Charlotte Slente, Setiausaha Agung Majlis Pelarian Denmark.
GENEVA – Kira-kira 6.7 juta orang tambahan dijangka akan dipindahkan di seluruh dunia menjelang akhir tahun depan, kata Majlis Pelarian Denmark pada Jumaat, sama seperti pemotongan bantuan daripada penderma utama berkuat kuasa.
Agensi pelarian PBB berkata tahun lalu bahawa jumlah orang yang dipindahkan secara paksa di seluruh dunia berjumlah lebih 117 juta orang dan memberi amaran bahawa jumlah itu boleh meningkat.
“Ini bukan statistik kaku. Ini adalah keluarga yang terpaksa meninggalkan rumah mereka, tidak membawa apa-apa, dan mencari air, makanan, dan tempat tinggal,” kata Charlotte Slente, setiausaha agung Majlis Pelarian Denmark dalam satu kenyataan.
Dua puluh tujuh negara menyumbang hampir satu pertiga daripada semua pemindahan global.
Unjuran ini berdasarkan model dipacu AI yang meramalkan arah aliran pemindahan dengan menganalisis lebih 100 penunjuk, termasuk keselamatan, politik dan ekonomi di negara tersebut.
Ia meramalkan bahawa hampir satu pertiga daripada pemindahan baharu akan datang dari Sudan, yang sudah pun menjadi krisis pelarian terburuk di dunia selepas hampir dua tahun perang.
“Kebuluran telah digunakan sebagai senjata perang, mendorong Sudan daripada satu bencana kebuluran kepada yang lain,” kata laporan itu.
1.4 juta lagi orang dijangka dipindahkan secara paksa dari Myanmar, kata laporan itu.
AS memotong berbilion dolar dalam program bantuan asing di seluruh dunia sebagai sebahagian daripada baik pulih perbelanjaan yang ketara oleh penderma bantuan terbesar dunia itu.
Majlis Pelarian Denmark adalah salah satu kumpulan bantuan yang terjejas dan telah mempunyai lebih daripada 20 penamatan kontrak. Pemotongan dari Washington dan penderma utama lain sudah memberi kesan kepada pelarian.
Agensi pelarian PBB berkata bahawa kekurangan pembiayaan telah menutup program untuk melindungi remaja perempuan daripada perkahwinan kanak-kanak di Sudan Selatan dan rumah selamat untuk wanita pelarian yang berisiko dibunuh di Ethiopia.
“Berjuta-juta orang menghadapi kebuluran dan perpindahan, dan sama seperti mereka amat memerlukan kita, negara-negara kaya mengurangkan bantuan. Ia adalah pengkhianatan kepada mereka yang paling terdedah,” kata Slente.
Dia mengecam keputusan untuk membatalkan 83 peratus program bantuan kemanusiaan USAID di seluruh dunia.
Slente berkata: “Kami berada di tengah-tengah ‘ribut sempurna’ global: permindahan rekod, keperluan yang melonjak dan pemotongan pembiayaan yang dahsyat.”
Dia berkata penderma utama “meninggalkan tugas mereka, menyebabkan berjuta-juta menderita. Ini lebih daripada krisis. Ia adalah kegagalan moral.”
Charlotte Slente, Secretary-general of Danish Refugee Council.
GENEVA – Some 6.7 million additional people are expected to be newly displaced worldwide by the end of next year, the Danish Refugee Council said on Friday, just as aid cuts from key donors take effect.
The UN refugee agency said last year that the number of forcibly displaced people around the globe stood at over 117 million people and warned that number could rise.
“These are not cold statistics. These are families forced to flee their homes, carrying next to nothing, and searching for water, food, and shelter,” said Charlotte Slente, secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council in a statement.
Twenty-seven countries account for nearly a third of all global displacements.
The projection is based on an AI-driven model that predicts displacement trends by analyzing over 100 indicators, including security, politics, and economics in those countries.
It forecasts that nearly a third of new displacements will be from Sudan, which is already the world’s worst refugee crisis after almost two years of war.
“Starvation has been used as a weapon of war, pushing Sudan from one catastrophic famine to another,” the report said.
Another 1.4 million people are expected to be forcibly displaced from Myanmar, the report said.
The US is cutting billions of dollars in foreign aid programs globally as part of a significant spending overhaul by the world’s biggest aid donor.
The Danish Refugee Council is one of the aid groups hit and has had more than 20 contract terminations. Cuts from Washington and other key donors are already impacting refugees.
The UN refugee agency said that funding shortages had shuttered programs to protect adolescent girls from child marriage in South Sudan and a safe house for displaced women in danger of being killed in Ethiopia.
“Millions are facing starvation and displacement, and just as they need us most, wealthy nations are slashing aid. It’s a betrayal of the most vulnerable,” said Slente.
She blasted the decision to cancel 83 percent of USAID’s humanitarian aid programs around the world.
Slente said: “We’re in the middle of a global ‘perfect storm’: record displacement, surging needs, and devastating funding cuts.”
She said major donors “are abandoning their duty, leaving millions to suffer. This is more than a crisis. It is a moral failure.”
Rawya Tamboura and her family, left, are among nearly 600,000 Palestinians who flooded back into northern Gaza after a ceasefire was implemented. (AP)
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip – When night falls over northern Gaza, much of the cityscape of collapsed buildings and piled wreckage turns pitch black.
Living inside the ruins of their home, Rawya Tamboura’s young sons get afraid of the dark, so she turns on a flashlight and her phone’s light to comfort them, for as long as the batteries last. Displaced for most of the 16-month-long war, Tamboura is back in her house. But it is still a frustrating shell of a life, she says: There is no running water, electricity, heat or services, and no tools to clear the rubble around them.
