Top United Nations officials say the situation in northern Gaza is “apocalyptic” with the entire population at imminent risk of death.

AMBUSHES AND GUNBATTLES

More than a year into the war in Gaza, the Israeli military believes that Hamas, whose fighters rampaged through communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, has been depleted but not yet extinguished.

“We expect this campaign to last an additional few weeks at least. There is a lot of work to do there in order to dismantle Hamas’ capabilities in this region,” an Israeli military official said last week.

The army says it has killed or captured hundreds of Hamas fighters during the northern Gaza operation, and at least 17 Israeli soldiers have been killed in gunbattles and ambushes in the wrecked streets or bombed-out buildings.

On Tuesday, Hamas’ armed wing said fighters in Jabalia had killed five Israeli soldiers at point blank range a day earlier, in one of several such announcements the group has made in past weeks. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Access for reporters is restricted and communications are erratic making independent verification of what is happening on the ground difficult.

Israel accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians. In a night-time raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few health facilities struggling to operate in the north, an Israeli military official said around 100 Hamas fighters were captured, some posing as medical staff, along with weapons and ammunition.

Hamas rejected the accusations. Eid Sabbah, the hospital’s director of nursing, described a terrifying raid in a voice note to Reuters. “The terrorising of civilians, the injured and children began as they (the Israeli army) started opening fire on the hospital,” he said.

In advance of attacks, the Israeli military sends out evacuation orders to civilians in leaflet drops and targeted telephone calls.

“Evacuation is the worst feeling ever,” Atteya said. “You are told to run for your life, you try to ask the voice (Israeli caller), how much time do I have, he says ‘run’. What can you take with you when you go running?”

A public servant, Atteya had dreams for his children, aged between 15 and 2, in Hamas-run Gaza before the war, which health officials in Gaza say has killed more than 43,300 Palestinians.

“I don’t say the Hamas government was ideal. They couldn’t improve economic conditions,” he said. “We had a life, a good one, not good enough but we didn’t have the (Israeli) occupation’s killing machine tearing us up everyday.”

The future is hard for Atteya to envisage. Many Palestinians believe the Israeli campaign is aimed at preparing the way for a return of Israeli settlers to post-war Gaza.

“They are making buffer zones, that’s why they are demolishing and bombing residential districts, and some of their fanatics want to return settlers in Gaza. This is how bad the situation is,” he said.

The Israeli military denies such plans and says the evacuation orders are meant to keep civilians out of harm’s way.

REUTERS

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — After over a year of war in Gaza, Palestinian fishermen gather along the coastline, desperately casting their nets in hopes of catching enough for their families amid widespread hunger.

Since Israel began a military onslaught in Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack, Israeli restrictions in the waters off the enclave have made life almost impossible for fishermen, who no longer sail out to sea and instead must stay by the shore.

In Khan Younis, Ibrahim Ghurab, 71, and Waseem Al Masry, 24, fish for sardines from the shoreline in front of a encampment of tents and makeshift shelters for those displaced by the war.

“Life is difficult,” Ghurab said. “One tries to secure food. There is no aid, we don’t receive anything anymore. In the beginning there was some (humanitarian) aid, very little, but now there is no more.”

Fishermen like Ghurab and Al Masry struggle daily to bring in even a modest catch to feed their families. There is rarely any fish left over from a daily haul to be sold to others.

Fishing was an important part of daily life in Gaza before the war, helping people eke out a living by selling their daily hauls in the market and feed the population.

But scant aid is reaching Gaza amid Israeli restrictions and frequent fighting, and many people have no income. The price of simple goods are largely out of reach for most.

“We have to come here and risk our lives,” Al Masry said, describing shootings by the Israeli military from the sea that he accused of targeting fisherman on the beach in Khan Younis.

Ghurab similarly said that Israeli military boats had fired upon fisherman at Khan Younis.

The Israeli military did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the claims the military had shot at fishermen.

Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas for the Islamist militant group’s deadly, cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023 has devastated densely populated Gaza and displaced most of the 2.3 million population.

