Today marks 100 days since Israel started its assault on Gaza.
In that time, the death toll among Palestinians living in Gaza has risen to nearly 24,000 as Israel unleashed more than 65,000 tonnes of bombs on the besieged enclave and its population of 2.3 million people trapped in less than 400sq kilometres.
Israel’s assault on Gaza began on October 7, in response to an attack by armed fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas and other Palestinian groups. Some 1,140 people died during the attack and about 240 were taken into Gaza as captives.
In retaliation, Israel began a vicious bombing campaign and tightened what was already a crushing siege that Gaza has been under since 2007.
(Al Jazeera)
“We are fighting human animals,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9, announcing that food, water, fuel, medicines, everything, would not be permitted into Gaza.
Since then, defying condemnations and pleas from international organisations and rights groups, Israel has continued an indiscriminate campaign that has sown terror among the people in Gaza, killed entire multi-generation families, and destroyed huge swaths of urban and rural lands.
Israel now stands accused by South Africa of carrying out genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Speaking on Saturday, after presentations by both sides were done at the ICJ, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else.” His “axis” comment referred to Iran and its allied groups.
Alternating between claims that this level of killing and destruction is somehow justified in the name of self-defence and statements that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, Israel has often strayed far from its statements about the different aspects of this war on Gaza.
In first phase of the withdrawal, about 2,000 UN troops will leave the restive eastern areas by the end of April.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has helped in the fight against rebels for more than two decades, will completely withdraw from the country by December.
“After 25 years of presence, MONUSCO will definitively leave the DRC no later than the end of 2024,” Bintou Keita, head of the mission known as MONUSCO said at a media briefing in the Congolese capital Kinshasa on Saturday.
The announcement comes after the Congolese government – which was just re-elected in a disputed vote – called for the UN mission to leave the country, saying it had failed to protect civilians from armed groups.
Numerous armed groups, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and M23, are active in restive eastern areas such as North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces, where civilians face violence and displacement.
The withdrawal will take place in three phases.
In the first phase, about 2,000 UN troops will leave South Kivu by the end of April, taking the currently 13,500-strong MONUSCO force to 11,500, Keita said.
Fourteen UN bases in the province will be taken over by Congolese security forces, she explained.
After that, forces in North Kivu and Ituri will also leave.
Not the ‘end of the fight’
Congolese Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula confirmed to a news conference in Kinshasa that the remaining UN forces are expected to be out of the country by December 31.
“The withdrawal of MONUSCO does not necessarily mean the end of the fight we are undertaking to protect the territorial interests of our country, we must continue to struggle,” Lutundula said.
MONUSCO took over from an earlier UN operation in 2010 to help quell insecurity in the east of the Central African country, where armed groups fight over territory and resources. But in recent years, its presence has become increasingly unpopular.
In December, the UN’s Security Council voted unanimously in favour of gradually phasing out its peacekeeping operations.
Keita said on Saturday that the end of the mission will not be “the end of the United Nations” in the country.
The Congolese government has also directed an East African regional force, deployed last year to help end the fighting, to leave the country for similar reasons as the UN peacekeeping mission.
More than seven million people have been displaced due to conflicts in DRC, mostly in the three eastern provinces where a myriad of armed groups continue to operate.
Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the UN preoccupation with Afghan women is unwarranted.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan is “deeply concerned” about Taliban authorities arbitrarily arresting and detaining women and girls it accuses of violating dress codes regarding the Islamic headscarf, or hijab.
In a statement on Thursday, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it had “documented a series of hijab decree enforcement campaigns” taking place since January 1 in Kabul and Daykundi provinces.
These were under orders from the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and the police, it said, and women had been “warned” and “detained”.
To secure a woman’s release from detention, UNAMA said her male guardian, also called a mahram, was required to sign a letter guaranteeing her future compliance or else face punishment.
The mission said it was looking into claims of ill-treatment of the women and extortion in exchange for their release, and warned that physical violence and detentions were demeaning and dangerous.
Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have imposed numerous restrictions on women and girls, with laws the UN has labelled “gender apartheid”.
“Enforcement measures involving physical violence are especially demeaning and dangerous for Afghan women and girls,” said Roza Otunbayeva, UN special envoy and head of the mission.
“Detentions carry an enormous stigma that puts Afghan women at even greater risk,” she said. “They also destroy public trust.”
