Israeli ban on 37 aid organizations expected to have devastating impacts across Palestine

Qassam Muaddi, Tareq S. Hajja | Mondoweiss

Aid organizations say Israel's recent ban of 37 groups has dealt a severe blow to humanitarian work across Palestine. In Gaza, it means "cutting off a lifeline for over two million people," says Rahma Worldwide's Dr. Shadi Zazzah.

Israel's decision to cancel the registration of 37 international aid organizations at the beginning of the year has dealt a severe blow to the international presence in Palestine. Beyond that, it has delivered a serious blow to Palestinian society itself. The banning of dozens of international NGOs threatens many social assistance and development programs, many of which are Palestinian-run and crucial to sustaining essential services in communities across Palestine.

The ban followed a new set of registration conditions imposed by Israel on international organizations earlier in December, including a requirement to provide Israeli authorities with the personal data of Palestinian staff. Israel said the 37 organizations failed to comply with this requirement, with Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, saying the decision aimed to prevent the "exploitation of humanitarian aid for terrorism," although Israel has never provided evidence of such links.

The decision includes several prominent international humanitarian organizations, such as Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and even the Catholic Relief Services (Caritas), all of which were notified to cease operations in the Palestinian territories by March. The ban does not apply to any UN body.

The impact of the ban is expected to be felt most acutely in the Gaza Strip, where all two million Palestinians depend partly or entirely on humanitarian aid. Aid deliveries remain restricted following months of near-total shutdown prior to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October 2025.

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Jeremy Hunt is lying about Britain’s role in Yemen

Stop The War Coalition

In a recent Politico article Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary, has defended the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and The UAE. Arms that are often used in perpetuating Yemen’s civil war. Hunt claims the UK-Saudi relationship ‘Helps us influence their leaders’ toward peaceful resolution. In reality, Britain’s supply of arms only feeds the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The multi Billion pound Al Yamamah (The Dove) arms deal provides Saudi Arabia with 25% of its arms imports for use fighting Houthi forces in Yemen. As the second largest arms supplier to the Saudi led coalition Britain is culpable in its infamous war crimes. Such atrocities have included bombing a wedding party killing 20 civilians; bombing a funeral killing 140 civilians and wounding 600 more; and even an air attack on a school bus leaving 40 Yemeni children dead. British firm BAE systems provides the typhoon jets used for this type of air to surface attacks. No wonder that the UK wouldn’t back a UN investigation into Saudi war crimes.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis have been killed in the conflict, and millions more displaced. Combined with mass starvation and a cholera epidemic Yemen is now the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. 

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NGO’s Warn That Half The Population Of Yemen Is On Brink Of Famine

NWO Report

Thirty-five non-governmental organization have demanded an immediate end to hostilities in Yemen, warning that the Saudi-led coalition’s war against the country has put 14 million people on the verge of famine.

The UN has also warned that Yemen is on brink of ‘world’s worst famine in 100 years‘ if airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition continued.

In a statement on Wednesday both Yemeni and international NGO’s said : “With 14 million men, women and children on the brink of famine – half of the country’s population – there has never been a more urgent time to act”

Press TV reports: The statement also called on the world to “secure an immediate cessation of hostilities” and “suspend the supply of arms at risk of being used in Yemen”.

“We call on governments to redouble their efforts to guarantee unimpeded access to essential items… including through the lifeline port of Hudaydah, where civilians have been caught in renewed fighting over the past few days.”

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is manmade and a direct consequence of the severe restrictions on access to food, fuel, medical imports and humanitarian aid, it added.

The appeal was signed by Oxfam, Action Against Hunger, Doctors of the World, the International Federation for Human Rights, CARE International, and Yemeni organizations.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi movement and reinstate former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.

One of the principle targets of the Saudi strikes is Hudaydah port, where the World Food Programme is finding it hard or impossible to access desperately-needed wheat stocks. Yemen is heavily dependent on food imports and the deadly ground and aerial attacks by the Riyadh regime and its allies are directly adding to the risk of starvation on a massive scale.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

‘Fake News’ Isn’t New: Dissecting Two Decades Of War Propaganda

Mnar Muhawesh
Mint Press News

Author and noted peace activist David Swanson joins host Mnar Muhawesh on ‘Behind the Headline’ about the narrative on Aleppo and Russia’s role in the Syrian conflict, dissecting who benefits and how. 