REUTERS

GENEVA — Local staff and volunteers — the backbone of aid agencies providing help in the world’s worst conflicts — are dying in ever greater numbers. Yet few seem to notice, the head of the Red Cross said in an interview on Monday.

“Almost 95 percent of the humanitarians who are killed are actually the local staff and local volunteers,” Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

But while the killing of an international staff member of large humanitarian organizations can spark global outrage, there is often little attention paid when a local aid worker suffers the same fate.

“Unfortunately, when a local staffer or volunteer gets killed, it gets hardly any attention,” Chapagain said.

The issue is of particular concern this year, one of the deadliest for humanitarians, with aid worker deaths soaring as conflicts rage in the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine and Myanmar, among others.

“It has been really the worst year for humanitarian actors, particularly the ones from the local communities,” Chapagain said.

Since the beginning of this year alone, 30 of the network’s volunteers have been killed worldwide, while within the UN system, “they have lost hundreds,” he said.

He decried a clear “erosion” in the respect for international humanitarian law and the principles requiring humanitarians to be protected.

Growing disregard for international law in conflict was significantly “increasing the situation of extreme exposures (and) risk for our humanitarian workers, (with) volunteers getting shot, ambulances getting attacked.”

Respect for the Red Cross Red Crescent emblem, and for people wearing the network’s signatory red vest has “eroded significantly,” he warned.

Asked if he believed humanitarians were being deliberately targeted, he said: “Definitely. Unfortunately, the numbers speak for themselves.”

Chapagain said the IFRC was “seriously, seriously concerned” about the growing dangers facing humanitarians and warned that more people could die if humanitarian workers are not protected.

His IFRC will along with the International Committee of the Red Cross kick off their quadrennial international conference in Geneva on Monday, which is due to focus heavily on the need to boost compliance with international humanitarian law.

It will include participants from the 191 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, whose staff and volunteers are frequently the ones on the frontlines in conflicts and in the communities under attack.

Chapagain said his team estimated that when “a local gets harmed compared to an international who gets harmed, the attention is one to 500 ratio.”

“Any death is appalling, and we cannot accept that. But what we would also like to see is the same outrage when any humanitarians lose their life.”

“This is something super, super important, because globally… most of the people who are on the frontline providing … assistance are the people from the local communities,” he said.

“Their lives should be as sacred as anyone else’s.”

AN-AFP, Oct 28, 2024

Food supplies to Gaza have fallen sharply in recent weeks because Israeli authorities have introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses, people involved in getting goods to the war-torn territory told Reuters.

The new customs rule applies to truck convoys chartered by the United Nations to take aid from Jordan to Gaza via Israel, seven people familiar with the matter said. Under the rule, individuals from relief organizations sending aid must complete a form providing passport details, and accept liability for any false information on a shipment, the people said.

They said relief agencies are disputing that requirement, which was announced mid-August, because they fear signing the form could expose staff to legal problems if aid fell into the hands of Hamas or other enemies of Israel.

As a result, shipments have not been getting through the Jordan route — a key channel in Gaza supplies — for two weeks. The dispute has not affected shipments via Cyprus and Egypt, the sources said.

In a parallel move, Israeli authorities have restricted commercial food shipments to Gaza amid concerns that Hamas was benefiting from that trade, the people familiar with the matter and industry sources said.

U.N. and Israeli government data show that in September, deliveries of food and aid sank to their lowest in seven months.
Israeli’s military humanitarian unit, Cogat, which oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, confirmed that no U.N.-chartered convoy has moved from Jordan to Gaza since Sept. 19, but a spokesperson said Israel was not blocking goods.

The spokesperson referred questions about the form dispute to Israel’s Ministry of Economy. A ministry spokesperson did not answer Reuters’ questions. A spokesperson for the U.N.’s emergency-response arm, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), declined to comment. Cogat did not address specific questions about commercial shipments.

The twin restrictions, which have not been previously reported, have reignited concerns among aid workers that pervasive food insecurity will worsen for the 2.3 million Gazans trapped in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“Lack of food is some of the worst it’s been during the war, these past weeks especially,” Nour al-Amassi, a doctor who works in southern Gaza, told Reuters by phone.

