You are here

  • Home
  • Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA
War on Gaza

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA
A security guard opens the gate at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) run school in the Qalandia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on November 14, 2024.(AFP)
Short Url

https://arab.news/57dtd

Updated 19 November 2024
Arab News
Follow

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA
  • Bills passed by Israel’s parliament will stop UN agency from sending vital aid to Gaza
  • Norwegian FM: Bills will ‘undermine the stability of the entire Middle East’
Updated 19 November 2024
Arab News
Follow

London: Norway will ask the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion condemning Israel for ceasing cooperation with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Last month, Israel’s parliament passed two bills banning the agency from the country and forbidding state cooperation with it.

There are fears that the bills, due to come into effect within three months, will prevent UNRWA from delivering vital aid into Gaza.

The agency says two-thirds of its buildings have been destroyed in Israel’s invasion of the Palestinian enclave, and 243 staff have been killed.

Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik has held talks at the UN on a draft resolution to urge an advisory opinion from the ICJ to protect the existence of UNRWA.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said: “The international community cannot accept that the UN, international humanitarian organizations, and states continue to face systematic obstacles when working in Palestine and delivering humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under occupation.

“We are therefore requesting the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, delivered by international organizations, including the UN, and states.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the Israeli bills would “undermine the stability of the entire Middle East” and have “severe consequences for millions of civilians already living in the most dire of circumstances.”

Norway’s move is being backed by an increasing number of UN figures and member states. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said at the UN on Monday: “The situation (in Gaza) is devastating and beyond comprehension, and frankly it is getting worse. It is totally unacceptable that it is harder than ever to get aid into Gaza.

“In October only 37 aid trucks reached Gaza, the lowest ever. There is no excuse for Israeli restrictions on aid.”

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said: “I have drawn the attention of the member states that now the clock is ticking … We have to stop or prevent the implementation of this bill.”

According to the UN Charter, UN buildings are meant to be inviolable during conflicts. After the 2008 war in Gaza, Israel paid the UN compensation amounting to $10.4 million for damage caused to its premises after an investigation determined “an egregious breach of the inviolability of the United Nations premises and a failure to accord the property and assets of the organisation immunity from any form of interference.”

Topics: War on Gaza Norway The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Israel Gaza

Related

Update ‘No plan B’ to aid Palestinian refugees: UNRWA chief video
Middle-East
‘No plan B’ to aid Palestinian refugees: UNRWA chief
UNRWA ban in Gaza ‘will not make Israel safer’: WHO
Middle-East
UNRWA ban in Gaza ‘will not make Israel safer’: WHO

In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find

In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP
Follow

In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find

In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP
BETHLEHEM: On Bethlehem’s Manger Square, Christmas decorations and pilgrims are notably absent for a second wartime festive season in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city.
The Church of the Nativity that dominates the square is as empty as the plaza outside. Only the chants of Armenian monks echo from the crypt where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
“Normally on this day you would find 3,000 or 4,000 people inside the church,” said Mohammed Sabeh, a security guard for the church.
Violence across the Israeli-occupied West Bank has surged since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year, but Bethlehem has remained largely quiet, even though the fighting has taken a toll on the now predominantly Muslim city.
Foreign tourists, on whom Bethlehem’s economy almost entirely relies, stopped coming due to the war. An increase in restrictions on movement, in the form of Israeli checkpoints, is also keeping many Palestinians from visiting.
“Christians in Ramallah can’t come because there are checkpoints,” Sabeh said, complaining that Israeli soldiers “treat us badly,” leading to long traffic queues for those trying to visit from the West Bank city 22 kilometers (14 miles) away, on the other side of nearby Jerusalem.
Anton Salman, Bethlehem’s mayor, told AFP that on top of pre-existing checkpoints, the Israeli army had set up new roadblocks around Bethlehem, creating “an obstacle” for those wanting to visit.
“Maybe part of them will succeed to come, and part of them, they are going to face the gates and the checkpoints that Israel is putting around,” Salman said.


