Immer mehr Kinder sterben bei Flucht übers Mittelmeer
Fast 300 Kinder und Jugendliche sind laut UN-Angaben in diesem Jahr bei der Flucht über das Mittelmeer gestorben. Das sind doppelt so viele wie im Vorjahreszeitraum - und die Dunkelziffer ist hoch.
A UNICEF spokesperson has defended the death toll being reported out of Gaza, saying the organization’s figures match those of the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry, as scores of Palestinians evacuated to the territory’s south on Tuesday.... CNN cannot independently verify the health ministry’s death toll. But UNICEF...
Situation in Gaza is devastating: UNICEF executive director
Catherine Russell says there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children.
“The parties to the conflict are committing grave violations against children; these include killing, maiming, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access – all of which UNICEF condemns.”
#UNICEF / 17,000 children in Gaza were unaccompanied or have been separated from their families, nearly all children thought to require mental health support
"Before this war, UNICEF was considering already that 500,000 children were already in need of mental health and psychosocial support in Gaza. Today, we estimate that almost all children are in need of that support, and that's more than 1 million children."
Address of Palestine Mission to the United Nations [full text and video]
Mr. Chair. Given that a number of states have spoken about Palestine directly, we have prepared three replies which we will read one after the other, and we kindly ask for your indulgence in that regard. We will first respond to Israel's statement.
Mr. Chair, at the outset, let us remind Israel that our name is not the "Palestinian Authority,"" but the State of Palestine. Sure, your finance minister said at an event in Paris earlier this year, there is no such thing as a Palestinian people. And your prime minister on the 24th of September held up a map at the General Assembly entitled "The New Middle East" in which Palestine was deleted and replaced entirely with Israel. But if your government is annexationist and racist, this body is not, and we ask you to kindly adhere to UN protocol and nomenclature, and to show respect to all stakeholders in this room.
Let us also remind the Israeli delegate that the lack of rules of procedure for this meeting does not give "carte blanche" to lose all sense of decorum when speaking to interlocutors in this room.
To the other states and civil society in the room, let me simplify Israel's statement for you. Other than throwing insults around and making grave, baseless accusations, #Israel said something that should make all of you shudder. It effectively said, "I can kill any and every person in Gaza."
The 2.3 million people in #Gaza are either terrorists, or terrorists sympathizers, or human shields. And are therefore legitimate targets. Every person according to Israel falls into one of these three categories, a child, a journalist, a doctor, a UN staff, a newborn baby in an incubator. And so according to Israel, it can kill them, and then have the audacity to come to this room and tell the world with a straight face: we are acting in accordance with international law.
The death of each of the over 11,350 people killed over the past month, be it children, journalists, UN staff, the sick, the elderly, according to Israel, was justified.
Think about that for a moment and let it give you pause. Anyone is espousing this warped logic has no shred of humanity, no sense of morality and no knowledge of legality. But guess what? Your carpet explanation for carpet bombing will not fly. People are not fools. The people in this room are seasoned diplomats, who are well-read, have a knowledge of history and many of whom have seen your government make the same arguments during your six previous military aggression on Gaza in the past 15 years.
They have seen you resort to collective punishment targeting of Palestinian children, journalists, medical staff, aid workers before.
They have seen you forcibly transfer our communities, colonize our lands, demolish our homes and evict families from their own properties, since the 7th of October and for the 75 years that preceded it.
They have seen your state-sponsored disinformation campaign before.
Again, not fools don't insult our intelligence. By saying that it is acting in accordance with international law, Israel is effectively saying the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the #WHO, #UNICEF, OCHA, UN Special Reporters, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Situation, Human Rights Organizations worldwide, Disarmament NGOs worldwide, Humanitarian NGOs worldwide, countless legal experts are all wrong.
Everyone is lying about Israel violating international law, and we are asked instead to believe Israel, the state that is actually doing the indiscriminate killing.
It is interesting that by saying even wars have rules, Israel quoted the very same UN Secretary General whose resignation it has called for, because he dared to say that Israel has a history of occupying Palestinian land.
The dissonance of hearing the Israeli representative talk about wars having rules, as it commits #genocide, and breaches every rule in the book, live on our TV screens, is quite something.
To Israel, we say we see through your PR and #disinformation. The whole world sees through your PR and disinformation. The millions of people filling the streets in every major capital of the world, calling you out for genocide, sees through your PR and disinformation.