‘Pushing women into even greater isolation’
The Taliban said last week that female police officers have been taking women into custody for wearing “bad hijab.”
When the Taliban retook power in 2021, they ordered women to cover up when leaving home, stopped girls and women from attending high school or university, and banned them from parks, gyms and public baths.
They also barred them from working for the UN or NGOs, and most female government employees were dismissed from their jobs or paid to stay at home.
The UN mission’s statement said it “fears the current crackdown is pushing women into even greater isolation due to fear of arbitrary arrest, and creating a permissive environment for men to enforce repressive measures at home”.
The Taliban chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the UN preoccupation with Afghan women was unwarranted, and dismissed its concerns.
“Afghan women wear hijab of their own accord,” he said on X. “They don’t need to be forced. The Vice and Virtue Ministry hasn’t forced anyone [to wear hijab] either.”
In May 2022, the Taliban issued a decree calling for women to only show their eyes and recommending they wear the head-to-toe burqa, similar to restrictions during their previous rule of the country between 1996 and 2001.
A spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry, Abdul Ghafar Farooq, earlier on Thursday rejected reports that women and girls were being arrested or beaten for wearing “bad hijab” and called it propaganda from the foreign media.
South Africa launches a legal battle against Israel at the top court of the United Nations.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and forced most others from their homes.
Now, it is going to have to answer to charges of genocide in a court of law.
South Africa is launching a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the United Nations’ highest legal body.
While a final ruling could be years away, the ICJ could make a provisional order for Israel to end its campaign in a matter of weeks.
So how significant would that be? And will it help bring an end to the conflict?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Ahmed Abofoul – an international lawyer and legal researcher at Al-Haq, a leading Palestinian human rights organisation
Chris Gunness – a former spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
Adama Dieng – a former UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide and a special adviser to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court
The Ukraine International Airlines plane was hit by two missiles Iran says were fired in error shortly after takeoff, killing 176 people.
Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Ukraine have filed a complaint with the United Nations civil aviation agency against Iran for shooting down a passenger plane in 2020, killing 176 people.
The four countries, which all had citizens on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight, accused Tehran of “using weapons against a civil aircraft in flight in breach of its international legal obligations”.
The Boeing 737-800 was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran on January 8, 2020, amid rising tensions with the United States following the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
Three days later, Iran admitted that its Revolutionary Guard had fired two missiles at the plane, which was heading to Kyiv, by mistake.
The four countries said they opened “dispute settlement proceedings” with the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal.
The move was “an important step in our commitment to ensuring that the families of the victims impacted by this tragedy get the justice they deserve”, said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who attended a memorial service in Ontario to mark the fourth anniversary of the disaster.
The countries have already filed a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, seeking reparations from Iran for the families of the victims.
They said Iran had “failed to conduct an impartial, transparent and fair criminal investigation and prosecution consistent with international law”.
In April last year, an Iranian court issued initial sentences for 10 unnamed people accused of involvement in the incident, including the operator of an air defence system.
Iran has also set compensation of $150,000 for each of the families of the victims and said in 2022 it had begun making the payments.
Tehran has rejected claims that it is not cooperating or being transparent and has accused the four governments of trying to “politicise” the issue.
It has filed its own case with the ICJ, accusing Canada of violating its “international obligations” by allowing people to seek civil damages against Tehran.
Mizoram, India – “Why are you screaming? You are a refugee,” a nurse told 26-year-old Jamie* as she struggled with an exceptionally painful childbirth at a hospital in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram.
A few hours later, amid her agony, Jamie’s baby Sophia was born – joining a growing group of other stateless babies born to Myanmar parents seeking refuge in Mizoram.
It has been two years since Jamie and her husband fled Myanmar after the 2021 military coup and arrived in Champhai, a bustling town in Mizoram, 320km (199 miles) from the Myanmar border.
Myanmar was no longer safe for the young couple, but life across the border has not been what they had hoped for.
“Sophia was not given a birth certificate. They say we need an Indian voter’s ID, something we cannot get since the country has also not given us a refugee ID,” Jamie says.
“So now Sophia is stateless. She was given vaccines and we can take her to the doctor but she doesn’t have a citizenship status. We have to go back to Myanmar and try to get it for her.”
Placing a gentle kiss on her daughter’s forehead, Jamie says all she hopes is for her two-month-old daughter to become a citizen of a country.