The somber atmosphere created by the Gaza war, which began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, would make showy celebrations an insensitive display, said Salman.
“We want to show the world that Bethlehem is not having Christmas as usual,” he said.
Prayers will go on, and the Catholic Church’s Latin Patriarch will make the trip from Jerusalem as usual, but the festivities will be of a more strictly religious nature than the festive celebrations the city once held.
There will be no float parade, no scout march and no large gatherings on the streets this year.
“Bethlehem is special at Christmas. It is so special in the Holy Land. Jesus was born here,” said Souad Handal, a 55-year-old tour guide from Bethlehem.
“It’s so bad (now) because the economy of Bethlehem, it depends on tourism.”
Joseph Giacaman, owner of one of Bethlehem’s best-located shops right on Manger Square, said he now only opens once or twice a week “to clean up,” for lack of customers.
“A lot of families lost their business because, you know, there are no tourists,” said Aboud, another souvenir shopkeeper, who didn’t give his last name.
Similarly, in Jerusalem’s Old City, just eight kilometers (five miles) away but on the other side of the separation wall built by Israel, the Christian quarter has eschewed traditional Christmas decorations.
The municipality has forgone its traditional Christmas tree at the main entrance to the neighborhood, New Gate, and nativity scenes have been restricted to private properties.
The tightening of security around Bethlehem since the start of the war, combined with economic difficulties, has led many local residents to leave.
“When you can’t offer your son his needs, I don’t think that you are going to stop just thinking how to offer it,” said Salman, the mayor.
Because of that, “a lot of people, during the last year, left the city,” he said, estimating that roughly 470 Christian families had moved out of the greater Bethlehem area.
However, the phenomenon is by no means restricted to Christians, who represented around 11 percent of the district’s about 215,000 inhabitants in 2017.
Father Frederic Masson, the Syrian Catholic priest for the Bethlehem parish, said that Christians and non-Christians alike had been leaving Bethlehem for a long time, but that “recent events have accelerated and amplified the process.”
In particular, “young people who can’t project themselves into the future” are joining the exodus, Masson said.
“When your future is confiscated by the political power in place... it kills hope,” he said.
Echoing Father Masson, Fayrouz Aboud, director of Bethlehem’s Alliance Francaise, a cultural institute that provides language courses, said that in current times “hope has become more painful than despair.”
With Israeli politicians increasingly talking of annexing the West Bank, she said many young people come to her to learn French and build skills that would allow them to live abroad.
Even her own 30-year-old son has raised the idea, telling her: “Come, let’s leave this place, (the Israelis) will come. They will kill us.”

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights
Updated 20 December 2024
AFP
Follow

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights
  • Despite HTS’s reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life
Updated 20 December 2024
AFP