Perhaps you think that with your incendiary rhetoric, we will all forget the incitement, the declarations and acts of Israeli officials, the people you represent, to wipe out Gaza, to drop a new clear bomb on the Palestinian people, to destroy the "human animals" and children of darkness.
Perhaps you think that your constant intimidation and threatening language will make everyone overlook the fact that Israel is, as we speak, killing babies, youth, women, men, elderly, no one too small or too old or too sick to be spared its wrath.
Perhaps you think that by cutting off telecommunications and imposing yet another blackout on Gaza, you can continue to commit genocide, while avoiding the annoyance of people being able to use their phones and computers to report on it.
Perhaps you think that as your trigger-happy soldiers continue to kill journalists - 41 so far, the highest number of journalists killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in the last three decades - you think that no one will be left to expose your crimes.
Perhaps you think that by trying to silence anyone who tries to speak about your crimes, the international law violations of the state, by calling them either #antisemites or terror supporters, people will be silent.
And your intimidation campaign knows no bounds.
They attack Palestinians, Jews, Israelis, UN officials, politicians, parliamentarians, university professors, and anyone worldwide, who calls you out for your violations of international law.
But guess what, your intimidation and silencing will not work. We, along with all peace-loving nations and along with all people of conscience around the world, will not be silent. We will continue to call you out on your crimes to call for accountability for your violations, for sanctions as your government continues to reject calls for a ceasefire to massacre our people and to entrench your colonial occupation and apartheid regime.
Something your country should have learned over the past 75 years, is that the Palestinian people are a people who refuse to disappear, and your new clear threats and your bombs and your tanks and your bulldozers will never break the Palestinian people's will to be free, and to live in the dignity and peace, to which all people are entitled.
Unlike you, we have consistently stood in this forum calling for respect for international law, for ethical principles to guide state behavior, for peace over war, for humanity over national interests, for disarmament over destruction. Once again, we stand in this forum to call on all states to respect and ensure respect for international law. Let the law be the measure by which all are judged, not propaganda and hateful bias spin steeped in racism.
And to Israel's absurd assertion that Palestinians have a problem with people of Jewish faith, and give the impression that this is a religious conflict. Let us say loud and clear this is not and has never been about religion. Had the occupiers of our land or the violators of our rights, bin Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist or of any other conviction, we would have called them out all the same.
#Palestine has always been multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious. People of Jewish faith have lived in historic Palestine as Palestinians for centuries. We consider them to be our brothers and sisters.
And since the memory of the #Holocaust has been invoked, let us also say loud and clear: we have the greatest of solidarity with both the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. It was not Palestinians that committed that horrific genocide, but the fascist forces that spawned from Europe. And it is unconscionable that a number of European leaders are again beating the drum as another genocide is now underway in Gaza.
We are united with those hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world, including from organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Namod UK, who are calling out this genocide and chanting in the streets of New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Toronto and all major Western cities, so that their governments can hear: "not in our name", end the genocide in Gaza. With them, we stand together to end this pain and suffering. Together, we will not allow this to happen. Never again is now.
#UNICEF Photo of the year 2023 Winner is "#Ukraine - Under the dark clouds of war" by Patryk Jaracz
"5-year-old Alina is practicing riding her bike, followed by her friends. A moment of lightheartedness on some meadow in the northwest of Ukraine, banishing the dark clouds of misery, for a while at least. The night before, a drone strike set fire to an oil depot nearby. This time it was just an oil depot, not a residential building, not a hospital, not a school"
Here’s how James Elder, UNICEF’s global spokesperson, has described the scenes inside the al-Nassar Hospital in Khan Younis, south of Gaza:
“Everywhere you turn to, there are children with third-degree burns, shrapnel wounds, brain injuries and broken bones. Mothers crying over children who look like they are hours away from death. It seems like a death zone right now.”
The UN children’s agency UNICEF has described attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp as “horrific and appalling”.
While UNICEF said it was too soon to know the number of children injured or killed in the last day, it said that more than 3,500 children have been killed in Gaza in the past 25 days.
“Children have endured too much already,” the UNICEF statement said. “The killing and captivity of children must stop.”
"Extreme #weather displaced 43,000,000 children in past six years, #Unicef reports - At least 43 million child displacements were linked to #extreme weather events over the past six years, the equivalent of 20,000 children being forced to abandon their homes and school every single day, new research has found.