Nearly 600,000 Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza under the now month-old ceasefire in Gaza, according to the United Nations. After initial relief and joy at being back at their homes – even if damaged or destroyed – they now face the reality of living in the wreckage for the foreseeable future.
“Some people wish the war had never ended, feeling it would have been better to be killed,” Tamboura said. “I don’t know what we’ll do long-term. My brain stopped planning for the future.”
The six-week ceasefire is due to end Saturday, and it’s uncertain what will happen next. There are efforts to extend the calm as the next phase is negotiated. If fighting erupts again, those who returned to the north could find themselves once again in the middle of it.
A massive rebuilding job has no way to start
A report last week by the World Bank, UN and European Union estimated it will cost some $53 billion to rebuild Gaza after entire neighborhoods were decimated by Israel’s bombardment and offensives against Hamas militants. At the moment, there is almost no capacity or funding to start significant rebuilding.
A priority is making Gaza immediately livable. Earlier in February, Hamas threatened to hold up hostage releases unless more tents and temporary shelters were allowed into Gaza.
It then reversed and accelerated hostage releases after Israel agreed to let in mobile homes and construction equipment.
Humanitarian agencies have stepped up services, setting up free kitchens and water delivery stations, and distributing tents and tarps to hundreds of thousands across Gaza, according to the UN President Donald Trump turned up the pressure by calling for the entire population of Gaza to be removed permanently so the US can take over the territory and redevelop it for others. Rejecting the proposal, Palestinians say they want help to rebuild for themselves.
Gaza City’s municipality started fixing some water lines and clearing rubble from streets, said a spokesperson, Asem Alnabih. But it lacks heavy equipment. Only a few of its 40 bulldozers and five dump trucks still work, he said. Gaza is filled with over 50 million tons of rubble that would take 100 trucks working at full capacity over 15 years to clear away, the UN estimates.
Families try to get by day by day
Tamboura’s house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya was destroyed by an airstrike early in the war, so she and her family lived in the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where she worked as a nurse.
After the ceasefire, they moved back into the only room in her house that was semi-intact. The ceiling is partially collapsed, the walls are cracked; the surviving fridge and sink are useless with no water or electricity. They stack their sheets and blankets in a corner.
Tamboura said her 12-year-old son lugs heavy containers of water twice a day from distribution stations. They also have to find firewood for cooking. The influx of aid means there is food in the markets and prices went down, but it remains expensive, she said.
With the Indonesian Hospital too damaged to function, Tamboura walks an hour each day to work at the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
She charges her and her husband’s phones using the hospital generator.
Many of Tamboura’s relatives returned to find nothing left of their homes, so they live in tents on or next to the rubble that gets blown away by winter winds or flooded during rains, she said.
Asmaa Dwaima and her family returned to Gaza City but had to rent an apartment because their home in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood was destroyed. It was only weeks after returning that she went to visit their four-story house, now a pile of flattened and burned wreckage.
“I couldn’t come here because I was afraid. I had an image of my house in my mind – its beauty, and warmth. … I was afraid to face this truth,” the 25-year-old dentist said. “They don’t just destroy stone, they are destroying us and our identity.”
Her family had to rebuild the house once before, when it was leveled by airstrikes during a round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in 2014, she said.
For the time being, they have no means to rebuild now.
“We need to remove the rubble because we want to pull out clothes and some of our belongings,” she said. “We need heavy equipment … There are no bricks or other construction tools and, if available, it’s extremely expensive.”
Desperation is growing
Tess Ingram, a spokesperson with UNICEF who visited northern Gaza since the ceasefire, said the families she met are “grieving the lives that they used to live as they begin to rebuild.”
Their desperation, she said, “is becoming more intense.”
Huda Skaik, a 20-year-old student, is sharing a room with her three siblings and parents at her grandparents’ house in Gaza City. It’s an improvement from life in the tent camps of central Gaza where they were displaced for much of the war, she said.
There, they had to live among strangers, and their tent was washed away by rain. At least here they have walls and are with family, she said.
Before the war interrupted, Skaik had just started studying English literature at Gaza’s Islamic University. She is now enrolled in online classes the university is organizing. But the Internet is feeble, and her electricity relies on solar panels that don’t always work.
“The worst part is that we’re just now grasping that we lost it all,” she said. “The destruction is massive, but I’m trying to remain positive.”
AN-AP
Rakyat Palestin berjuang untuk mula semula kehidupan mereka di runtuhan Gaza
Rawya Tamboura dan keluarganya, kiri, adalah antara hampir 600,000 rakyat Palestin yang membanjiri kembali ke utara Gaza selepas gencatan senjata dilaksanakan. (AP)
BEIT LAHIYA, Genting Gaza – Apabila malam tiba di utara Gaza, sebahagian besar lanskap bandar bangunan runtuh dan serpihan bertimbun menjadi gelap gelita.
Tinggal di dalam runtuhan rumah mereka, anak lelaki Rawya Tamboura yang masih kecil berasa takut akan kegelapan, jadi dia menghidupkan lampu suluh dan lampu telefonnya untuk menghiburkan mereka, selagi bateri masih ada.
Terlantar untuk sebahagian besar perang selama 16 bulan, Tamboura kembali ke rumahnya. Tetapi ia masih merupakan cangkang kehidupan yang mengecewakan, dia berkata: Tiada air mengalir, elektrik, haba atau perkhidmatan, dan tiada alat untuk membersihkan runtuhan di sekeliling mereka.
Hampir 600,000 penduduk Palestin membanjiri kembali ke utara Gaza di bawah gencatan senjata yang kini berusia sebulan di Gaza, menurut Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB). Selepas kelegaan awal dan kegembiraan kerana kembali ke rumah mereka – walaupun rosak atau musnah – mereka kini menghadapi realiti hidup dalam runtuhan untuk masa hadapan.
