News in Brief 19 March 2024
- Gaza: Increasing numbers of newborns on brink of death, agencies warn
- Forced labour exploiters make $236 billion a year, says ILO
- More climate records smashed, WMO report confirms
The residents of Gaza have faced unimaginable horrors since October. The massive bombardments that pummelled the territory over the last five months have flattened entire neighbourhoods, and when reconstruction eventually begins, the costs are likely to be in the tens of billions.
It’s been a full two years since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine which gave rise to “horrific” abuses and likely war crimes, including systematic torture and rape.
The entire agriculture sector of Gaza which was already under strain before the Israeli offensive “collapsed many weeks ago”, especially in the most damaged northern areas of the enclave.
Dr. Rola ElFarra, a physician from Houston, Texas, has family in the Gaza Strip. Some 150 of her relatives have been killed during the Israeli incursion and bombardment of the besieged enclave.
On her return from a visit to Gaza, her first since 7 October, Natalie Boucly, the Deputy Commissioner-General of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), described the “shocking conditions” she had witnessed in the Strip.