#Floods and #storms accounted for 95% of recorded child displacement between 2016 and 2021, according to the first-of-its-kind analysis by Unicef and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The rest – more than 2 million children – were displaced by #wildfires and #drought."
Togo is facing high rates of infant and neonatal mortality, as well as maternal mortality, according to UNICEF. The country has an infant mortality rate of 43 deaths per 1000 live births and a neonatal mortality rate of 24 deaths per 1000 live births. To address this critical issue, Amnesty International is urging the Togolese...
Der UN-Kinderrechtsausschuss veröffentlicht Leitlinie zur Umsetzung des Kinderrechts auf eine gesunde Umwelt
Sie "gibt Staaten einen verpflichtenden Fahrplan an die Hand, den Planeten so zu erhalten, dass Kinder heute und morgen in einer intakten Umgebung aufwachsen. Entscheidend ist dabei, dass ihre Perspektiven künftig in jede umweltpolitische Entscheidung einfließen.“
"1 in 3 #children - or 739 million worldwide - already live in areas exposed to high or very high #water scarcity, with climate change threatening to make this worse, according to a new #UNICEF report.
Despite their unique vulnerability, children have been either ignored or largely disregarded in discussions about #ClimateChange."
"In Rafah I saw children who had amputations, but were living in tents because hospitals are full. Those children – and many, many more – are now being told to go to zones such as Al Mawasi. The so called “safe zone” of Al Mawasi: where UNICEF reported on a little boy, Mustafa, who went to get some parsley for the family dinner. Mustafa was shot in the head, and killed … in the “safe zone” of Al Mawasi"
Ukrainian schoolchildren to take mine safety courses
Ukraine's Education Ministry is developing a course in cooperation with #UNICEF on mine safety for Ukrainian schoolchildren, one that will become a mandatory part of the curriculum
"Education should give a child useful knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, now and for a long time to come, mine safety knowledge and skills will be extremely relevant in #Ukraine " Education Minister Oksen Lisovy said.
Israel just can't stop targeting aid workers. Incredible! Then they scream that aid is there but not being delivered. Who would want to risk being blown up?
Many people in Europe, including people about to jet off to Mediterranean beaches for their summer holidays, seem oblivious to the daily tragedies unfolding in the same waters, a senior UN official has said.
It comes as the United Nations said some 289 children are known to have died in the first half of 2023 while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
The scenes of “carnage and death” following Israeli strikes on al-Fakhoora and Tal al-Zaatar schools in northern Gaza “are horrific and appalling”, says Adele Khodr, the UN agency’s regional director for Middle East and North Africa.
“Children, schools and shelters are not a target,” she wrote on X.
In other news from Gaza, the U.N. food agency has issued a dire warning, stating, “Over one million people — half the population of Gaza — are expected to face death and starvation by mid-July” if Israel’s war on Gaza does not end. The warning comes in a new report on global hunger that also says the risk of starvation...
Following the deadly Israeli strike on Rafah, James Elder, #Unicef Global Spokesperson, tells FRANCE24's Tom Burges Watson that 'safe zones in Gaza are a dangerous narrative'. He says that so-called safe zones in Gaza cannot guarantee food, water and medicine to survive. 'These safe zones have none of those things, and they get bombed' he says, adding that 'Gaza remains hell on earth for boys and girls and their families'. #Rafah#Israel#Gaza
UNICEF defends accuracy of Gaza death toll as horror unfolds in ravaged enclave | CNN (edition.cnn.com)
A UNICEF spokesperson has defended the death toll being reported out of Gaza, saying the organization’s figures match those of the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry, as scores of Palestinians evacuated to the territory’s south on Tuesday.... CNN cannot independently verify the health ministry’s death toll. But UNICEF...
Togo Urgently Needs to Strengthen Maternal Healthcare and Reduce Infant and Neonatal Mortality: UNICEF (www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com)
Togo is facing high rates of infant and neonatal mortality, as well as maternal mortality, according to UNICEF. The country has an infant mortality rate of 43 deaths per 1000 live births and a neonatal mortality rate of 24 deaths per 1000 live births. To address this critical issue, Amnesty International is urging the Togolese...
U.N. Warns 1 Million Gazans Could Face Deadly Starvation by Mid-July (www.democracynow.org)
In other news from Gaza, the U.N. food agency has issued a dire warning, stating, “Over one million people — half the population of Gaza — are expected to face death and starvation by mid-July” if Israel’s war on Gaza does not end. The warning comes in a new report on global hunger that also says the risk of starvation...