“We thought we’d been able to get a hold on it but it’s got worse. My clinic treats 50 children a day for various issues, injuries and illness. On average 15 of those are malnourished.”

The number of trucks carrying food and other goods to Gaza fell to around 130 per day on average in September, according to Cogat statistics. That is below about 150 recorded since the beginning of the war, and far off the 600 trucks a day that the U.S. Agency for International Development says are required to address the threat of famine in wartime.

Food insecurity has been one of most fraught issues of the war that began after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year. In May, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying they suspected Israeli authorities had used “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

Israeli authorities have denied this, saying they facilitate food deliveries to Gaza despite challenging conditions. In September, they filed two official challenges to the ICC, contesting the legality of the prosecutor’s request and contesting the court’s jurisdiction.

CHAOTIC ROUTES

During the war, aid to Gaza has been delivered through several different routes that have come in and out of operation, according to U.N. and Israeli officials.

The main route before the war was to southern Gaza via Egypt, after a detour for Israeli scans. Since Israel launched a military assault on the town of Rafah in May, U.N. aid coming that way has slumped because insecurity made it increasingly difficult to organize, U.N. relief agencies have said.

In May, a U.S.-led effort launched a pier to deliver humanitarian aid by boat, but the jetty was damaged by storms and abandoned in July. Some shipments that were earmarked for the pier at the time have yet to reach Gaza even after they were re-routed through the Israeli port of Ashdod, aid workers said.

Israel opened the Jordan route in December, allowing trucks to move directly from the Hashemite Kingdom to Gaza. U.N. and NGO aid workers say the Jordan corridor became the most reliable until the recent suspension.

Transportation via the route was helped after Israeli authorities agreed with Jordan to simplify customs procedures for humanitarian aid transported by U.N. agencies.

But in mid-August, Cogat informed U.N. relief agencies that this fast track had been revoked, the people familiar with the matter said. That generates additional costs and delays.

The new customs form is an extra headache, the sources said, adding the U.N. side had proposed an alternative and was hopeful Israel would accept it.

FALL IN COMMERCIAL IMPORTS

Compounding concerns about hunger in Gaza, the sources pointed to a recent drop in commercial supplies.

Commercial imports by Gaza-based traders made up the majority of the 500 trucks that entered the territory daily before the war.

Israel halted most of these supplies when war broke out, but allowed food imports to resume from Israeli-controlled territory in May, helping to augment the supply of fresh, nutritious products not contained in aid shipments, four Gazan traders and four U.N. officials said.

But commercial shipments have fallen from a daily average of 140 trucks in July to 80 in September, according to Cogat statistics. In the last two weeks of September, Gaza-based traders said the daily average fell even further, to a low of 45 trucks.

Israeli authorities actively promoted commercial supply since May, saying in June it was a more efficient alternative to U.N. aid.

But they changed tack after realizing that Hamas managed to levy taxes on some commercial shipments and seize some of the food, people familiar with the matter said.

REUTERS, Oct 2, 2024

MUMBAI/HANOI — Harga beras global jatuh pada Isnin selepas India, pengeksport bijirin No.1 dunia, memberi kebenaran untuk eksport disambung semula, meningkatkan bekalan global dan membantu pembeli Asia dan Afrika yang miskin memperoleh bekalan yang lebih berpatutan, kata pengeksport.

India pada Sabtu membenarkan eksport beras putih bukan basmati. Itu berlaku sehari selepas New Delhi mengurangkan duti eksport ke atas beras masak kepada 10%, disokong oleh tanaman baharu dalam masa terdekat dan inventori yang lebih tinggi di gudang negara.

“Pembekal dari Thailand, Vietnam dan Pakistan bertindak balas terhadap langkah India dengan menurunkan harga eksport mereka,” kata Himanshu Agarwal, pengarah eksekutif di Satyam Balajee, pengeksport beras terkemuka.

“Semua orang cuba untuk kekal berdaya saing untuk memegang tempat mereka dalam pasaran.”