Historically, India has been a welcoming home to people across faiths fleeing persecution, from Parsis centuries ago, to Tibetans (from 1959), Bengalis from Bangladesh (in 1971), Afghans across three wars, Sri Lankan Tamils, people from Myanmar and also Africa. During the Holocaust, an estimated 5,000 persecuted Jews from Europe came to India and made it their home, at a time when the United States turned many from the community away.
But the country lacks a national refugee law and is also not a signatory to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention – a protocol outlining the international standards of treating and protecting people seeking refuge.
This has left many people seeking asylum in India, in limbo.
Many families with children from Myanmar have sought refuge at camps in the village of Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India, near the Myanmar border [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]
Different rules
An hour’s drive away from Champhai, at a refugee camp in the picturesque Indian border village of Zokhawthar, which is separated from Myanmar by the Tiau river, 30-year-old Ruati also awaits a refugee card – an identity document that would give her access to food, education, healthcare and other facilities that either the host country or the United Nations provides.
She fled Myanmar in 2021 on a scooter with her family. After living in the refugee camp for more than two years, she yearns to work and earn a living. But there’s a problem.
“We want to work but cannot since India is not giving us a refugee card,” she says. “We’re surviving on food and other donations given to us by the state government and NGOs and groups in Mizoram like the Young Mizo Association.
“I used to live and work in China before 2021 and worked there cleaning houses. So for now, I have savings but it won’t last long. But using my savings, I have bought some snacks and drinks in the Myanmar market, and sell them in the camp to make more money.”
Hui Yin Chuah, research officer at the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) in Asia and the Pacific, says that refugee-related policies in India lack a comprehensive domestic legal framework, leading to an ad hoc approach to addressing these issues.
“Currently, a two-track mechanism is in place for asylum seekers: Sri Lankan and Tibetan refugees are registered under the Ministry of Home Affairs, while displaced individuals from other countries, including Afghanistan and Myanmar, must register with the UN’s refugee agency (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees),” Hui Yin Chuah says.
However, the UNHCR is not operational in Mizoram. Instead, the state government is issuing identity cards. That, however, does not let people use government services and requires refugees to give up their Myanmar citizenship, Ruati says, making it hard for her to return to her home country – something she yearns to do if the military government’s rule ends.
“The ambiguity (or lack thereof) of a refugee legislation also allows for manoeuvring, as seen in the case of states like Mizoram,” Hui Yin Chuah says.
People at refugee camps in the village of Zokhawthar, India, near the Myanmar border, are keen to get refugee identity documents [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]
Why hasn’t India signed the UN refugee convention?
In 1951, when the UN agreed on a refugee convention after the second world war, India was only newly independent and the trauma of the partition was still recent. The country’s prime minister at the time, Jawaharlal Nehru, refused to sign the convention, citing security concerns – a sentiment which continues.
The 1951 Refugee Convention was bolstered by a protocol in 1967 to ensure protection for refugees globally. Together, the two documents set the foundation for the UNHCR’s work by defining who a refugee is, what their rights are and how their rights should be protected from persecution.
Currently, 146 countries are party to the 1951 convention and 147 to the 1967 protocol.
Colin Gonsalves, human rights lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and the founder of the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) says that there have been regular discussions for years within India’s legal and human rights communities regarding India’s need to join the UN’s refugee convention. But the current BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no intention of joining it at all, he says.
“This is for the simple reason that they [the government] are anti-Muslim, racist and anti-minority. So these overtones make it impossible for any convention to be filed. The Congress government who were in power earlier were equally shortsighted,” Gonsalves says. “So no UN convention coupled with the lack of a national refugee law, has led to increased discrimination against refugees.”
Tibetans, starting with the Dalai Lama, who entered India in 1959, have received formal refugee status. Since 2014, the Modi government has given them voting rights. Tibetans have their own schooling system recognised by the government of India.
“On the other hand, the government has not agreed to protect the rights of the Rohingya from Myanmar, who are also fleeing religious persecution and continues to discriminate against them,” Gonsalves says. “Muslim Afghans also have a tough time in India compared to Hindu Afghans because of their religion.”
Highlighting how Parsis in India have been treated, Modi said: “Despite facing persecution elsewhere in the world, they have found a safe haven in India, living happily and prospering … That shows that the Indian society itself has no feeling of discrimination towards any religious minority.” India’s dwindling Parsi community – there are only about 50,000 left today – is among its most economically successful. The Tata, Wadia and the Mistry families are among India’s wealthiest.