“Sesetengah orang berharap perang tidak pernah berakhir, merasakan lebih baik terbunuh,” kata Tamboura.
“Saya tidak tahu apa yang akan kami lakukan untuk jangka panjang. Otak saya terhenti merancang untuk masa depan.”
Gencatan senjata selama enam minggu akan berakhir pada Sabtu, dan tidak pasti apa yang akan berlaku seterusnya. Terdapat usaha untuk melanjutkan ketenangan kerana fasa seterusnya dirundingkan. Jika pertempuran meletus lagi, mereka yang kembali ke utara boleh mendapati diri mereka sekali lagi berada di tengah-tengahnya.
Kerja membina semula secara besar-besaran tiada cara untuk mula
Laporan minggu lalu oleh Bank Dunia, PBB dan Kesatuan Eropah (EU) menganggarkan ia akan menelan belanja kira-kira $53 bilion untuk membina semula Gaza selepas seluruh kawasan kejiranan musnah akibat pengeboman dan serangan Israel terhadap militan Hamas. Pada masa ini, hampir tiada kapasiti atau pembiayaan untuk memulakan pembinaan semula yang ketara.
Satu keutamaan ialah menjadikan Gaza segera didiami. Pada awal Februari, Hamas mengancam untuk menahan pembebasan tebusan melainkan lebih banyak khemah dan tempat perlindungan sementara dibenarkan masuk ke Gaza.
Ia kemudian membalikkan dan mempercepatkan pembebasan tebusan selepas Israel bersetuju untuk membenarkan rumah bergerak dan peralatan pembinaan.
Agensi kemanusiaan telah meningkatkan perkhidmatan, menyediakan dapur percuma dan stesen penghantaran air, dan mengedarkan khemah dan terpal kepada ratusan ribu di seluruh Gaza, menurut PBB.
Presiden Donald Trump meningkatkan tekanan dengan menggesa seluruh penduduk Gaza disingkirkan secara kekal supaya AS boleh mengambil alih wilayah itu dan membangunkannya semula untuk orang lain. Menolak cadangan itu, rakyat Palestin berkata mereka mahu bantuan untuk membina semula untuk diri mereka sendiri.
Perbandaran Gaza City mula membaiki beberapa tali air dan membersihkan runtuhan dari jalan-jalan, kata seorang jurucakap, Asem Alnabih. Tetapi ia kekurangan alat berat. Hanya beberapa daripada 40 jentolak dan lima lori sampah masih berfungsi, katanya. Gaza dipenuhi dengan lebih 50 juta tan runtuhan yang akan membawa 100 trak yang bekerja pada kapasiti penuh selama 15 tahun untuk membersihkannya, anggaran PBB.
Keluarga cuba bertahan hari demi hari
Rumah Tamboura di bandar utara Beit Lahiya telah musnah akibat serangan udara pada awal perang, jadi dia dan keluarganya tinggal di Hospital Indonesia berdekatan, tempat dia bekerja sebagai jururawat.
Selepas gencatan senjata, mereka bergerak semula ke satu-satunya bilik di rumahnya yang separuh utuh. Siling sebahagiannya runtuh, dindingnya retak; peti sejuk dan sinki yang masih hidup tidak berguna tanpa air atau elektrik. Mereka menyusun cadar dan selimut di satu sudut.
Tamboura berkata, anak lelakinya yang berusia 12 tahun membawa bekas air berat dua kali sehari dari stesen pengedaran. Mereka juga perlu mencari kayu api untuk memasak. Kemasukan bantuan bermakna terdapat makanan di pasaran dan harga turun, tetapi ia kekal mahal, katanya.
Dengan Hospital Indonesia terlalu rosak untuk berfungsi, Tamboura berjalan sejam setiap hari untuk bekerja di Hospital Kamal Adwan.
Dia mengecas telefonnya dan telefon suaminya menggunakan penjana hospital.
Ramai saudara-mara Tamboura pulang untuk tidak menemui apa-apa yang tinggal di rumah mereka, jadi mereka tinggal di dalam khemah di atas atau di sebelah runtuhan yang diterbangkan angin musim sejuk atau banjir semasa hujan, katanya.
Asmaa Dwaima dan keluarganya kembali ke Gaza City tetapi terpaksa menyewa sebuah apartmen kerana rumah mereka di kejiranan Tel Al-Hawa telah musnah. Hanya beberapa minggu selepas pulang, dia pergi melawat rumah empat tingkat mereka, kini timbunan serpihan yang rata dan terbakar.
“Saya tidak boleh datang ke sini kerana saya takut. Saya mempunyai imej rumah saya dalam fikiran saya – keindahan dan kehangatannya. … Saya takut untuk menghadapi kebenaran ini,” kata doktor gigi berusia 25 tahun itu. “Mereka bukan sahaja memusnahkan batu, mereka memusnahkan kami dan identiti kami.”
Keluarganya terpaksa membina semula rumah itu sekali sebelum ini, apabila ia diratakan oleh serangan udara semasa pusingan pertempuran antara Israel dan Hamas pada 2014, katanya.
Buat masa ini, mereka tidak mempunyai cara untuk membina semula sekarang.
“Kami perlu mengalihkan runtuhan kerana kami mahu mengeluarkan pakaian dan beberapa barangan kami,” katanya. “Kami memerlukan peralatan berat … Tiada batu bata atau alat pembinaan lain dan, jika ada, ia sangat mahal.”
Keputusasaan semakin meningkat
Tess Ingram, jurucakap UNICEF yang melawat utara Gaza sejak gencatan senjata, berkata keluarga ditemuinya “berduka kehidupan yang pernah mereka jalani ketika mereka mula membina semula”.