Harga beras global melonjak ke paras tertinggi dalam tempoh lebih 15 tahun berikutan keputusan India tahun lalu untuk mengharamkan eksport beras putih dan mengenakan duti 20% ke atas eksport beras masak.

Sekatan eksport tahun lepas yang dikenakan oleh India membenarkan pembekal pesaing seperti Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan dan Myanmar meningkatkan bahagian pasaran mereka dan menguasai harga yang lebih tinggi dalam pasaran global.

Pada Isnin, varieti masak patah 5% India disebut harga $500-$510 setiap tan metrik, turun daripada $530-$536 minggu lepas. Beras putih pecah 5% India ditawarkan sekitar $490.

Pengeksport di Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand dan Myanmar turut menurunkan harga sekurang-kurangnya $10 setan pada Isnin, kata peniaga.

Filipina, Nigeria, Iraq, Senegal, Indonesia dan Malaysia adalah antara pengimport utama beras Asia.

Pembeli dan penjual sedang menilai potensi kesan peningkatan bekalan beras India dan sewajarnya harga akan diselesaikan minggu ini, kata Nitin Gupta, naib presiden kanan Olam Agri India.

India menyumbang lebih daripada 40% daripada eksport beras dunia pada 2022, satu rekod 22.2 juta tan metrik daripada jumlah keseluruhan 55.4 juta tan metrik perdagangan global.

Harga beras Thai disebut pada $540-$550 pada Isnin, turun daripada $550-560 setan minggu lalu.

Harga eksport beras Thailand boleh menurun berikutan peningkatan bekalan dalam pasaran, tetapi tahap penurunan itu bergantung kepada beberapa faktor, termasuk nilai mata wang Thailand yang semakin meningkat, kata Chukiat Opaswong, presiden kehormat Persatuan Pengeksport Beras Thai.

Harga beras telah mula membetulkan, walaupun di Vietnam, tetapi peniaga memberi amaran bahawa kesan penuh bekalan India masih belum dapat dilihat.

“Pengeksport (Vietnam) harus bertenang dan mengelak daripada mengurangkan harga untuk mendapatkan kontrak,” kata Truong Tan Tai, ketua eksekutif Vinarice Co, pengeksport beras.

REUTERS

1 peratus orang terkaya telah mengumpul kekayaan baharu sebanyak $42 trilion sepanjang dekad lalu, hampir 34 kali ganda daripada keseluruhan 50 peratus penduduk terbawah dunia, menurut badan amal Oxfam International.

Purata kekayaan setiap orang dalam 1 peratus teratas meningkat hampir $400,000 dalam bentuk sebenar sepanjang dekad lalu berbanding hanya $335 – peningkatan bersamaan kurang daripada sembilan sen sehari – untuk seseorang di bahagian bawah, kajian itu mendapati.

Lima orang terkaya di dunia ialah: Elon Musk dengan nilai bersih $243 bilion, Jeff Bezos ($205 bilion), Bernard Arnault ($188 bilion), Mark Zuckerberg ($166 bilion) dan Bill Gates ($156 bilion), menurut Indeks Jutawan Bloomberg.

“Ketidaksamaan telah mencapai tahap tidak senonoh, dan sehingga kini kerajaan gagal melindungi manusia dan planet daripada kesan malapetakanya,” kata Max Lawson, ketua dasar ketidaksamaan Oxfam International.

“Satu peratus terkaya terus mengisi poket mereka manakala selebihnya dibiarkan untuk mencari sisa.

“Momentum untuk meningkatkan cukai ke atas golongan kaya tidak dapat dinafikan, dan minggu ini merupakan ujian litmus sebenar yang pertama untuk kerajaan G20. Adakah mereka mempunyai kemahuan politik untuk mencapai standard global yang mengutamakan keperluan ramai daripada ketamakan segelintir elit?”

Bilangan bilionair meningkat sebanyak 7 peratus secara global tahun lalu kepada 2,544 daripada 2,376, manakala kekayaan kolektif mereka pulih sebanyak 9 peratus kepada $12 trilion daripada $11 trilion, menurut laporan oleh kumpulan perbankan Switzerland UBS.