DAMASCUS: In Damascus’s Ummayad Square, hundreds gathered Thursday, demanding a democratic state that includes women in public life, marking the first such demonstration since Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Women and men, young and old, chanted slogans including “No to religious rule,” “God is for religion and the homeland is for all,” and “We want a democracy, not a religious state.”
“We are here in peaceful action to safeguard the gains of the revolution that has let us stand here today in complete freedom,” said Ayham Hamsho, 48, a prosthetic limb maker in the country torn by more than 13 years of war.
“For more than 50 years, we have been under tyrannical rule that has blocked party and political activity in the country,” he told AFP.
“Today we are trying to organize our affairs” in order to achieve “a secular, civil, democratic state” that is decided at the ballot box, he added.
For days, Syrians celebrated in Ummayad Square after rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took the capital on December 8 and toppled Assad after a lightning offensive.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a “terrorist” organization by several Western governments, HTS has sought to moderate its rhetoric by assuring protection for the country’s many religious and ethnic minorities.
It has appointed a transitional leadership to run the country until March 1.
Despite the reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life.
On Thursday, some protesters held signs reading simply the word “secular,” while one man held a sign with the scales of justice hanging equally and the words “men” and “women” written below.
People also chanted “the Syrian people are one,” rejecting divisions among the multi-confessional and multi-ethnic country.
A few armed HTS fighters, some of them masked, roamed around at the demonstration.
One told the crowd, “the great Syrian revolution was victorious through armed force,” before protesters cut him off, chanting, “Down with military rule.”
One young man wearing keffiyeh scarf and dark glasses held a hand-written sign saying, “No free nation without free women,” while another demonstrator’s placard read “Equality between women and men is a legitimate Islamic and international right.”
Actress Raghda Khateb, standing with friends among the crowd, said “Syrian women have been a constant partner on the streets, in protecting protesters, in tending to the wounded, and in prisons and detention centers.”
She said the demonstration was part of “preventive” action to block any attempts to establish strict conservative rule in the country.
“The people who took to the streets against the murderous regime are ready to come out again and to rule,” she added.
The demand for women’s right to participate in political life came days after Obaida Arnaout, spokesman for the new political administration, said “female representation in ministries or parliament... is premature,” citing “biological” and other considerations.
The remarks sparked criticism and anger among some Syrians, including protester Majida Mudarres, 50, a retired civil servant.
“Women have a big role in political life... We will be observing any position against women and will not accept it. The time in which we were silent is over,” she told AFP.
Assad’s family crushed dissent, ruling Syria with an iron fist for decades.
Fatima Hashem, 29, who writes television series, said Syrian women “must not be just partners but must lead the work of building a new Syria.”
Women must be “a major voice in the new society,” added Hashem, who was wearing a white hijab.
Under Assad’s anti-Islamist rule, women were involved in Syria’s political, social and economic life, with parliamentary and ministerial representation sometimes ranging between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Researcher Widad Kreidi said she was worried by some statements from HTS, which until just weeks ago ruled a conservative rebel bastion in Syria’s northwest.
“While men were fighting, women were keeping up the economy, feeding their children and taking care of their families,” Kreidi said.
“Nobody has the right to come to Damascus and attack women in any way,” she added.

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria

Related

Special ‘No longer afraid’: Journalists drop pseudonyms as Syrians reclaim voices after Assad’s fall
Media
‘No longer afraid’: Journalists drop pseudonyms as Syrians reclaim voices after Assad’s fall
Syrian girls’ right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says
Middle-East
Syrian girls’ right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says

UN votes overwhelmingly for ICJ probe of Israeli role in Gaza’s ‘dystopian humanitarian nightmare’

UN votes overwhelmingly for ICJ probe of Israeli role in Gaza’s ‘dystopian humanitarian nightmare’
Updated 20 December 2024
Follow

UN votes overwhelmingly for ICJ probe of Israeli role in Gaza’s ‘dystopian humanitarian nightmare’

UN votes overwhelmingly for ICJ probe of Israeli role in Gaza’s ‘dystopian humanitarian nightmare’
  • 137 countries vote in favor of resolution, which was drafted by Norway and co-sponsored by several countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Spain
  • Norwegian deputy foreign minister says Israel is not collaborating with humanitarian organizations and is in breach of its obligations under international law
Updated 20 December 2024
Ephrem Kossaify

