#Famine relief

[holy-shit-comics]

[omercifulheaves]

Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill do up a quick little comic w/ the ABC Warriors and Nemesis to promote famine relief in Ethiopia.

[dirjoh-blog]

Hunger Winter and Operation Manna & Chowhound

One might be forgiven to think that the picture above is from a very impoverished country, but it is not. In fact it is a picture from a family living in one the wealthiest countries in the world. Even during World War 2, the Netherlands was still a wealthy country, albeit that not all the wealth was distributed to its citizens. The picture was taken during the winter of 1944/45, known as the…

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇱⚔️🇺🇳🇵🇸 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION AUTHORITIES DEMAND THE DISMANTLING OF UNRWA BEFORE ALLOWING AID INTO THE GAZA STRIP

The Israeli occupation authorities have submitted a proposal to the United Nations demanding the dismantlement of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, also known as UNRWA.

In an article published in the British liberal news website The Guardian, a source within the United Nations (UN) describes a proposal submitted by the Israeli occupation authorities to the UN for the dismantlement of UNRWA in return for the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) allowing humanitarian aid to flow into the besieged Gaza Strip.

According to The Guardian, the proposal was submitted last week by the Israeli Chief to the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi to UN Officials stationed in occupied Palestine who forwarded the proposal to the United Nation's Secretary General, António Gutierrez on Saturday.

The agency itself had no part in the discussions as the IOF refuses to deal with the humanitarian organization beginning last Monday with accusations occupation authorities made against the organization which remain unproven, even according to The Guardian.

Still, "Israel's" allies acted quickly to back their claims, with 16 major donors immediately withdrawing funding from the organization, cutting off the aid agency from more than $450m in funding, at a time when nearly the entire population of Gaza, around 2.3 million Palestinians, are dependant on UNRWA for food.

The United States Congress went so far as to ban funding for UNRWA in a recently passed budget bill, however some countries have restored funding to the aid agency, citing a lack of evidence provided by Israeli authorities.

Under the terms of the potential agreement, Zionist authorities are prepared to allow large amounts of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, with the only limiting factor being the capabilities of the United Nations and the newly formed aid agency, however the agreement would gut the humanitarian infrastructure already existing, and hollow out the agency by transferring 300-400 UNRWA staff to other UN agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP).

According to The Guardian, more UNRWA staff could be transferred at a later date, however details are few and far between for how another humanitarian organization could be created on a scale necessary to provide for the humanitarian needs of the civilian population of Gaza, nor where the staff for such an organization would come from. Also absent were any security guarantees for humanitarian staff, nor who would provide such security guarantees.

Such an arrangement will likely sound attractive for those wishing to see an end to "Israel's" starvation campaign in Gaza, however, unlike whatever organization could be created on such short notice, UNRWA has been established in the Gaza Strip, and in the occupied Palestinian territories, going back to 1950, and over generations has earned the trust of the Palestinian population there, providing countless jobs for a Gazan population under blockade by "Israel" for the last decade and a half.

The Guardian quotes UNRWA's Director of External Relations, Tamara Alrifai, as saying, “Unrwa has not been systematically privy to conversations related to coordinating humanitarian aid in Gaza."

Alrifai also said the size proposed by the Israelis for the new humanitarian organization would "hobble its ability to effectively deliver aid in Gaza" at a time when it is so desperately needed by the civilian population in the Palestinian enclave.

“This is no criticism of WFP, but logically if they were to start food distribution in Gaza tomorrow, they’re going to use UNRWA trucks and bring food into UNRWA warehouses, and then distribute food in or around UNRWA shelters,” Alrifai told The Guardian, “So they’re going to need at a minimum the same infrastructure that we have, including the human resources.”

The Guardian article also mentions that some UN officials told their reporters that they see the proposal by the Israelis as a way to portray the United Nations as unwilling to work with the Zionist entity to get aid into Gaza in time to prevent a famine.

On Thursday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, in the Netherlands, implemented additional provisional measures in South Africa's case investigating "Israel" for the crime of genocide, ordering the Zionist entity to take "all necessary and effective measures" to ensure the large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid be provided to Gaza.

The Guardian also mentions that some inside the UN see this as the "culmination of a long Israeli campaign to destroy UNRWA."

