UN to launch $2.8b global appeal for Gaza, West Bank
Netanyahu solely responsible for recent Middle East tensions, says Erdogan; Israel must stop setler atacks on Palestinians, rights office says
The United Nations on Wednesday will launch a $2.8 billion appeal for donations this year to help the war-ravaged population of the Gaza Strip as well as West Bank Palestinians, a senior agency official said.
The “flash appeal” addresses humanitarian funding needs through the end of 2024, according to Andrea De Domenico, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian territories.
“With the entire humanitarian community we will appeal for $2.8 billion to support the three million people identified across the West Bank and Gaza,” he said Tuesday in a video press conference.
“Of course 90 percent of it is for Gaza,” De Domenico added.
He noted that “the original request was for $4 billion but considering the limited ability to deliver (aid) and the space that we have to do so we have really focused on the highest priority.”
Days ater the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza in retaliation, the United Nations launched an initial emergency appeal for $294 million.
That appeal was modified in early November and raised to $1.2 billion to meet the most urgent needs of 2.2 million people in Gaza and another 500,000 in the West Bank in 2023.
The United Nations has warned that thousands of Gazans face famine, particularly in the north of the territory where distribution of food and aid has been limited.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership are solely responsible for the recent escalation of tensions in the Middle East, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.
“Israel is trying to provoke a regional conflict, and its atack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus was the last drop,” he told a press conference in Ankara ater a cabinet meeting.
He added that new regional conflicts were possible as long as the “cruelty and genocide” in Gaza continued, and called on all parties to act with common sense. He also slammed the West for condemning Iran’s atack but not Israel’s strike on Iran’s embassy.
Iran atacked Israel with hundreds of explosive drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles launched on Saturday night, to which Israeli officials have vowed to respond.
Iran called the barrage retaliation for an Israeli strike that flattened a building in its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 and killed two of its generals and several other officers.
The UN human rights office called on Israeli security forces to immediately end their active participation in and support for atacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The statement Tuesday follows a wave of settler atacks on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank triggered by the killing of a 14-year-old Israeli boy in what authorities say was an atack.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says seven Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since the atacks began Friday, and another 75 have been wounded. Israeli authorities have urged people not to resort to vigilante atacks as tensions soar. But rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of routinely ignoring settler atacks or even taking part in them.
World leaders have urged Israel not to retaliate ater Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles over the weekend in an unprecedented mission that pushed the Middle East closer to a regionwide war. The atack happened less than two weeks ater a suspected Israeli strike in Syria killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building.
Israel’s war cabinet was set to meet for the third time in three days on Tuesday, an official said, to decide on a response to Iran’s first-ever direct atack, amid international pressure to avoid further escalating Middle East conflicts.
Military chief of staff Herzi Halevi had promised that Saturday night’s launch of more than 300 missiles, cruise missiles and drones from Iran at Israeli territory “will be met with a response”, but gave no details.
While the atack caused no deaths and litle damage, thanks to the air defences and countermeasures of Israel and its allies, it has increased fears that violence rooted in the Gaza war is spreading, with the risk of open war between long-time foes Iran and Israel.