Lima orang terkaya di dunia telah menggandakan kekayaan kolektif mereka kepada $869 bilion, daripada $405 bilion, sejak 2020, ketika hampir lima bilion orang di seluruh dunia – 60 peratus daripada populasi dunia – telah bertambah miskin, menurut laporan Januari oleh Oxfam.

Jika setiap lima lelaki terkaya di planet ini membelanjakan $1 juta setiap hari, mereka akan mengambil masa 476 tahun untuk menghabiskan kekayaan gabungan mereka, kata Oxfam dalam laporan tahunan Inequality Inc, yang dikeluarkan semasa mesyuarat Forum Ekonomi Dunia di Davos.

Pada kadar semasa, ia akan mengambil masa 230 tahun untuk menamatkan kemiskinan – tetapi dunia mungkin mempunyai trilioner pertama dalam masa 10 tahun, kata Oxfam pada masa itu.

Minggu ini, 20 ketua kewangan Kumpulan berjanji untuk meneruskan “dialog mengenai cukai yang adil dan progresif, termasuk individu yang mempunyai nilai bersih sangat tinggi”, merujuk kepada cukai minimum 2 peratus ke atas bilionair yang Presiden Brazil Luiz da Silva buat inti dari tahun negaranya di puncak kumpulan, selepas membahaskan idea itu minggu ini di Rio de Janeiro.

Idea itu telah memecahkan G20 dan Kumpulan 7 sejak ia pada mulanya diumumkan pada Februari, memenangi sokongan daripada negara-negara seperti Perancis dan Afrika Selatan manakala AS dan lain-lain menolaknya.

Brazil telah mendorong perbincangan mengenai cadangan untuk mengenakan cukai kekayaan sebanyak 2 peratus ke atas kekayaan lebih $1 bilion, meningkatkan anggaran pendapatan sehingga $250 bilion setiap tahun daripada 3,000 individu.

Oxfam telah mengira bahawa kurang daripada lapan sen dalam setiap dolar yang diperoleh dalam hasil cukai di negara G20 kini datang daripada cukai ke atas kekayaan.

Bahagian pendapatan 1 peratus teratas berpendapatan di negara G20 telah meningkat sebanyak 45 peratus dalam tempoh empat dekad, manakala kadar cukai tertinggi ke atas pendapatan mereka dipotong kira-kira satu pertiga, kajian Oxfam mendapati.

“Secara global, bilionair telah membayar kadar cukai bersamaan kurang daripada 0.5 peratus daripada kekayaan mereka,” menurut Oxfam.

“Kekayaan mereka telah meningkat dengan purata tahunan sebanyak 7.1 peratus dalam tempoh empat dekad lalu, dan cukai kekayaan bersih tahunan sekurang-kurangnya 8 peratus akan diperlukan untuk mengurangkan kekayaan melampau jutawan. Negara G20 adalah rumah kepada hampir empat daripada lima jutawan dunia.”

Pengisytiharan bersama pertama kali oleh para pemimpin kewangan G20 yang berikrar untuk bekerjasama dalam mengenakan cukai yang berkesan kepada kekayaan terbesar dunia pada Jumaat menjelaskan percanggahan pendapat yang lebih mendalam tentang forum yang betul untuk memajukan agenda.

“Kami akan berusaha untuk melibatkan diri secara kerjasama untuk memastikan individu yang mempunyai nilai bersih sangat tinggi dikenakan cukai dengan berkesan,” kata draf akhir deklarasi menteri G20 di Rio de Janeiro, lapor Reuters.

Walau bagaimanapun, garis kesilapan telah timbul sama ada untuk melakukan itu dalam perbincangan di Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu atau melalui Pertubuhan Kerjasama Ekonomi dan Pembangunan (OECD), sekumpulan negara demokrasi yang lebih kaya yang diasaskan oleh sekutu AS dan Eropah.