UNRWA has long been a target of the Israelis. As the UN agency in charge of maintaining the records of Palestinian families who were displaced from their homes during the Nakba, and where those family's homes were located, the organization essentially guarantees their Right to Return under International Law.

Israeli authorities see this record keeping as a threat to their expansionist aspirations, and hopes that by dismantling the agency, they will help eliminate the threat those records pose to their settler colonial agenda.

“If we allow this, it is the slippery slope to us being completely managed directly by the Israelis, and the UN directly being complicit in undermining UNRWA, which is not only the biggest aid provider but also the biggest bastion of anti-extremism in Gaza,” one UN official is quoted as saying.

"We would be playing into so many political agendas if we allowed this to happen.”

UNRWA derived its mandate from an act passed by the United Nations General Assembly, which The Guardian says, "in theory" remains the only organization with the authority to end that mandate.

The United Nations Secretary General's office did not respond to The Guardian's inquiries into the proposal, nor did the Israeli occupation army before the time of publishing.

#source1

#photosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[drsonnet]

“I leave this job with a sense of work unfulfilled because the world is a worse place now than when I joined in 2021” – Martin Griffiths, @UNReliefChief, 4 Jun ‘24 “Humanitarians are doing a great job heroically in the field, scraping together support where they can ... but they are not the saviors – the saviors of this world are the people who end war and build peace” – Martin Griffiths, @UNReliefChief and head of @UNOCHA

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1984 – 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', was released by Band-Aid, to aid famine relief in Ethiopia.

‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ is a charity single organised by Bob Geldof, who was the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats. He got the idea after watching a BBC documentary on famine in Ethiopia. Geldof wrote the lyrics and Midge Ure from the band Ultravox wrote the music and produced the track, which was no easy task since so many voices were involved. In the UK and much of the Northern…

[weedle-testaburger]

everyone talks about mariah carey torturing us every christmas, but no one talks about band aid torturing us every christmas. yes, we do know it's christmas time, and so does africa even if you lot don't know that

[pub-lius]

i think the national convention putting a maximum price on grain cured one of my mental illnesses

[pauper-butterfly]

Somalia | Where We Work | Islamic Relief USA

[levispersonalslave]

Hello , I am Purity from Gaza-palestine and I am 21- years- old. I am diagnosed with diabetes type 1, recently I have become extremely sick and lose weight due to lack of enough money to get my insulin. The situation is getting worse day by day I really need your support argently.As a diabetic person, I find myself in a difficult situation and I'm in need of assistance for me to survive. Thank you in advance every 1 dollar can save a person's life. As you can imagine,I am really struggling to get my medication if you don't mind kindly support me🙏🙏🙏.

Donate!!!

[elfi-knell]

Sharing a few Palestinian fund-raisers.

Please donate if you can, or share if you can't.

Hashem @hashem-fromgaza | 2 945 $ CAD /82 000 $ | Vetted by @90-ghost and @sar-soor

Nesma Ahmed @nesmamomen | 81 582 $ USD/ 100 000 $ | Vetted by @/nabulsi

Shahd @shahednhall | 11 328 $ USD/50 000 $ | Vetted by @/nabulsi

Nasser Mohamed | �� 6 914/£ 50 000 | Vetted by @/nabulsi

Alaa Amsse @alaakh9 | € 3 230/€ 20 000 | Vetted by @/90-ghost and @/ibtisams

[worldhumanitarianday]

755,000 people face phase five “catastrophic” conditions in 10 states, including in Greater Darfur as well as South and North Kordofan, Blue Nile, Al Jazira and Khartoum.

Famine risk is real for 14 areas of Sudan amid ongoing fighting

According to the latest UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative, over half the population in Sudan – 25.6 million people – face “crisis or worse” conditions between now September 2024, coinciding with the lean season. Learn more about famine and the IPC's five levels of food security in our explainer here.

Even worse, 755,000 people face phase five “catastrophic” conditions in 10 states, including in Greater Darfur as well as South and North Kordofan, Blue Nile, Al Jazira and Khartoum. At the same time, 8.5 million people – 18 per cent of the population – now suffer from phase four “emergency” levels of food insecurity.

Warring generals

In the more than 14 months since rival militaries – the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces – unleashed their heavy weapons arsenals on one another amid rising tensions over a transition to civilian rule, the UN has repeatedly called for a ceasefire as the country’s capital, Khartoum, became a battleground and amid fears of atrocities in the Darfurs. Despite multiple calls for a ceasefire to Generals Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the Sudanese military, and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads the Rapid Support Forces, senior UN humanitarians have warned that the situation is only getting worse.

