#laerke

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Twin polar bears Astra and Laerke chasing one another in their enclosure.

Twin polar bear sisters reunited years after mother rejected one of them

(Image credit: Detroit Zoo)

Astra and Laerke are getting on very well together since their reintroduction. 

[the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm]

Concept art for that short story I wrote this January

And those I drew today

[agentvharrison]

[karmaalwayswins]

Now Reading:

Laerke Rydal Jogensen and Kirsten Degel (editors) "The Cold Gaze: Germany in the 1920s" (2023)

Photo Credit: karmaalwayswins

[luegootravez]

Effy Betancourt by © Lærke Rose Xin Xin Møllegaard

[dynamofilms]

Startsladden 2023 (8 short films, 2023)

[allthegeopolitics]

The UN humanitarian office said, on Friday, that half of Sudan’s population needs aid as famine and disease outbreaks are “closing in”, Anadolu Agency reports. Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023. More than 15,000 people have since been killed and many more displaced. A central cause of tension was the integration of the RSF into the armed forces. “In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur,” said Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, at a UN briefing in Geneva.

Continue Reading.

[sayruq]

The Erez border crossing, which connects Israel with northern Gaza, remains closed and no humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter the Strip through it, according to Juliette Touma, director of communications for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), speaking to EL PAÍS from Jordan. Touma stresses that the announcement last Thursday by the Israeli authorities that they would reopen the crossing remains only “a promise.” The Israeli government implicitly confirmed the information to this newspaper. Supplies to alleviate the plight of Gaza’s population have also not yet begun arrive via the nearby port of Ashdod, 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the enclave. These two concessions were the main commitments made by the Israeli War Cabinet following a telephone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden.

This Indian Express article goes into detail about the volume of humanitarian aid entering Gaza

Israel says aid is moving into Gaza more quickly after international pressure to increase access, but the amount is disputed and the United Nations says it is still much less than the bare minimum to meet humanitarian needs. Israel said 419 trucks – the highest since the conflict began – entered on Monday, though the Red Crescent and United Nations gave much lower figures, with the UN saying many were only half full because of Israeli inspection rules.

Aid agencies have complained that Israel is not ensuring enough access for food, medicine and other needed humanitarian supplies and the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war. UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke also pointed to severe restrictions on delivery of aid inside Gaza itself last month, saying Israel had denied permission for half the convoys it tried sending to the north in March, with UN aid convoys three times more likely to be refused than any other.

An increase in aid flows into Gaza over recent days has also been noted by Red Crescent officials in Egypt, who said more than 350 trucks had crossed from there into Gaza on Monday and 258 on Sunday. That was much more than in recent weeks, when the number was usually fewer than 200, they said. However UNRWA, the main United Nations agency in Gaza, said 223 trucks had entered on Monday, fewer than half the 500 trucks it says are required daily.In its daily situation report on Tuesday, UNRWA said “there has been no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north”.

[reasonsforhope]

Additional humanitarian aid trucks started rolling over the Rafah Crossing from Egypt to Gaza early Friday [November 24] morning, as the planned four-day ceasefire began. The aid trucks, fuel tankers among them, were a welcome sight amid the seven-week-long war between Israel and Hamas.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, Israel has periodically [note: imho, this language is wildly minimizing the extent of the long-term, near-total blockade] cut off water, fuel and electricity to Gaza. An estimated 14,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment of the territory, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.

People in Gaza experienced reprieve on Friday after the warring sides implemented a new deal that included a temporary pause in fighting, delivery of more aid, and the planned exchange of a possible 50 Hamas hostages for 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

International organizations and Qatar’s foreign minister, who helped broker the deal, have said the new aid will not be enough to address the dire humanitarian disaster in Gaza. More than half of the territory’s two million-plus residents are internally displaced, with food and clean water now running out in north Gaza.

The United Nations and many aid groups have been calling for a permanent ceasefire.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the country will continue its war to eliminate Hamas after the truce. Hamas told Al Jazeera in an interview that they want a permanent ceasefire, but said the group is “ready to deal with all situations imposed by Israel.”

What aid is entering Gaza? 

Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 23, more than 1,723 truckloads of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza through the Egyptian border, the U.N. said. Before the war, a monthly average of nearly 10,000 trucks of commercial and humanitarian commodities came in.

The U.N. said Israel allowed 19,812 U.S. gallons (75,000 liters) of fuel to enter Gaza on Nov. 23. Israel had previously prohibited fuel over fears it would be used by Hamas for military purposes. Fuel is now being distributed by the U.N. to support food distribution and to operate generators at hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, shelters and other critical services, the agency said. 

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement shared on various social media channels that four tankers of fuel and four tankers of cooking gas were transferred from Egypt on Friday morning. 

Videos showed more trucks started passing into Gaza after the temporary ceasefire started at 7 a.m. local time. 

As of 10:30 a.m., 60 trucks of a total of 230 expected on Friday had entered Gaza, Al Arabiya reported, citing a Rafah crossing border official.

The Palestinian Red Crescent received two ambulances and 85 trucks loaded with aid through the crossing, carrying food, water, relief items, medical equipment, and medications, the group wrote on X (formerly Twitter)...