Keputusasaan mereka, katanya, “semakin memuncak”.
Huda Skaik, seorang pelajar berusia 20 tahun, berkongsi bilik dengan tiga adik-beradik dan ibu bapanya di rumah datuk dan neneknya di Gaza City. Ia adalah peningkatan daripada kehidupan di khemah-khemah di tengah Gaza di mana mereka dipindahkan untuk sebahagian besar peperangan, katanya.
Di sana, mereka terpaksa tinggal dalam kalangan orang asing, dan khemah mereka dihanyutkan oleh hujan. Sekurang-kurangnya di sini mereka mempunyai dinding dan bersama keluarga, katanya.
Sebelum perang terputus, Skaik baru sahaja mula belajar kesusasteraan Inggeris di Universiti Islam Gaza. Dia kini mendaftar dalam kelas dalam talian dianjurkan oleh universiti. Tetapi Internet lemah, dan elektriknya bergantung pada panel solar yang tidak selalu berfungsi.
“Bahagian yang paling teruk ialah kami baru memahami bahawa kami kehilangan semuanya,” katanya. “Kemusnahan adalah besar, tetapi saya cuba untuk kekal positif.”
People queue for water in Omdurman, the Sudanese capital’s twin city, during battles between the Sudanese military forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), on January 17, 2025. (AFP)
CAIRO – Mona Ibrahim has already buried two of her children.
In the span of just two months, the Sudanese mother watched helplessly as severe malnutrition killed her 10-year-old daughter, Rania, and her eight-month-old son, Montasir, in the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp.
“I could only hold them as they faded away,” Ibrahim, 40, said via video call, sitting outside her straw-and-plastic shelter near North Darfur state’s besieged capital El-Fasher.
Rania was the first to succumb. In El-Fasher’s only functioning hospital, understaffed and unequipped, she died in November just three days after being admitted with acute diarrhea.
Her baby boy Montasir followed weeks later, his tiny body bloated from severe malnutrition.
El-Fasher, under paramilitary siege since May, is only one grim battlefield in the 21-month war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces.
In July, a UN-backed review declared famine in Zamzam, a decades-old displacement camp home to between 500,000 and a million people.
By December, it had spread to two more camps in the area, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam, as well as parts of the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification determined.
Now, Ibrahim fears for her four-year-old daughter, Rashida, who battles severe anemia with no access to medical care.
“I am terrified I will lose her too,” she said. “We’re abandoned. There is no food, no medicine, nothing.”
At Salam 56, one of Zamzam’s 48 overcrowded shelters, exhaustion was etched onto mothers’ faces as they cradled their children, too weak to stand.
Multiple families gathered around bowls with a few scraps of peanut residue traditionally used as animal feed. “It’s all we have,” said Rawiya Ali, a 35-year-old mother of five.
Contaminated water collects in a shallow reservoir during the rainy season, which the women trudge 3 km to fetch.
“Animals drink from it and so do we,” Ali said.
Salam 56 is home to over 700 families, according to its coordinator Adam Mahmoud Abdullah.
Since war began in April 2023, it has received only four food aid deliveries, the most recent in September, a mere 10 tonnes of flour, he said. “Since then, nothing has come,” Abdullah said.
The desolation in Zamzam lays bare the true cost of the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted over 12 million others, and created the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded,” according to the International Rescue Committee. About 700 km southeast of Zamzam, the situation was just as dire.
Outside one of the last functioning community kitchens in the town of Dilling in South Kordofan state, queues stretched endlessly, according to Nazik Kabalo, who leads a Sudanese women’s rights group overseeing the kitchen.
Photos show men, women and children standing hollow-eyed and frail — their bellies swollen and skin pulled taut over fragile bones.
After days without a single morsel, “some collapse where they stand,” Kabalo said. “For others, even when they get food … they vomit it back up,” she said.
In South Kordofan state, where agriculture once thrived, farmers are eating seeds meant for planting, while others boil tree leaves in water to stave off hunger.
“We are seeing hunger in areas that have never seen famine in Sudan’s history,” Kabalo said.
With vast oil and gold reserves and fertile agricultural land, Sudan has had its economy bludgeoned by war and decades of mismanagement, and now, hunger is everywhere.
AN-AFP, Jan 29, 2025
‘Tiada makanan, tiada apa-apa’: Kebuluran mencengkam Sudan
Orang ramai beratur untuk mendapatkan air di Omdurman, bandar kembar ibu negara Sudan, semasa pertempuran antara pasukan tentera Sudan dan Pasukan Sokongan Pantas (RSF) separa tentera, pada 17 Januari 2025. (AFP)
KAHERAH – Mona Ibrahim sudah pun mengebumikan dua orang anaknya.
Dalam tempoh hanya dua bulan, ibu warga Sudan itu tidak berdaya melihat kekurangan zat makanan yang teruk membunuh anak perempuannya yang berusia 10 tahun, Rania, dan anak lelakinya yang berusia lapan bulan, Montasir, di kem pemindahan Zamzam yang dilanda kebuluran.
“Saya hanya boleh memeluk mereka ketika mereka semakin kurang bermaya,” kata Mona, 40, melalui panggilan video, duduk di luar tempat perlindungan jerami dan plastiknya dekat ibu kota negeri Darfur Utara yang terkepung El-Fasher.
Rania adalah orang pertama yang mengalah. Di satu-satunya hospital El-Fasher yang berfungsi, kekurangan kakitangan dan tidak dilengkapi kelengkapan, dia meninggal dunia pada November hanya tiga hari selepas dimasukkan dengan cirit-birit akut.