MINNEAPOLIS — The “fog of war” erupts in the confusion caused by the chaos of war. And in the media, it’s an intentional phenomenon that makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction.

While the battles over war narratives evolve, they all have a common goal: to distort reality on the ground.

Such is the case on the crisis in Syria, the new cold war with Russia, and even the buildup for President Bush’s support for Kuwait’s “humanitarian” war against Iraq.

On Oct. 10, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl identified only as “Nayirah” told the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that she witnessed Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators and leaving them on a cold floor to die.

Her testimony was cited numerous times by senators and even President George H.W. Bush as  justification for backing Kuwait in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, which erupted just three months later.

However, it was later revealed that “Nayirah” was the daughter of Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States, and her testimony was arranged by a PR firm representing a Kuwaiti-sponsored group lobbying Congress for military intervention.

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World Health Organization: Russia's 'generous support' to Syrian citizens 'impressive'

Sputnik

Russia provided generous support to Syrian citizens at a time when they needed it most, Elizabeth Hoff, the World Health Organization representative in Damascus said on Monday.
"I was impressed with the generosity and support provided by Russia at a time when [Syrian citizens] needed it most," Hoff told RIA Novosti.

The representative noted that several thousand people in East Aleppo still need to be evacuated which could take a few days.

Hoff said that the estimated number is 50,000 people, but that she didn't believe that the number is that high.
She pointed out that the WHO is set to step up humanitarian aid to people evacuated from East Aleppo. According to Hoff, about 39,000 people have been registered in temporary shelters. However, the majority of people choose not to stay there as the conditions are not very good.
"In Aleppo province, there are about 75,000 internally displaced people that we need to help," Hoff elaborated.

The WHO prepared 300,000 medications for evacuees from East Aleppo. The medications have been sent to hospitals in Aleppo province.

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that Aleppo was now under full government control with the Syrian army operation to retake the eastern districts completed. Civilians and militants were leaving the city amid a ceasefire agreement between the remaining pockets of resistance and government forces.  

America’s “Humanitarian War” against the World

Michel Chossoudovsky 
Global Research

The following text is a point by point thematic summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky‘s presentation at the Science for Peace Conference, Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, 15-16 August 2016.

Introduction

Historically, science has supported the development of the weapons industry and the war economy. “Science for Peace” indelibly requires reversing the logic whereby commissioned scientific endeavors are directed towards supporting what President Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex”.

What is consequently required is a massive redirection of science and technology towards the pursuit of broad societal objectives. In turn, this requires a major shift in what is euphemistically called “US Foreign Policy”, namely America’s global military agenda.

Military Affairs: The Current Global Context

The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy. We are not dealing with piecemeal military and intelligence operations. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Asia Pacific region.

The current situation is all the more critical inasmuch as a US-NATO war on Russia, China and Iran is part of the US presidential election debate. It is presented as a political and military option to Western public opinion.

The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states. America’s hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare.

U.S. and NATO forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe including Poland and Ukraine. In turn, military maneuvers are being conducted at Russia’s doorstep which could potentially lead to confrontation with the Russian Federation.

The U.S. and its allies are also threatening China under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia”.

The U.S. led airstrikes initiated in August 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.

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Western media brought to you by state-sponsored terrorism

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik

Multi-million-dollar advertising money has long been suspected as an unspoken filter for Western news media coverage. If the news conflicts with advertising interests then it is simply dropped. Western complicity in Yemen's conflict is a case study. Add to that the celebrity sheen of Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman. What we then have is an illustration of how ugly realities of killing and war crimes are cosmetically air brushed from public awareness.

Let's take three major Western media outlets — BBC, CNN, France 24. All are notable for their dearth of news coverage on the bloody conflict in Yemen. On any given day over the past nine months, these channels have rarely given any reports on the daily violence in the Arabian Peninsula country. Yemen is heading into peace talks in Geneva this week, so there might follow some desultory reports on the said channels. But over the past nine months when the country was being pummelled in an appalling onslaught by foreign powers, the same channels gave negligible reportage.