Conflict leaves country reeling

“We have received news of people eating leaves from trees; one mother cooked up dirt just to put something in her children’s stomach,” said Justin Brady, head of the UN emergency relief agency (OCHA) in Sudan, in an interview with UN News. The risk of famine threatens residents, people uprooted by the war and refugees in no less than 14 areas covering Greater Darfur, Greater Kordofan, Al Jazira states and hotspots in Khartoum “if the conflict escalates further, including through increased mobilisation of local militias that further disrupt mobility, humanitarian assistance, market and livelihood activities”, the IPC assessment warned.

[dirjoh-blog]

Operations Manna and Chowhound.

During the winter of 1944/45 an approximate 20,000 citizens died in the so called hunger winter, the Dutch famine.A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm towns. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived thanks to soup kitchens. As the war was wrapping up in April of 1945, in an effort to alleviate the suffering of the Dutch, the Allies devised a plan to deliver much needed…

[stil-lindigo]

In Gaza, journalists are passing out from exhaustion and famine. Despite the ICJ ruling, the US and Australia are intentionally defunding UNWRA based on baseless claims by Israel that members of the aid group are Hamas-sympathizers. Netanyahu, of course, has ignored the ICJ ruling. Israel has banned insulin pens from arriving in Gaza, a particularly cruel and inhumane crime to add to their laundry list of offences. Nothing has changed, and things are getting worse.

It is not that hard to not buy things. To not watch things. Perhaps it is inconvenient, and makes you go out of your way, and costs a little more to buy alternatives. But if you were to attend a funeral a day for every child that has died in Gaza so far, it would take you over 27 years. When the worst that will happen to you is that you don't watch a TV show featuring a zionist, you don't buy a specific brand that donates to and supports zionism, how could that possibly compare to the plight of Palestinians who must amputate limbs without anesthesia?

Once again, this is the BDS list of brands to boycott.

Here is a comprehensive post about more actions you can take in support of Palestine.

Here is a list of verifiable orgs that provide aid on the ground.

credible organisations that are doing work on the ground in Palestine:

Care for Gaza:non-profit charity that distributes money, food and other resources directly to families in Gaza.They maintain a regular presence on Twitter and Instagram. You can donate to them via Paypal here.

PCRF / Palestine Children's Relief Fund: non-profit organisation that distributes essential food and resources to families in Gaza. Most recently, they delivered 30 tons of vital medicine, and 82,000 pounds of flour.

Medical Aid For Palestinians: deploys medical teams to treat Palestinians suffering under Israel's malicious bombardments.

Donate e-sims to Palestine: massive post with tutorials and relevant links, with discount codes included in the post and in the replies.

Direct Aid: humanitarian fund distributing supplies such as blankets and winter jackets directly to Palestinian families.

help people leave palestine (donate what you can)

Help a Family Evacuate Gaza (GoGetFunding)

Save Sanaa and her Family (Gofundme)

Save Amjad Saher and his family (Gofundme)

Help a family of 13 escape Gaza (Gofundme)

Help a Palestinian children's book illustrator save her family of 12 (Gofundme)

Today, tomorrow and until Israel faces justice for their crimes, learn how to prioritise Palestine over your own comfort.

[david-sankey]

Men break (and lay?) stones, women carry them. Only the lucky ones have baskets

Rocking around Connemara by National Library of Ireland on The Commons Via Flickr: True hardship! Relief work for those who were starving where those who were being "relieved" were applied to grinding, mind-numbing tasks like stone breaking and carrying. It might seem inappropriate to be showing such an image at this time of year, but a wee reminder that not all are living high on the hog would not go astray! Photographer: None Date: 1898 NLI Ref.: BB5145 You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1985 – Live Aid, organised primarily by Dublin-born, Bob Geldof, is held in London and Philadelphia in aid of Ethiopian famine relief.

Geldof was lead singer with Irish punk band The Boomtown Rats. Geldof became an outspoken voice for third world countries and bullied, cajoled, persuaded some of the world’s largest bands to donate their services for huge musical events. Bands that played London include U2, Queen, the Who and Dire Straits. Philadelphia performers included the Beach Boys, Judas Priest, Tom Petty. At Wembley…