Bayi lelakinya Montasir menyusul beberapa minggu kemudian, badan kecilnya kembung akibat kekurangan zat makanan yang teruk.
El-Fasher, di bawah pengepungan separa tentera sejak Mei, hanya satu medan perang yang suram dalam perang 21 bulan antara tentera Sudan dan Pasukan Sokongan Pantas (RSF).
Pada Julai, semakan yang disokong PBB mengisytiharkan kelaparan di Zamzam, sebuah kem perpindahan berusia berdekad-dekad yang menempatkan antara 500,000 dan sejuta orang.
Menjelang Disember, ia telah merebak ke dua lagi kem di kawasan itu, Abu Shouk dan Al-Salam, serta bahagian Pergunungan Nuba di selatan Sudan, Klasifikasi Fasa Keselamatan Makanan Bersepadu menentukan.
Kini, Mona bimbang dengan anak perempuannya yang berusia empat tahun, Rashida, yang mengalami anemia teruk tanpa akses kepada rawatan perubatan.
“Saya takut saya akan kehilangan dia juga,” katanya. “Kami ditinggalkan. Tiada makanan, tiada ubat, tiada apa-apa.”
Di Salam 56, salah satu daripada 48 tempat perlindungan Zamzam yang sesak, keletihan terukir di wajah ibu-ibu ketika mereka memapah anak-anak mereka, terlalu lemah untuk berdiri.
Berbilang keluarga berkumpul di sekeliling mangkuk dengan sedikit sisa kacang tanah yang digunakan secara tradisional sebagai makanan haiwan.
“Itu sahaja yang kami ada,” kata Rawiya Ali, ibu kepada lima anak berusia 35 tahun.
Air yang tercemar terkumpul di dalam takungan cetek semasa musim hujan, yang mana wanita itu bersusah payah 3 km untuk mengambilnya.
“Haiwan minum daripadanya dan begitu juga kita,” kata Rawiya.
Salam 56 adalah rumah kepada lebih 700 keluarga, menurut penyelarasnya Adam Mahmoud Abdullah.
Sejak perang bermula pada April 2023, ia hanya menerima empat penghantaran bantuan makanan, yang terbaru pada September, hanya 10 tan tepung, katanya.
“Sejak itu, tiada apa yang datang,” kata Adam.
Kehancuran di Zamzam mendedahkan kos sebenar perang, yang telah membunuh berpuluh-puluh ribu orang, mencabut lebih 12 juta yang lain, dan mencipta “krisis kemanusiaan terbesar yang pernah direkodkan,” menurut Jawatankuasa Penyelamat Antarabangsa. Kira-kira 700 km tenggara Zamzam, keadaannya sama buruknya.
Di luar salah satu dapur komuniti terakhir yang berfungsi di pekan Dilling di negeri Kordofan Selatan, barisan beratur tidak berkesudahan, menurut Nazik Kabalo, yang mengetuai kumpulan hak wanita Sudan yang mengawasi dapur.
Foto menunjukkan lelaki, wanita dan kanak-kanak berdiri dengan mata kosong dan lemah — perut mereka membengkak dan kulit ditarik tegang di atas tulang yang rapuh.
Selepas berhari-hari tanpa sesuap pun, “sesetengahnya rebah di tempat mereka berdiri,” kata Nazik.
“Bagi yang lain, walaupun mereka mendapat makanan … mereka memuntahkannya semula,” katanya.
Di negeri Kordofan Selatan, di mana pertanian pernah berkembang maju, petani memakan benih yang dimaksudkan untuk ditanam, manakala yang lain merebus daun pokok di dalam air untuk menahan kelaparan.
“Kami melihat kelaparan di kawasan yang tidak pernah mengalami kebuluran dalam sejarah Sudan,” kata Nazik.
Dengan rizab minyak dan emas yang luas serta tanah pertanian yang subur, ekonomi Sudan telah terjejas akibat perang dan salah urus selama berdekad-dekad, dan kini, kelaparan ada di mana-mana.
Hampir semua 2.4 juta orang di Gaza kehilangan tempat tinggal sekurang-kurangnya sekali, dan agensi bantuan memberi amaran tentang halangan daripada infrastruktur yang musnah, keperluan besar serta undang-undang dan ketenteraman yang runtuh untuk menyampaikan bantuan menyelamatkan hidup untuk mereka. (AFP)
KAHERAH — Perjanjian gencatan senjata Israel-Hamas yang dijangka berkuat kuasa pada Ahad mencetuskan harapan untuk bantuan menyelamatkan nyawa sampai kepada rakyat Palestin, tetapi agensi bantuan memberi amaran tentang halangan daripada infrastruktur yang musnah, keperluan besar-besaran serta undang-undang dan ketenteraman yang runtuh.
Mengumumkan gencatan senjata itu, Presiden Amerika Syarikat Joe Biden berkata pada Rabu ia akan “mempercepatkan bantuan kemanusiaan yang sangat diperlukan kepada orang awam Palestin”.
Ketua kemanusiaan Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) Tom Fletcher menyebutnya sebagai “saat harapan dan peluang” tetapi berkata “kita tidak sepatutnya berada di bawah ilusi betapa sukarnya untuk mendapatkan sokongan kepada mangsa yang terselamat”.
Di wilayah itu, di mana hampir semua 2.4 juta orang telah dipindahkan sekurang-kurangnya sekali, pekerja bantuan bimbang tiada apa yang akan mencukupi untuk memenuhi keperluan itu.
“Semuanya telah musnah. Kanak-kanak berada di jalanan. Anda tidak boleh menentukan hanya satu keutamaan,” kata penyelaras Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Amande Bazerolle melalui telefon dari Gaza.
