At the end of last year, 117.3 million people were displaced globally, UNHCR said in its annual report, with the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) calculating that between October and December 2023, up to 1.7 million Palestinians – more than 75 percent of the population in Gaza – were displaced by Israel’s war on the territory, with people forced to flee multiple times.
Children ride with their belongings on a donkey-drawn cart with other people fleeing from the eastern parts of Deir el-Balah towards central Gaza [Eyad Baba/AFP]
#Biden calls #America’s democratic values the “grounding wire of our global power” & its #alliances “our greatest asset.” …#Trump, called for withdrawing American forces in #Europe & #Asia & has promised… to cut loose even our closest #allies if they don’t do as he tells them. …Trump sees all countries as unreliable, the relations between them #transactional. That sentiment has spread throughout a #GOP that once championed America’s values abroad…
…#Biden responds to a question about America’s relationship w/ #SaudiArabia by saying that the #US has 2 kinds of #alliances: “There are #values-based, & there are #practical-based.”
…One of his first moves in office was to cut off certain #arms supplies over the kingdom’s #war in #Yemen, which has #displaced 4.5M people & #killed 377k, including 11k children…. Soon after, the de facto Saudi ruler… #MBS, met w/ #China’s FM & proposed greater cooperation on #nuclear energy & #security….
In the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of al-Issawiya, Israeli authorities reportedly forced a Palestinian to demolish his own home and displace his family of nine, claiming he lacked a permit to live there.
He was forced to carry out the demolition himself since Israeli authorities charge exorbitant fees if the municipality razes the structure.
Displaced Palestinians inspect their tents destroyed by Israel’s bombardment, adjunct to a UNRWA facility west of Rafah city, Gaza Strip, on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]
“They are permanently, constantly, fleeing for their lives, from one danger zone to another. And they’re not fleeing randomly – they’re going to the areas that Israel directed them to go to ‘for their own safety’. Then they are being attacked.”
Xavier Joubert, Save the Children
1/2
“For those who haven’t yet been hit by explosive weapons fired directly into civilian areas, they are suffering the slow, agonizing effects of starvation. Children’s mental and physical health is being pushed beyond breaking point, as they suffer unimaginable mental harm from the violence, serious physical injuries, including the loss of body parts, and the loss of families, homes, and their schools.”
Xavier Joubert, Save the Children
Palestinians living in the Jabalia Refugee Camp, Beit Lahia, Al-Falouja, and Al-Fakhura in the north of Gaza migrate towards safer areas after being forced to flee due to Israeli attacks, Friday [Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu]
A displaced Palestinian girl fills containers with water as she sits near a destroyed building in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Friday [Eyad Baba/AFP]
"About 2.4 million adults were displaced by [#climate] disaster over the last year, about one-fifth of whom were over 65. Though most #displaced people are eventually able to return to their homes, even temporary shocks like these pose particular challenges for older people, many of whom live on fixed incomes and have health and mobility needs that make managing home repairs or finding new places to live difficult."
“We are running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza. We have described it as a catastrophe, a nightmare, as hell on earth. It is all of these, and worse.”
"Persistent rains and destructive flooding in the southern Brazilian state have left 150 people dead, 2.1 million affected, 620,000 residents #displaced and 807 people injured.
The Guaíba River in #PortoAlegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, could reach unprecedented levels of over 18 feet in the coming days, according to local officials.
"As #climate-driven disasters become more regular and more extreme, inevitably more people will be displaced by those events.""