It also turns out — not coincidentally — that major advertisers on these same news channels include Qatar Airways, Emirates Airlines and Etihad. The latter two advertisers feature screen celebrities Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman, posing as satisfied customers of these Gulf state-owned companies. Other prominent advertisers on BBC, CNN and France 24 are Turkish Airlines and Business Friendly Bahrain. This advertising complex has, undoubtedly, a direct bearing on why the three mentioned Western news channels do not give any meaningful coverage of the disturbing events in Yemen. Notwithstanding there is much that deserves telling about Yemen — if your purpose was journalism and public information. The poorest country in the Arab region is being bombed by a coalition of states that include the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia, as well as a handful of other Persian Gulf oil-rich kingdoms. The latter include Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Thousands of Yemeni civilians — women and children — have been killed in air strikes by warplanes from this foreign military coalition, which claims to have intervened in Yemen to reinstall a regime headed up by a discredited president who was forced into exile in March this year by a popular uprising. The uprising was led by the Yemeni national army allied with guerrilla known as the Houthis.

Out of Yemen's 24 million population, nearly half are in dire humanitarian conditions from lack of food, water and medicine, according to the United Nations. The suffering is aggravated by a sea and air blockade of Yemen by the Western-Arab military coalition. Due to Western involvement in a humanitarian disaster unfolding in Yemen, one might think that Western media would be at least giving some coverage. Well, not if you watch BBC, CNN or France 24.

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EU debates cutting food aid to millions of Europe's poor

The European Union will decide on Tuesday whether to cut food aid for 13 million people living in poverty in 19 EU countries. Britain and Germany are among countries supporting the cut, saying that food aid should be handled as domestic policy.

News Wires

AFP - Europe's farm ministers Tuesday decide whether to agree a plan to ditch 80 percent of the food aid being delivered to 13 million Europeans too poor to afford proper meals, a plan backed notably by Britain and Germany.

"Not only can we save this European food aid but we must do so," said French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire before heading to Brussels for the talks.

"I am revolted by the decision to scrap this aid for the most deprived," he told RTL radio.

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Tripoli faces humanitarian crisis

WSWS

More than a week after the NATO-led “rebels” invaded the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the city’s 2 million residents are facing a deepening humanitarian crisis, deprived of water, electricity, adequate food supplies and desperately needed medical care.

While the downfall of the 42-year-old regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi has been universally proclaimed, the whereabouts of Gaddafi himself are still not known. The principal leaders of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC)—recognized by the major powers as the “legitimate” government of Libya—have yet to set foot in Tripoli.

Sporadic fighting continues to be reported in the capital, while NATO and the insurgent forces it has sponsored are preparing for a siege of Sirte, the coastal city of 100,000 that is Gaddafi’s home town and a center of his tribe, the Gaddafas.

NATO warplanes have conducted dozens of air strikes against Sirte, which straddles the highway leading from Tripoli in the west to Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, to the east.

The pretense that this air war is being carried out under the United Nations mandate to protect Libyan civilians has become increasingly ludicrous as US, British and French warplanes are used to pound civilian population centers to prepare the way for invading “rebel” armies. [...]

Another famine, another humanitarian band-aid

France24

The food crisis in East Africa has seen a renewed drive for urgent international aid – as it has in the past. But while humanitarian assistance can provide short-term relief, it does not address Somalia’s long-term malaise.

The scenes are haunting, yet familiar: anguished mothers stream into packed refugee camps bearing malnourished children and harrowing tales of human survival, aid officials issue pleas for more international aid, donor countries cough up new promises, the usual bunch of celebrities sing their usual humanitarian tunes, and of course the journalists record it for an audience that has seen it all before.

We’ve been there, done that – and now we’re doing it all over again. [...]

See also: Deadly Compassion Part III 

 

Gaza Island

Gaza Island from Albino Squirrel Channel on Vimeo.

 The Freedom Flotilla 2, with 12+ boats carrying humanitarian aid and 1000+ peace activists, is sailing to Gaza in late June. Alice Walker, who's sailing with us, calls this the Freedom Ride of our generation. We want to help open this Palestinian port and end the illegal Israeli blockade, which has caused so much suffering. Meanwhile, the global BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement is calling on Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson and Kiri Te Kanawa to cancel their 2011 Israel concerts and get on the boat!

Note: all songs featured in Gaza Island are parodies of familiar songs, and as such are protected by fair use provisions of copyright law.