Bercakap dari bandar Khan Yunis di selatan Gaza, Mohammed Al-Khatib, dari Bantuan Perubatan untuk Palestin, berkata pekerja bantuan tempatan tidak berhenti selama 15 bulan walaupun mereka sendiri kehilangan tempat tinggal.
“Semua orang keletihan,” katanya.
Di pusat perlindungan sementara dilanda kelaparan didirikan di bekas sekolah, rumah dan tanah perkuburan yang dibom, ratusan ribu tidak mempunyai lapisan plastik untuk melindungi daripada hujan musim sejuk dan angin kencang, Gavin Kelleher, dari Majlis Pelarian Norway (NRC), berkata.
Walaupun bom berhenti, agensi-agensi seperti (agensi) dia perlu memberi tumpuan kepada asas tindak balas kecemasan, termasuk membawa masuk “tarpaulin, tali dan lekapan untuk menutup lubang ternganga” dalam bangunan.
“Sekurang-kurangnya sehingga kita berhenti melihat kanak-kanak mati akibat hipotermia,” katanya melalui mesej teks dari Gaza.
Menjelang minggu lalu, hipotermia telah membunuh sekurang-kurangnya lapan orang – empat bayi baru lahir, tiga bayi dan seorang dewasa – menurut angka kementerian kesihatan yang digunakan oleh Pertubuhan Kesihatan Sedunia (WHO).
Pada Rabu, Al-Qahera News berkaitan kerajaan Mesir melaporkan penyelarasan sedang dijalankan untuk membuka semula lintasan Rafah di sempadan Gaza. Ia merupakan salah satu pintu masuk kemanusiaan utama tetapi telah ditutup sejak tentera Israel merampas bahagian Palestin pada Mei.
Gencatan senjata itu berdasarkan rancangan Biden yang dibentangkan pada pertengahan 2024 yang meramalkan lonjakan bantuan kepada 600 trak setiap hari, atau lebih lapan kali ganda purata Disember yang dilaporkan oleh PBB.
Program Makanan Sedunia (WFP) berkata pada Khamis ia mempunyai makanan yang mencukupi untuk satu juta orang “menunggu di luar Gaza atau dalam perjalanan”.
Di sebelah sempadan Mesir, sumber Bulan Sabit Merah Mesir berkata sehingga 1,000 trak sedang menunggu “untuk kemasukan mereka ke Gaza”.
Tetapi dengan serangan udara yang berterusan melanda wilayah itu, di mana kumpulan bantuan dan PBB kerap menuduh Israel menghalang aliran bantuan – yang dinafikan Israel – pekerja bantuan ragu-ragu.
Bazerolle dari MSF berkata janji beratus-ratus trak sehari “tidak dapat dilaksanakan secara teknikal”.
“Memandangkan Rafah telah musnah, infrastruktur tidak ada untuk dapat menampung tahap logistik itu,” jelasnya, dengan bunyi bom di latar belakang.
Bantuan yang tiba adalah tertakluk kepada rompakan oleh kedua-dua — kumpulan bersenjata dan orang awam yang terdesak.
“Orang Israel telah menyasarkan polis, jadi tidak ada sesiapa yang melindungi penghantaran” daripada rompakan, yang Bazerolle berkata akan berterusan “selagi tidak cukup bantuan masuk”.
Selepas lebih setahun “pembubaran kedaulatan undang-undang secara sistematik” di Gaza, Kelleher dari NRC menggesa “penyambungan semula pasukan polis awam Palestin”.
Keadaan ini amat teruk di utara Gaza.
Bazerolle, yang mengatakan misi MSF di kawasan itu telah menjadi sasaran Israel, berkata kumpulan itu berharap untuk menghantar pasukan ke utara “untuk sekurang-kurangnya merawat pesakit di mana mereka berada,” tanpa kehadiran hospital.
Menurut WHO, hanya satu hospital, Al-Awda, berfungsi sebahagiannya di utara.
Rik Peeperkorn dari WHO berkata, sebagai tambahan kepada kapasiti hospital, agensinya akan memberi tumpuan kepada “perkara yang sangat asas” termasuk sistem pengurusan air, elektrik dan sisa di Gaza.
Namun, mereka yang kehilangan tempat tinggal akan berharap untuk kembali – termasuk Khatib sendiri – jika gencatan senjata berlaku.
Ramai, katanya, “akan kembali untuk mendapati seluruh kawasan kejiranan mereka musnah” dan tanpa makanan atau tempat tinggal.
“Orang ramai tidak bercakap tentang membina semula rumah mereka, tetapi hanya keperluan penting yang paling asas,” katanya.
“Kami menutup satu bab penderitaan dan membuka yang baru,” dia meramalkan, sebelum menambah: “Sekurang-kurangnya ada sedikit harapan untuk berakhirnya pertumpahan darah.”
Nearly all 2.4 million people in Gaza have been displaced at least once, and aid agencies warn of obstacles from destroyed infrastructure, massive need and collapsed law and order to deliver live-saving help for them. (AFP)
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.”
Palestinian Tamim Marouf, 6, sits inside his family’s tent alongside his sister Hala, 10, and his brother Malek, 4, at a camp for internally displaced Palestinians on the beachfront in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (AP)
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
PBB beri amaran hampir satu perlima kanak-kanak dunia terjejas oleh perang
Warga Palestin Tamim Marouf, 6, duduk di dalam khemah keluarganya bersama kakaknya Hala, 10, dan adiknya Malek, 4, di kem untuk pelarian dalaman Palestin di depan pantai di Deir Al-Balah, tengah Semenanjung Gaza, Jumaat, 27 Dis 2024. (AP)
LONDON – Pertubuhan Bangsa-bangsa Bersatu (PBB) memberi amaran hampir satu daripada lima kanak-kanak di seluruh dunia tinggal di kawasan yang terjejas akibat peperangan.