“Kami menyeru pemimpin G20 supaya sejajar dengan kemajuan yang dicapai di PBB dan mewujudkan proses yang benar-benar demokratik untuk menetapkan piawaian global untuk mengenakan cukai kepada golongan yang sangat kaya,” kata ketua dasar cukai Oxfam International, Susana Ruiz.

“Mempercayakan tugas ini kepada OECD – kelab yang kebanyakannya negara kaya – tidak akan cukup baik,” tambahnya.

THE NATIONAL

GAZA — Jentolak membajak timbunan sampah, tetapi penduduk yang marah mendapat sedikit lega apabila anak-anak mereka menyaring sampah di jalan-jalan Gaza dalam krisis sanitasi yang semakin meningkat yang menambah kesengsaraan perang.

“Kami tidak boleh tidur, kami tidak boleh makan, kami tidak boleh minum, bau itu membunuh kami,” kata Ahmed Shaloula, salah seorang daripada ramai penduduk Palestin yang terlantar, yang berasal dari Kota Gaza dan tinggal di Khan Younis.

Rakyat Palestin berdepan satu demi satu krisis sejak konflik meletus antara Israel dan kumpulan militan Palestin Hamas pada Oktober.

Selain daripada serangan udara Israel, tembakan dan serangan darat, rakyat Palestin lumpuh akibat kekurangan makanan, bahan api, air, ubat-ubatan dan hospital yang berfungsi.

Sampah bertimbun di enklaf miskin itu — salah satu tempat paling padat penduduk di dunia — yang kebanyakannya telah menjadi runtuhan.

Pada waktu malam, orang ramai berjaga melawan nyamuk dan ada yang dijangkiti penyakit seperti kudis, kata Shaloula.

“Kami menyeru pihak perbandaran Khan Younis untuk mengeluarkan sisa.”

Tetapi seruan untuk perkhidmatan kerajaan adalah angan-angan di Gaza selepas sembilan bulan perang, yang tercetus apabila Hamas menyerang Israel, membunuh 1,200 orang dan menjadikan kira-kira 250 orang tebusan, menurut pengiraan Israel.

Israel bertindak balas dengan serangan yang telah membunuh lebih 38,000 orang, menurut pihak berkuasa kesihatan Gaza.

Khan Younis ialah bandar kedua terbesar di Gaza, menempatkan 2.3 juta orang.

Kerosakan akibat perang dan kekurangan bahan api telah menimbulkan masalah sisa, kata Omar Matar, pegawai yang bertanggungjawab bagi penyingkiran sisa pepejal di Perbandaran Khan Younis.

“Timbunan sampah menyebabkan bau busuk, penyebaran serangga dan tikus selain kebocoran cecair daripada sisa ke takungan air bawah tanah,” katanya.

Takungan itu merupakan sumber utama air minuman bagi penduduk Khan Younis. Air bersih tidak tersedia di kebanyakan (kawasan di) Gaza.

“Tanah pembuangan ini tidak direka bentuk dengan betul bagi menghentikan kebocoran cecair sisa ke dalam air bawah tanah,” kata Matar.

REUTERS, 16 Julai 2024

MAIMANA — Penduduk daerah berbeza di utara wilayah Faryab berkata sekolah di kawasan mereka kekurangan guru, satu isu yang diakui oleh pegawai pendidikan tempatan.

Penduduk berkata satu atau maksimum dua guru mengendalikan sebuah sekolah yang terdiri daripada 250 hingga 300 pelajar, yang mereka istilahkan sebagai “ketidakadilan yang besar”.

Jalaluddin Pahlawan, ketua majlis kampung Tort Atta di daerah Dawlatabad, berkata sekolah rendah perempuan di sini telah ditubuhkan 13 tahun lalu dan sejak itu seorang guru mengajar lebih 300 pelajar.

Beliau berkata: “Selain kekurangan guru di sekolah ini, ia juga kekurangan bangunan dan pelajar belajar di rumah orang atau di bawah khemah. Nasib baik, pembinaan bangunan bermula minggu lepas, tetapi yang lebih penting, kami memerlukan lebih ramai guru.”