Yet none of that helps more recent asylum seekers like Ruati. Legally, India is not bound to accept and recognise UNHCR-issued refugee IDs since it is not a signatory to the 1951 convention or the 1967 protocol, though “in general it respects the principle for holders of UNHCR documentation,” according to the UN agency.
“We continue to collaborate closely with the Government of India to address the essential needs of the most vulnerable refugees registered with UNHCR,” says Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesperson for Asia.
But he adds that refugees and asylum seekers in India are unable to use social protection schemes due to the requirement of having an Aadhar card – a social and public welfare identity document in India. To get an Aadhar card, applicants need other government-issued identification documents.
“Without government-issued documentation, refugees and asylum seekers are unable to benefit from the government’s social protection programmes,” Baloch said.
Currently, the UNHCR operates in 11 locations across India including the capital, New Delhi, in the north, and Chennai in South India. However, in northeast India, where the UNHCR currently does not have access, state governments have shown a degree of support.
“In Zokhawthar and Champhai the state government gives us donation-based food and shelter because they say we come from the same tribe as the locals and share strong cultural ties. So they don’t consider us foreigners,” Ruati says. “But a refugee card will make us happier.”
Gonsalves notes that it is clear the Indian government has put restrictions in the UN’s way but adds that the UNHCR in India should “be a little bit more combative and assertive”.
“Once you get the refugee card, it opens doors for people seeking asylum. So the UN should put their foot down and tell the government that it is their mandate to function across the country and give refugee cards to everyone. It is a matter of brinkmanship for the UN agency.”
According to Baloch, “any asylum seeker, irrespective of their background, who wishes to register with UNHCR” can approach the agency for registration.
The village of Zokhawthar in Mizoram, India [at left] is separated from Myanmar by the Tiau river [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]
Because ‘we are Muslims’
Sabber Kyaw Min, founder and director of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, who also came to India seeking refuge from Rakhine state in Myanmar, has been issued a UNHCR refugee card in New Delhi. But he says it gives him no rights and discrimination continues.
“The conditions of our settlements are sordid. Women have no access to healthcare, our children are not allowed to go to schools in India, and even locals in the country keep attacking our homes,” he says.
He highlighted that the Indian government also threatens NGOs who try to support the Rohingya people.
“I think it has to do with the fact that we are Muslims. And because there is no refugee law, we cannot even fight for our rights and contest our cases against the government,” Sabber Kyaw Min adds.
Some 22,000 Rohingya are currently registered with the UNHCR, according to the UN’s Baloch.
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has often taken a harsh stance towards them, with the home ministry also announcing last year that the Rohingya with UNHCR refugee cards in Delhi would be kept in detention centres and then deported since they are “illegal foreigners”, under the country’s Foreigner’s Act.
The country has already deported some Rohingya refugees to Myanmar according to rights groups. But currently plans for more deportations have been held up by the Supreme Court.
Is the Indian Constitution protecting refugees?
Gonsalves argues that the Indian Constitution does not allow the deportation of refugees.
“No refugee can be deported because our constitution protects not only citizens, but all those within the territory of India through Article 21, which obliges the state to protect the life and liberty of anyone within the territory. So the government is obliged to protect the lives of Rohingya,” Gonsalves says.
In 2019, the Modi government also passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which it said would fast-track citizenship to undocumented Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christian immigrants from countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. But Muslim refugees and asylum seekers were kept out, sparking protests across the country amid fears that India had adopted a religious criterion for citizenship.
“CAA provides a potential pathway to citizenship for refugees based on their religion and nationality, excluding Muslims and minorities from Myanmar,” the MMC’s Hui Yin Chuah says.
Yet even refugees eligible for fast-tracked citizenship have not benefitted so far. Now, recent reports suggest that the Indian government might start implementing the law before the parliamentary elections between March and May this year.
Will India get a refugee law ahead of its elections?
India heads to the polls this year, but Sabber Kyaw Min does not think campaigning leaders will address migration issues – a topic which is often contentious in the West and is in turn widely discussed by leaders, including in their election campaigns.
“What’s happening now in Myanmar is horrible. Until there is peace there, we can’t go back. India is a neighbouring country, and has a responsibility to give our community political support, and discuss migration issues with the UN and globally,” Sabber Kyaw Min said.
