Edited News | UNHCR , UNICEF , OHCHR
Lebanon crisis: UN human rights office calls for probe into Israeli strike
With no let-up to the ongoing Israel-Lebanon conflict, the UN human rights office on Tuesday called for an independent probe into an Israeli airstrike that hit an apartment block in northern Lebanon a day earlier that left a reported 22 dead.
“What we’re hearing is that amongst the 22 people who were killed were 12 women and two children,” said Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to [International Humanitarian Law], so the laws of war and principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality. In this case, we would - our Office - call for a prompt, independent and thorough investigation into this incident.”
Since the Israeli military escalated its offensive against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon last month whose deadly rocket attacks at Israel have not stopped, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that the death toll in Lebanon is now more than 2,200 since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023. That number “continues to climb as the situation becomes more dramatic”, said Rema Jamous Imseis, UNHCR Director for the Middle East.
Over 10,000 people have also been injured amid Israeli airstrikes and Israeli evacuation orders that have left more than 25 per cent of the country “under a direct Israeli military evacuation order”, the UNHCR official told journalists in Geneva.
Some 1.2 million people have now been displaced across Lebanon, according to the country’s government, while the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, warned that all those impacted “are enduring the worst humanitarian crisis in decades”.
“Violence is pushing an already overwhelmed health system to the brink, with devastating impacts on care. Attacks on health facilities are a violation of international humanitarian law. They must end now,” OCHA said in an online post.
“People are heeding these calls to evacuate and they're fleeing with almost nothing,” UNHCR’s Ms. Imseis said. “Many of them are being forced out into the open, they're sleeping under the skies as they try to find their way towards safety and support.”
Providing assistance to those in need remains dangerous and difficult, she continued, noting that “for the last three days running, we've had to endorse and approve and reapprove an interagency convoy movement which is now scheduled to take place today”.
Desperate scenes have also been reported on Lebanon’s border with Syria, where more than 283,000 people have now crossed into northern Syria “seeking safety, fleeing Israeli airstrikes”, the UNHCR official said. About 70 per cent of those people are Syrians and roughly 30 per cent are Lebanese.
“We saw women with - two women - with about nine children between them who described their journey on foot for 10 hours to reach that point. They had seen directly the impact of the violence, an airstrike had hit a home 100 metres from their home and they fled, literally, with just the clothes on their backs.”
In Gaza, meanwhile, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) condemned Monday’s strike on the al Aqsa hospital courtyard, where people from northern Gaza were told to relocate. At least four people were burned to death, and scores of others, including women and children, suffered severe burns.
“There are far too many children there with burns and with burn wounds” needing treatment that [the] hospital does not have the medicines and the antiseptics and the painkillers that are required,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder. “On my last mission to Gaza earlier this month, I discovered such a thing as fourth degree burns; I met a little six-year-old boy, Hamid with fourth degree burns. So what we saw last night will have again been large numbers of people, including children, with horrendous burns to which that hospital simply doesn't have the resources to treat.”
Providing assistance to those in need remains dangerous and difficult, she continued, noting that “for the last three days running, we've had to endorse and approve and reapprove an interagency convoy movement which is now scheduled to take place today”.
Story: Middle East crisis update – UNHCR, OHCHR, UNICEF
Speakers:
TRT: 03’21”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 15 October 2024 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
RESTRICTIONS: None
SHOTLIST
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
“Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza, are unconscionable. For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured,” Jeremy Laurence UN Human Rights spokesperson said at the biweekly press briefing in Geneva.
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Edited News | OCHA
Gaza ‘hungriest place on earth’ with aid stymied – UN humanitarians
Starving Gazans continue to be deprived of aid as international relief efforts are being severely constrained by the Israeli authorities, the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA said on Friday.
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Edited News | OCHA , UNRWA
As a controversial United States and Israel-backed aid distribution plan gets underway in Gaza, the UN called on Tuesday for an “immediate surge” of its own pre-positioned supplies to help prevent starvation.
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Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani today urged Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to reject a bill that was recently endorsed by parliament allowing trials of civilians in military courts. The Uganda People’s Defence Forces Amendment Bill 2025, which was passed on 20 May and now awaits presidential signature to become law, among others broadens the jurisdiction of military courts, authorising them to try a wide range of offences against civilians.
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Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango today warned of a further deterioration in the human rights situation in South Sudan at the bi-weekly briefing in Geneva.
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Edited News | OCHA , WHO
Syria: ‘Staggering’ needs amid insecurity, health care crisis - UN humanitarians
Millions of people in Syria continue to face mortal danger from unexploded munitions, disease and malnutrition and urgent support is required, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
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Edited News | UNRWA , OCHA , WHO
UN life-saving aid allowed to trickle into Gaza as civilian needs mount
Amid calls for more humanitarian trucks to enter the food and medicine-deprived Palestinian enclave of Gaza, UN humanitarians have received permission from Israel for “around 100” more aid trucks to cross into the Strip after only five were let in yesterday, But the scale of relief efforts allowed remains entirely insufficient to meet the urgent needs of people there, humanitarian workers say.
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Edited News
A war reporter from Lebanon who lost a limb in the line of duty is calling for an end to impunity for attacks against journalists.
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Edited News | ITU
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) commemorated 160 years dedicated to connecting the world on Saturday, 17 May in Geneva, Switzerland, during the annual World Telecommunication and Information Society Day.
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Edited News | WHO , OCHA
Gazans ‘in terror’ after another night of deadly strikes and siege
Amid reports that Israeli strikes across Gaza into Friday killed at least 64 people, aid teams once again pushed back strongly at allegations that aid is being diverted to Hamas and pleaded for the blockade to end.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
Deportations over recent months of large numbers of non-nationals from the United States of America, especially to countries other than those of their origin, raise a number of human rights concerns, the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned on Tuesday.
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Edited News | WHO
Gaza: Over 50 child malnutrition deaths amid aid blockade; entire generation will be ‘permanently affected’ - WHO
In the aid desert of Gaza, malnourished children are dying while survivors can expect a lifetime of dire health problems, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.