Mullah Saifullah, ketua pentadbiran daerah Dawlatabad, berkata bukan sahaja hal ehwal pendidikan dan pentadbiran sekolah Tort Atta dikendalikan oleh seorang guru, tetapi terdapat sekolah lain di daerah itu di mana 250 hingga 300 pelajar diajar oleh seorang guru. Jabatan Pendidikan seharusnya memberi perhatian serius terhadap kekurangan jawatan guru, katanya.

Sementara itu, Pengarah Pendidikan Daerah Abdul Qadir Basharat berkata, Sekolah Rendah Dawlat Mohammad Azadi yang mempunyai lebih 300 pelajar dikendalikan oleh seorang guru.

Sekolah itu ditubuhkan lapan tahun lalu dan telah diubah suai dan dirasmikan dua minggu lalu, tetapi tiada pengawal untuk menjaga sekolah itu.

Bibi Qudrat, seorang guru di Tort Atta Girls’ School, berkata beliau telah melaksanakan tanggungjawab berat hal ehwal pendidikan dan pentadbiran untuk kira-kira 250 pelajar sejak 2014 hingga tahun lepas.

Beliau berkata, guru sukarelawan hanya hadir pada waktu kelas, tetapi dia bertanggungjawab untuk kerja-kerja rasmi dan pentadbiran, mengatur keputusan dan menjaga peralatan sekolah dan dokumen tanpa sebarang keistimewaan atau lebih masa.

Khal Mohammad, saudara Bibi Qudrat, berkata dia bekerjasama dengan saudara perempuannya dalam mengatur dokumen pentadbiran sekolah dan telah mengetepikan ruang tamu untuk urusan sekolah bagi memastikan pendidikan anak-anak diurus dengan baik.

Azizullah Zahid, seorang guru di Sekolah Rendah Makhdoom Gholi di daerah Qarmoqol, berkata sekolah itu mempunyai lapan bilik darjah dan lebih 500 pelajar.

“Walaupun tiada keistimewaan tambahan kecuali gaji, saya cuba sebagai pengetua, guru, penghantar dan pekerja sekolah, supaya anak penduduk tidak ketandusan ilmu, tetapi saya tidak berpuas hati dengan pengetahuan pelajar,” katanya.

Menurutnya, pelajar diajar 12 mata pelajaran selama 34 jam seminggu dan ini memerlukan sekurang-kurangnya sembilan guru, tetapi di beberapa kawasan hanya seorang guru mengajar mata pelajaran ini kepada 150 pelajar.

Awaz Gildi, seorang guru di Sekolah Rendah Qarmaqol, berkata 420 pelajar diajar dalam sembilan kelas oleh seorang guru rasmi dan lima sukarelawan, tetapi tahap akademik pelajar adalah sifar.

“Guru sukarela mempunyai tanggungjawab yang kurang, mereka tidak hadir pada hari panas dan sejuk, kebanyakan hari tiga hingga empat bilik darjah tanpa guru dan pelajar pulang ke rumah tanpa belajar pelajaran mereka.”

Najmuddin, bapa kepada seorang pelajar, berkata anaknya berada di gred lima di sekolah Qarmaqol, tetapi dia tidak dapat membetulkan huruf yang mudah.

Beliau menggesa kerajaan menambah baik melantik guru di sekolah kawasan mereka dan meningkatkan kualiti pendidikan.

Sementara itu, pengarah jabatan pendidikan, Maulvi Mohammad Tahir Javad, mengakui kepada Pajhwok Afghan News bahawa 44 sekolah rendah dan menengah di wilayah itu diuruskan oleh seorang atau dua guru dan jabatan pendidikan mengalami kekurangan 1,345 guru.

Jawad, yang baru dilantik sebagai ketua jabatan pendidikan, berkata mereka mewarisi isu kekurangan guru daripada kerajaan terdahulu.

Beliau berkata mereka cuba menyelesaikan cabaran yang melanda 44 sekolah rendah dan menengah di semua daerah dengan mengambil guru.