Gonsalves does not expect India to expel large numbers of refugees or leave them out at sea, as has happened in the West.
“In practice, the country’s treatment towards people seeking refuge is only harsh and not extreme since migrants are not being pushed back at sea like in the West,” he says.
But he also has few hopes that India will make lives easier for asylum seekers like Ruati.
“I also don’t expect the present or a new government to sign the UN refugee convention any time soon and introduce a refugee law,” he says.
“So our constitution and our courts will continue to step in, giving the kind of protection that the refugee convention gives.”
*Some names have been changed to protect identities.
Israel will not renew the visa of a United Nations staff member in the country and will also deny the visa request of another UN employee as the country yet again expresses its displeasure of the global body, which has criticised Israel’s targeting of civilians and hospitals during the Gaza war. An overwhelming majority of the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed are civilians.
“We will stop working with those who cooperate with the Hamas terrorist organization’s propaganda,” Eli Cohen, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, posted on X on Monday.
“We will no longer remain silent in the face of the UN’s hypocrisy!” he said. Israel has accused the UN of being biased.
Cohen described the UN’s conduct as “a disgrace” since the war erupted on October 7 after Hamas carried out deadly attacks inside Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed. The UN has criticised Hamas for the October 7 attacks and repeatedly called for the release of the captives taken by the group.
UN officials have criticised Israel’s targeting of residential areas, schools and hospitals and its curbs on aid deliveries during a complete siege imposed on Gaza in the wake of the October 7 attacks. More than 100 journalists, about 270 medical personnel and at least 134 UN staff have been killed in Israeli strikes.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and decried the dire humanitarian crisis. The UN, aid groups and rights groups have warned that Palestinians are now facing hunger. The UN chief this month invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, a move aimed at formally warning the Security Council of a global threat posed by Israel’s war on Gaza.
The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted for a humanitarian ceasefire several times since the war began, but votes at the UN Security Council have been vetoed and stalled by Israel’s close ally the United States. It abstained in the vote on the latest resolution, allowing it to pass on Friday, but the measure has been criticised as “insufficient”.
The Israeli foreign minister accused the UN chief, the UN human rights commissioner and the UN Women agency of legitimising “war crimes and crimes against humanity”, publishing “unsubstantiated blood libels” and ignoring the “acts of rape committed against Israeli women” for two months.
But human rights organisations have also slammed Israel for its war tactics, calling it “collective punishment” of Gaza’s 2.3 million people. Media reports have also debunked Israeli claims that Hamas ran a command centre under al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, which was crippled by Israeli shelling. Israel has justified attacks on UN schools, universities and hospitals, saying they were used by Hamas, but it has provided no proof for its claims.
Israel at war with the UN?
The latest incident is only one in a series of instances of Israel clashing with the UN over the war in Gaza in ways that are uncommon for member states of the global body.
This month, Israel announced its decision to revoke the residence visa of Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, who left the country last week.
“Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis … but instead condemns Israel, a democratic country that protects its citizens, cannot serve in the UN and cannot enter Israel!” Cohen wrote on X.
Hastings had criticised Israeli restrictions on much-needed aid deliveries. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” she said on December 4.
“If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” she said, referring to the resumption of Israel’s bombardment on Gaza at the end of a one-week pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas.
On October 25, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, warned that his country would refuse visas to UN officials after Guterres criticised Israel for ordering civilians to evacuate from northern Gaza to southern Gaza and said Hamas’s attacks on Israel did “not happen in a vacuum”.
“I am shocked by the misrepresentations by some of my statement … as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite,” Guterres said without mentioning Israel’s name.
Besides denying visas and accusing the UN chief of being unfit to run the agency, Cohen also said this month that he had instructed the Israeli mission to the UN to oppose the advancement of the annual budget of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The agency has repeatedly warned that aid work in Gaza is at a breaking point as the Israeli siege continues. Israel imposed a total siege in the wake of October 7 attacks, cutting off electricity, water and food. The Palestinian enclave has been called an “open air prison” due to Israel’s land, air and sea blockade imposed since 2007.
UNRWA has taken in about 1.2 million civilians – two-thirds of all displaced people in Gaza – in its shelters across the strip.
Since the war began, more than 100 UNRWA staff have been killed and over 40 of the agency’s buildings in Gaza have been damaged in Israeli strikes.