Agensi kanak-kanak badan global itu UNICEF berkata 473 juta kanak-kanak menghadapi keganasan terburuk sejak Perang Dunia Kedua, dengan jumlah itu meningkat hampir dua kali ganda sejak 1990.
PBB berkata ia telah mengenal pasti rekod 32,990 pelanggaran berat terhadap 22,557 kanak-kanak, jumlah tertinggi dalam rekod.
Ia menambah bahawa kira-kira 44 peratus daripada hampir 45,000 mangsa perang Israel di Gaza adalah kanak-kanak, manakala terdapat lebih banyak korban kanak-kanak dalam perang di Ukraine dalam sembilan bulan pertama 2024 berbanding keseluruhan tahun sebelumnya.
“Hampir semua ukuran, 2024 merupakan salah satu tahun paling teruk dalam rekod bagi kanak-kanak yang berkonflik dalam sejarah UNICEF, baik dari segi bilangan kanak-kanak yang terjejas dan tahap kesan ke atas kehidupan mereka,” kata Pengarah Eksekutif UNICEF Catherine Russell.
“Seorang kanak-kanak yang membesar dalam zon konflik jauh lebih berkemungkinan tidak bersekolah, kekurangan zat makanan, atau dipaksa keluar dari rumah mereka — terlalu kerap berulang kali — berbanding dengan kanak-kanak yang tinggal di tempat yang aman.
“Ini mestilah bukan kebiasaan baharu. Kita tidak boleh membenarkan generasi kanak-kanak menjadi kerosakan sampingan kepada peperangan dunia yang tidak terkawal.”
UNICEF menambah bahawa terdapat peningkatan ketara dalam keganasan seksual terhadap wanita muda dan gadis, dan menyerlahkan ledakan laporan di Haiti di mana kes rogol dan serangan seksual meningkat 1,000 peratus pada 2024.
Malnutrisi juga merupakan punca utama trauma bagi kanak-kanak di zon konflik, dengan UNICEF memberi tumpuan khususnya pada kesannya di Sudan dan Gaza.
Kira-kira setengah juta orang di lima negara dilanda konflik, tambahnya, terjejas oleh kebuluran.
Gaza juga merupakan pusat krisis berhubung akses kepada penjagaan kesihatan, dengan wabak polio dikesan pada Julai tahun ini. PBB bertindak balas dengan kempen vaksin besar-besaran, yang setakat ini telah mencapai 90 peratus kanak-kanak di kawasan itu walaupun dalam keadaan berbahaya.
Tetapi di luar Gaza, PBB berkata, 40 peratus daripada kanak-kanak di dunia yang tidak divaksin tinggal di dalam atau berhampiran zon konflik.
UNICEF menambah bahawa lebih 52 juta kanak-kanak kekurangan akses kepada pendidikan, dengan Gaza dan Sudan sekali lagi berada di barisan hadapan dalam krisis ini.
Ukraine, Republik Demokratik Congo dan Syria juga menyaksikan sebahagian besar infrastruktur pendidikan mereka musnah.
Sementara itu, badan amal War Child melaporkan pada awal Disember bahawa 96 peratus kanak-kanak di Gaza percaya kematian akan berlaku, dengan hampir separuh menggambarkan trauma yang membuatkan mereka berasa mati adalah wajar.
“Kanak-kanak di zon perang menghadapi perjuangan harian untuk terus hidup yang menghalang mereka daripada zaman kanak-kanak,” kata Russell.
“Sekolah mereka dibom, rumah dimusnahkan, dan keluarga dipecahkan. Mereka bukan sahaja kehilangan keselamatan dan akses kepada keperluan asas yang mengekalkan kehidupan, tetapi juga peluang mereka untuk bermain, belajar, dan hanya menjadi kanak-kanak. Dunia sedang mengecewakan kanak-kanak ini. Ketika kita melihat ke arah 2025, kita mesti melakukan lebih banyak lagi untuk mengubah arus dan menyelamatkan serta meningkatkan kehidupan kanak-kanak.”
Orang ramai beratur untuk menerima bantuan kemanusiaan, yang dibekalkan oleh Program Makanan Sedunia (WFP), di kem pelarian Bureij di tengah Semenanjung Gaza pada 18 November 2024. (AFP)
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
Gazans walk miles for bread and flour amid war shortages
GAZA — Faced with major food shortages after nearly 14 months of war, Palestinians describe long days hunting for flour and bread in the conflict-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Every morning crowds form outside the few bakeries open in the Palestinian territory, as people desperately try to get a bag of bread at distribution points.
Since the outbreak of war in Gaza last year, charities and international aid organizations have repeatedly warned of crisis levels of hunger for nearly two million people.
A United Nations-backed assessment last month warned of famine looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid a near-halt in food aid after Israel launched an offensive in the area.
Essential goods like water, fresh produce and medicines are also scarce.
Gazans across the territory have told AFP in recent months how they wake up at the crack of dawn just to ensure they can get some flour or bread, with current availability reaching an all-time low.
In the southern city of Khan Yunis, AFP photographers saw dozens of people at a distribution point, bodies pressed against each other.
Over each other’s heads, everyone tries to reach out as far as possible to grab the round bread.
A small child, her face covered in tears, squeezes a coin between her fingers as she makes her way through the crowd of adults.
“I walked about eight kilometers (five miles) to get bread,” Hatem Kullab, a displaced Palestinian living in a neighborhood of makeshift tents, told AFP.
It was in the middle of one of these crowds that two women and a child were trampled to death in a stampede at a bakery in the central Gazan city of Deir el-Balah Friday.