Beliau juga pernah membangkitkan isu kekurangan 1,345 guru dengan kepimpinan Kementerian Pendidikan dan berharap masalah ini dapat diselesaikan.

Menurut Jabatan Pendidikan Faryab, terdapat lebih 500 sekolah di wilayah itu, di mana 155 memerlukan pembinaan dan 200 lagi perlu dibaiki.

PAJHWOK, 15 JULAI 2024

BANDARAYA BAMYAN — Orang Syiah yang berkabung mesti menderma darah ke hospital dan bukannya mencederakan diri sendiri, kata sebilangan ulama Syiah pada Isnin.

Seorang alim Syiah dan pengikut parti Muhaqiq, Nimatullah Sadiqi, memberitahu Pajhwok Afghan News, dari sudut Islam, mencederakan diri sendiri atau orang lain adalah tidak Islamik dan dianggap sebagai perbuatan tidak wajar, maka jangan ada orang yang menumpahkan darahnya, yang juga haram dalam Islam.”

“Islam adalah agama yang penuh kasih sayang, persaudaraan dan kebajikan, maka Imam Hussain memberontak terhadap keganasan, penindasan dan memastikan semua hak asasi manusia dalam masyarakat.”

Sadiqi percaya orang Syiah yang berkabung harus menderma darah kepada pesakit yang memerlukan di pusat kesihatan dan bukannya memukul diri mereka dengan rantai dan pedang.

Beliau menggesa orang Syiah yang berkabung untuk membantu orang lain seperti anak yatim dan menyelesaikan masalah orang ramai, sesuatu yang ditegaskan oleh Islam.

“Orang-orang yang berkabung hendaklah mengetahui bahawa mencederakan diri sendiri dan menyakiti orang lain dan keganasan tidak ada tempat dalam Islam, maka orang-orang yang beriman hendaklah menjauhi perbuatan tersebut”.

Mengenai pengorbanan besar Imam Hussain, ulama Hujjatul Islam Ahmad Salehi berkata, Imam Hussain mahu menamatkan penindasan, rasuah dan perbuatan tidak senonoh daripada masyarakat.

“Apa-apa jenis tindakan ekstremis akan meningkatkan jurang antara rakyat, membenci diri tidak ada kaitan dengan revolusi Karbala”.

Bagi mengenang para syuhada Karbala, beliau meminta lebih banyak aktiviti kebajikan seperti pembinaan sekolah, klinik, jambatan, mewujudkan peluang pendidikan, mengurangkan kemiskinan dan menderma darah kepada pesakit daripada menumpahkan darah sendiri.

Sebilangan orang yang berkabung berkata mereka melakukan pembelaan diri untuk menyatakan cinta mereka dengan para syuhada Karbala.

Nadir, seorang penduduk kota Bamyan, berkata memukul diri sendiri dengan pisau untuk menyatakan cinta adalah tidak betul dan mereka harus berkabung untuk menggembirakan para syuhada Karbala dan Allah Yang Maha Kuasa.

Dia berkata, dia telah menyaksikan ramai yang memukul diri sendiri jatuh pengsan akibat kehilangan darah yang banyak, yang berbahaya.

“Lebih baik menderma darah kepada pesakit yang memerlukannya daripada menumpahkan darah di atas tanah.”

Abdul Sattar, seorang lagi yang berkabung, berkata menyebat diri sendiri dengan pisau adalah kurang diamalkan semasa perarakan Muharram.

Beliau percaya jika golongan muda disedarkan tentang bahaya yang berkaitan dengan pembelaan diri, mereka tidak akan mengulanginya lagi.

Sebilangan orang lain dan alim ulama meminta orang ramai mengelak daripada berjalan tanpa hala tuju di jalan raya dan memainkan bunyi yang kuat sehingga larut malam.

Gabenor Maulvi Abdullah Sarhadi berkata langkah keselamatan yang terperinci telah dilaksanakan di sekitar masjid dan tempat lain pada hari Muharram bagi mengelakkan sebarang kejadian tidak diingini.

PAJHWOK, 15 JULAI 2024