Last week, Cohen accused the agency of perpetuating “the conflict” and called on countries of the world to “stop years of turning a blind eye to the incitement to terrorism and Hamas’s cynical use of the agency’s facilities and the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”
Israel has also repeatedly targeted Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, who has criticised Israel for violating international laws and occupying Palestinian territories. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also been attacked for what Israel said was publishing inaccurate reports. Israel has not provided proof for its claims.
In October, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Meirav Eilon Shahar, told reporters that her country had been “let down” by the global body, saying its agency chiefs had not done enough to condemn Hamas and growing anti-Semitism.
“We’ve shared information quite widely, and we do expect the international community and international organisations, including WHO but not only, to condemn Hamas for using these protected facilities [such as hospitals] for military use,” she said.
Guterres has reiterated that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas.”
“And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Rival groups commit to new ceasefire and engage in UN-led peace process to end the nine-year war, says UN special envoy for Yemen.
The warring sides in the long-running conflict in Yemen have committed to steps towards a ceasefire and engage in a United Nations-led peace process, according to the UN special envoy for Yemen.
The announcement by Hans Grundberg on Saturday marks the latest step to end a nine-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Following a series of meetings between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and Iran-aligned Houthis in Saudi Arabia and Oman, a statement by Grundberg’s office said he “welcomes the parties’ commitment to a set of measures to implement a nationwide ceasefire, improve living conditions in Yemen, and engage in preparations for the resumption of an inclusive political process”.
The envoy “will now engage with the parties to establish a roadmap under UN auspices that includes these commitments and supports their implementation”, the statement said.
The plan, along with a ceasefire, will also include the two sides’ commitment to resume oil exports, pay all public sector salaries, open roads in Taiz and other parts of Yemen, and “further ease restrictions on Sanaa Airport and the Hodeidah port”, it added.
Yemen has been gripped with conflict since the Houthis took control of capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government forces the following year.
A UN-brokered ceasefire that took effect in April 2022 brought a sharp reduction in hostilities in the country of 30 million people. The truce expired in October last year, though fighting largely remains on hold.
In September, Houthi officials visited Riyadh for the first time since the war broke out. That followed a first round of Omani-mediated consultations between Riyadh and Sanaa.
The peace initiatives gained momentum after regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to re-establish ties in a deal brokered by China.
The UN envoy’s announcement also came amid a flurry of Houthi attacks on key shipping lanes in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians under attack in the Gaza Strip for more than two months.
The US abstains on resolution that it lobbied to weaken over the course of several days, allowing it to pass.
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza, following several delays over the last week as the United States lobbied to weaken the language regarding calls for a ceasefire.
The resolution, which calls for steps “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”, passed on Friday with 13 votes in favour, none against, and the US and Russia abstaining.
The vote comes amid international calls to bring the months-long conflict to an end, as Israeli forces pummel Gaza with one of the most destructive campaigns in modern history and humanitarian conditions in the besieged strip reach critical levels.
Congolese authorities have long accused UN forces of failing to protect civilians from armed groups in the eastern DRC.
The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of gradually phasing out its peacekeeping operations known as MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The 15-member body voted on Tuesday to draw down peacekeeping forces in the Central African nation about a year earlier than originally scheduled despite continued concerns over violence.
The decision was made as the DRC prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections on Wednesday, in which poverty and widespread insecurity are expected to be key issues for voters.
Numerous armed groups, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and M23, are active in provinces such as North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri in the eastern DRC, where civilians face violence and displacement.
Despite concerns over security, Congolese authorities have persistently called for the UN to scale down its presence in the country, saying it has failed to protect civilians from armed groups.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, who is running for re-election, said in remarks at the UN General Assembly in September that he had called on his government to accelerate the withdrawal of MONUSCO’s 14,000 soldiers so it would commence by the end of the year.
UN forces operating in other African nations have faced similar criticism. In June, the UN voted to end a decade-old peacekeeping mission in Mali after calls to do so from the country’s military government.
Wednesday’s elections are seen as a crucial test for democracy in the DRC, where only one peaceful transition of power has occurred in 63 years.
Tshisekedi won the December 2018 presidential election, which was tainted by allegations of voting irregularities, and voters have expressed concerns that Wednesday’s vote could face similar issues or even an outbreak of violence.
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This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