“To get a loaf of bread you need a whole day of eight to 10 hours,” said the brother of one of the women killed, describing his sister’s ordeal as she tried to get bread to feed 10 family members.
“The suffering that my sister went through is suffered by all the Palestinian people,” Jameel Fayyad told AFP, criticizing what he described as poor management of the bakeries.
Fayyad’s anger was largely directed at Israel, but he also blamed the World Food Programme (WFP) and “traders who want to make money on the backs of people.”
Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip told AFP journalists that it is extremely difficult to find the 50-kilogram (110 pounds) bags of flour that would last them several weeks before the war.
“There is no flour, no food, no vegetables in the markets,” Nasser Al-Shawa, 56, said, who, like most residents, was forced to leave his home because of the bombings and lives with his children and grandchildren in central Gaza.
Shawa, who now lives in a friend’s house in Deir el-Balah, says a 50-kilogram bag costs between 500 and 700 shekels ($137 and $192). Before the war, it cost around 100 shekels.
Inside Gaza where more than half of the buildings have been destroyed, the production is at an almost complete standstill. Flour mills, warehouses storing flour and industrial bakeries are unable to function because they have been so heavily damaged by strikes.
Humanitarian aid is trickling in but aid groups have repeatedly slammed the many constraints imposed on them by Israel, which the country denies.
In the latest blow, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced Sunday it was halting aid deliveries to Gaza via a key crossing point with Israel.
UNRWA said delivery had become impossible, partly due to looting by gangs.
For Layla Hamad, who lives in a tent with her husband and seven children in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi, UNRWA’s decision was “like a bullet to the head.”
She said her family had regularly received “a small quantity” of flour from UNRWA.
“Every day, I think we will not survive, either because we will be killed by Israeli bombing or by hunger,” she said. “There is no third option.”
The majority of private companies that Israel had in the past allowed to bring in food to Gaza say they are no longer able to do so.
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 44,502 deaths, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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.
A young Palestinian victim lies amid the collapsed walls of her family home that was hit in an Israeli strike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, on November 7, 2024. (AFP)
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.
The UN breakdown of the victims’ age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the Israeli war on Gaza. (AFP)
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.”
Graphic on internally displaced persons in Myanmar, including those in Rakhine province, according to data collected by UNHCR. (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.
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip November 7, 2024. REUTERS
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.
Kanak-kanak Palestin mengumpul makanan dari pusat pengedaran di kem pelarian Bureij di tengah Bandar Gaza di tengah-tengah serangan Israel yang berterusan di wilayah yang dikepung. (AFP)
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.
Displaced Palestinians ordered by the Israeli military to evacuate the northern part of Gaza flee amid an Israeli military operation, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, October 22, 2024. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo
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.”
Displaced Palestinians ordered by the Israeli military to evacuate the northern part of Gaza flee amid an Israeli military operation, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip October 22, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
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.
A Palestinian fisherman works with his net along the coast of Khan Younis, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the southern Gaza Strip, November 1, 2024. 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.
Lebanese Red Cross members stand near a site hit by an Israeli strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Marjayoun, Lebabon, near the border with Israel, October 27, 2024. (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.”
Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the northern Gaza Strip, September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
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.
Petani di sawah padi di pekan Tral daerah Pulwama di selatan Kashmir, India 1 Oktober 2023. REUTERS
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
English version
Global rice prices drop after India allows white rice exports
MUMBAI/HANOI, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Global rice prices fell on Monday after India, the world’s No.1 exporter of the grain, gave the go-ahead for exports to resume, boosting global supply and helping poor Asian and African buyers secure more affordable supplies, exporters said.
India on Saturday allowed exports of non-basmati white rice. That came a day after New Delhi cut export duty on parboiled rice to 10%, buoyed by a new crop in the offing and higher inventories in state warehouses.
“Suppliers from Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan are responding to India’s move by lowering their export prices,” said Himanshu Agarwal, executive director at Satyam Balajee, a leading rice exporter. “Everyone’s trying to stay competitive to hold their spot in the market.”
Global rice prices soared to their highest level in over 15 years following India’s decision last year to ban the export of white rice and impose a 20% duty on parboiled rice exports.
Last year’s export curbs imposed by India allowed competing suppliers like Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, and Myanmar to increase their market share and command higher prices in the global market.
On Monday, India’s 5% broken parboiled variety was quoted at $500-$510 per metric ton, down from the last week’s $530-$536. Indian 5% broken white rice was offered around $490.
Exporters in Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand and Myanmar also lowered prices by at least $10 per ton on Monday, dealers said.
The Philippines, Nigeria, Iraq, Senegal, Indonesia, and Malaysia are among the key importers of Asian rice.
Buyers and sellers are evaluating the potential impact of increased Indian rice supplies and accordingly prices would settle this week, said Nitin Gupta, senior vice president of Olam Agri India.
India accounted for more than 40% of the world’s rice exports in 2022, a record 22.2 million metric tons out of a total 55.4 million metric tons of global trade.
Thai rice prices were quoted at $540-$550 on Monday, down from last week’s $550 to $560 per ton.
Thailand’s rice export prices could decrease due to increased supplies in the market, but the extent of the decline would depend on several factors, including the appreciating Thai currency, said Chukiat Opaswong, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
Rice prices have started to correct, even in Vietnam, but traders caution that the full impact of Indian supplies has yet to be seen.
“(Vietnamese) exporters should stay calm and avoid reducing prices to secure contracts,” said Truong Tan Tai, chief executive of Vinarice Co., a rice exporter.
Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos dan Elon Musk. Satu peratus terkaya terus mengisi poket mereka manakala selebihnya dibiarkan untuk mengikis sisa, menurut Oxfam International. AFP/ 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.