The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to adopt a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on Israel’s humanitarian obligations to ensure and facilitate the unrestricted delivery of humanitarian aid necessary for the survival of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The resolution, drafted by Norway, was adopted with 137 member states voting in favor. Israel, the US and 10 other countries voted against it, and 22 abstained.
Israel’s parliament passed laws in October banning the UN’s aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, from operating inside Israel and East Jerusalem. Israel alleges that the agency, which has provided critical support for Palestinian refugees for seven decades, has been infiltrated by Hamas but has consistently failed to provide evidence to support the accusation.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has maintained strict control over the aid that enters the besieged territory. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch became the latest international organization to accuse Israeli authorities of carrying out acts of extermination and genocide against Palestinians by deliberately restricting access to water.
Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the UN’s humanitarian office in Gaza, said on Thursday that Israel was weaponizing the aid system, which is severely limiting the ability to provide assistance to civilians.
“Every day as an aid worker in Gaza, you’re forced to make horrible decisions,” he said. “Should I let people die of starvation or of the cold? Do we bring in more food to ease hunger, or more plastic sheets or some shelter from the rain at night? Do I cut back on hygiene supplies or do I bring in more painkillers for the sick and injured?”
Israeli support for humanitarian operations is “almost zero,” Petropoulos added.
“As the occupying power, it imposes blanket prohibitions on nearly everything. Commercial imports are being banned. Humanitarian equipment and supplies for Gaza are consistently blocked, and our own movements inside the Gaza Strip are most often denied in most areas.”
The resolution adopted by the UN on Thursday, which was co-sponsored by several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Spain, expresses “grave concern about the dire humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “calls upon Israel to uphold and comply with its obligations not to impede the Palestinian people from exercising its right to self-determination.”
The International Court of Justice is the UN’s highest judicial body. But while its advisory opinions hold legal and political significance, they are not legally binding. The court, based in The Hague, lacks the power to enforce its opinions if they are disregarded.
Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Andreas Kravik, said after the vote that the resolution follows several months during which the world has watched a catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza turn into “a dystopian nightmare.”
He added: “45,000 Palestinians have been killed — many more, probably, if you include those under the rubble — and we have an obligation, as representatives of the international community, to respond and to react, and that is what we did today with this resolution.”
While he said there was no lack of willingness among many countries and the UN to step up their humanitarian efforts in Gaza, Kravik lamented the lack of access to the territory as “the fundamental problem” they face.
“Israel is not collaborating,” he said. “Israel is not facilitating humanitarian access. (So) today, the international community has said, ‘Enough is enough.’
“Israel is claiming that they have a right to do what they’re doing. We are now seeking guidance from the highest court of the world, the ICJ, to punctuate this argument. We want clarity on the legal issues.
“We are determined. We are clear-eyed about Israel’s obligations. Israel, under international law, has an obligation to provide assistance, to collaborate with UN humanitarian organizations and third states and let them help those who are suffering.”

Topics: War on Gaza

Related

Israel’s deprivation of water in Gaza is act of genocide – Human Rights Watch
Middle-East
Israel’s deprivation of water in Gaza is act of genocide – Human Rights Watch
What we know of the latest talks for a Gaza ceasefire
Middle-East
What we know of the latest talks for a Gaza ceasefire

Libyan rivals agree to work with UN to end political deadlock

Libyan rivals agree to work with UN to end political deadlock
Updated 19 December 2024
Reuters
Follow

Libyan rivals agree to work with UN to end political deadlock

Libyan rivals agree to work with UN to end political deadlock
Updated 19 December 2024
Reuters

RABAT/TRIPOLI: Delegations from rival Libyan legislative bodies agreed at talks in Morocco on Thursday to work together with a United Nations mission to pave the way for elections to end years of political deadlock.

Libya has undergone a chaotic decade since it split in 2014 between two administrations in its east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

The talks in Bouznika, near the Moroccan capital Rabat, were between rival legislatures known as the High Council of State based in Tripoli in the west and the House of Representatives based in Benghazi in the east.

Restoring stability in Libya requires “free and fair elections,” the two bodies said in a final statement.

To that end, they agreed to cooperate with the UN mission in Libya to elaborate a roadmap to end the crisis in a way that ensures “Libyan ownership” of the political process.

The two bodies also agreed to cooperate to form a national unity government as well as launch institutional, financial and security reform.

Stephanie Koury, acting head of the UN mission in Libya, said last week the United Nations would convene a technical committee of Libyan experts to resolve contentious issues and put the country on a path to national elections.

