One of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, Tyre in southern Lebanon, is now scarred by weeks of Israeli assault. Residents who were displaced are returning to a landscape of rubble and despair.
For the first time during a continual war, the human rights organization Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Many Israelis will remember 2024 as the year that over 100 Israeli hostages were held captive following their abduction by Hamas last year.Some anaylists say Israelis remain trapped in the horror of October 7 until the hostages are free.
On its first day, thousands of Lebanese were returning to their homes in southern Lebanon as part of a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah mediated by the United States. With the cease-fire, many Israelis hope that the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza will also come to an end.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, would be effectively barred from operating in Gaza Strip by new Israeli laws, according to charity workers and families in Gaza. This could have a catastrophic impact for the 2 million people currently facing a year of violence and looming famine.
Many of the estimated 176,000 migrants living in Lebanon are African women who are working menial jobs.Many of them have been displaced since the start of the conflict and are facing uncertain futures.
Over half a million people, many of them were refugees who initially fled the Syrian conflict, have fled Lebanon into Syria in the last two months.According to those returning to Idlib, Syria’s last opposition stronghold, they are fleeing to a location that is marginally safer than Lebanon,without homes, jobs or humanitarian aid waiting for them.
West Bank Palestinians are suffering, while others in Gaza are in verge of starvation. The entire West Bank economy is collapsing, and they are unable to find employment in Israel. Reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank is Linda Gradstein.
Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, addresses the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
The volunteer sector in Lebanon is racing to meet the demands of the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the war as a result of government collapse and a series of crises.Many now wonder how much longer exhausted volunteers can keep going.