A political process to end years of institutional division, outright warfare and unstable peace has been stalled since an election scheduled for December 2021 collapsed, amid disputes over the eligibility of the main candidates.

Topics: Libya

Related

A boy celebrates the anniversary of the 2011 revolution in Tripoli, Libya. (File/Reuters)
Middle-East
Libyan rivals resume talks in Morocco to break political deadlock
Special UN must put justice for torture victims in Libya ahead of election plans, Security Council told
Middle-East
UN must put justice for torture victims in Libya ahead of election plans, Security Council told

Operations at Beirut airport running efficiently, says Lebanon interior minister

Operations at Beirut airport running efficiently, says Lebanon interior minister
Updated 19 December 2024
NAJIA HOUSSARI
Follow

Operations at Beirut airport running efficiently, says Lebanon interior minister

Operations at Beirut airport running efficiently, says Lebanon interior minister
  • Israeli army continues demolishing homes amid reports of elderly woman missing in a border village
Updated 19 December 2024
NAJIA HOUSSARI

BEIRUT: Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has said security operations at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut are running efficiently.

The minister toured the airport on Thursday to assess security ahead of the holiday season and said every effort was being made to address any potential threat.

Earlier, he revealed that several Syrian figures linked to Bashar Assad’s regime had entered Lebanon from Syria and used the airport for international travel.

“Maher Al-Assad’s wife and son entered Lebanon and departed through the airport,” he said. “Anyone who enters Lebanon legally, regardless of their background, is allowed to exit through the airport.”

Mawlawi added that Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, former presidential special security and military advisor, had not entered Lebanon and would be arrested if he tried to do so.

“His photos have been circulated at Rafic Hariri International Airport to intercept any attempt to pass through using forged documents,” said the minister.

In 2013, the Lebanese military judiciary issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Mamlouk for allegedly orchestrating the transportation of explosives, intended for detonation in Lebanon, in the car of former minister Michel Samaha. In his indictment against Mamlouk, Lebanese investigative judge Riad Abou Ghaida later called for the death penalty.

On the southern side of the border, Israeli army bulldozers continued demolishing homes in the towns of Naqoura, Maroun al-Ras, Bani Hayyan, and the area between Qlyaa and Marjeyoun.

The findings of the committee overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, which convened on Wednesday to address ongoing Israeli land and air violations, were not disclosed.

A joint statement issued by the US and French embassies in Lebanon, along with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, said: “The committee will meet regularly and closely coordinate its work to achieve progress in the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and Resolution 1701.”

The municipality of Bani Haiyyan appealed to the authorities and the committee to take immediate action to bring about the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

A statement said: “The enemy has been destroying homes and places of worship and bulldozing the infrastructure without deterrence.”

It also urged the army, the Lebanese Red Cross and UNIFIL to “act swiftly to save the life of a sick elderly woman who remains in the town, facing physical and psychological pressure, and (who) has been out of contact since Wednesday.”

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon

Related

Palestinian girl holds glasses as she stands amid the damage at a tent camp sheltering displaced people,following Israeli strike
Middle-East
Harness momentum from Assad’s fall and Lebanon ceasefire to end war in Gaza, says UK envoy
Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan welcomes Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Ankara, Turkiye, December 18. video
Middle-East
Erdogan says Turkiye, Lebanon agree to act together on Syria

Latest updates

Britain’s Stonehenge is yet again a source of fascination ahead of the winter solstice
Britain’s Stonehenge is yet again a source of fascination ahead of the winter solstice
Pakistan’s missile program is ‘emerging threat’, top US official says
Pakistan’s missile program is ‘emerging threat’, top US official says
In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find
In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find
Starbucks workers’ union to strike in LA, Chicago, Seattle before Christmas
Starbucks workers’ union to strike in LA, Chicago, Seattle before Christmas
Inter Milan reach Italian Cup quarterfinals after Asllani scores direct from corner kick
Inter Milan reach Italian Cup quarterfinals after Asllani scores direct from corner kick

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.