Multiple U.N. agencies have called for a humanitarian ceasefire, with U.N.’s Secretary-General saying in a statement on Nov. 19 that “this must stop.”

In a news conference Friday morning, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA, told reporters: “We hope that this humanitarian pause leads to a longer term humanitarian ceasefire for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and others.”

-via Time, November 24, 2023

[good-old-gossip]

The Israeli military heavily bombed Rafah early on Monday before ordering some residents to leave parts of the border town ahead of a planned ground assault.

At least 22 Palestinians, including eight children, were killed in air strikes that hit 11 homes across Rafah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Israeli military also dropped flyers ordering residents to leave the eastern areas of the city near the fence that separates the Gaza Strip and Israel.

It said the military was “about to operate with force against the terror organisations in the area”.

It also warned residents from approaching the fence with Israel and the border with Egypt.

The Israeli military heavily bombed Rafah early on Monday before ordering some residents to leave parts of the border town ahead of a planned ground assault.

It said the military was “about to operate with force against the terror organisations in the area”. It also warned residents from approaching the fence with Israel and the border with Egypt.

On Sunday, Hamas killed four Israeli soldiers and seriously wounded others after launching rockets at a military site in Israel east of Rafah.

The escalation comes as mediators push for a ceasefire and a prisoner swap deal.

A Hamas delegation left Cairo on Sunday for further consultations with the group’s leadership in Doha after two days of negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

CIA director William Burns, who was also in Cairo over the weekend, flew to Qatar on Sunday night to continue pushing for a deal. He is expected to fly to Israel on Tuesday.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed in a phone call with US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin that Israel made “many efforts” to reach an agreement, his office said on Monday. He added that Hamas’ “refusal” has left Israel with “no choice” but to operate in Rafah.

Meanwhile, Hamas accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of obstructing a deal.

The Palestinian group has insisted any potential deal must include a permanent end to the war while Israel is seeking only a temporary pause. Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior member of Hamas, told Reuters the Israeli ejection orders from Rafah were a “dangerous escalation that will have consequences”.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, warned an Israeli offensive in Rafah would have “devastating” consequences and lead to more civilian suffering and deaths.

In a post on X, the agency announced it would not evacuate the city, insisting it "will maintain a presence in Rafah as long as possible" and will continue "providing lifesaving aid to people”.

Unrwa previously complied with Israeli orders to leave northern Gaza, a decision that was criticised by Palestinians who accused it of abandoning people who rely on its services.

Petra De Sutter, deputy prime minister of Belgium, said on X the ejection orders and the announced invasion "will lead to massacre".

She added that Belgium was working on further sanctions against Israel.

Israeli leaders have threatened an offensive in Rafah for months despite widespread opposition by world leaders and humanitarian organisations.

The US, a staunch ally of Israel, has repeatedly said it does not support a massive Israeli assault in Rafah that does not take into account the safety of civilians.

Rafah had become overcrowded with civilians who fled Israeli bombardment in other parts of the Gaza Strip in recent months.

There are an estimated 1.4 million people taking shelter in makeshift tents in the small town. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said Israel has not yet presented a plan to protect civilians in Rafah, saying a major military operation there would cause damage “beyond what's acceptable”.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, also on Friday said an Israeli offensive there “could be a slaughter of civilians”.

He warned the humanitarian operation in the entire coastal enclave will suffer an “incredible blow” because they are run primarily out of Rafah, which has the only Palestinian land crossing not directly controlled by Israel.

The seven-month Israeli assault on Gaza has already devastated the Palestinian enclave and caused a humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli military has killed at least 34,600 Palestinians, the majority of them children and women, while a siege on the coastal enclave has left it on the brink of famine.

[bearotonin-international]

Hi team, I’m really sad today. I was wondering if you have any pics of bears who look like they are friends. Perhaps chilling or playing together. Thanks either way :)

of course, friend! we hope best buds Jebbie and Laerke can help claw the sadness back a little bit 💙

Bonus pic of their friendship immortalized in pumpkins

[worldhumanitarianday]

Some 18 million people in the country are already acutely hungry and 3.6 million children are acutely malnourished, the OCHA spokesperson said.

Children collect clean, safe water from a UNICEF-installed station in Al-Serif village in Sudan's Darfur. Famine in Sudan is “imminent” if aid agencies continue to be prevented from providing relief, UN humanitarians warned on Friday. United Nations aid coordination office OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva that famine is “likely to take hold in large parts of the country, more people will flee to neighbouring countries, children will succumb to disease and malnutrition and women and girls will face even greater suffering and dangers”.

Read the release on Sudan: as millions face famine, humanitarians plead for aid access.

[mypatchworkreflection]

"Two key humanitarian aid routes—the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings—have been shut down for days as the Israeli military plows ahead with its Rafah assault in the face of international outrage. More than 600,000 children are currently living in Rafah, and aid organizations say Israel has no credible plan to protect them.

Overnight, Israel launched deadly airstrikes in Rafah, describing its military operation in the overcrowded city as "very precise." One resident toldReuters that the Israeli strikes killed his wife and children.

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, toldThe Associated Press that Israeli authorities have denied the agency access to the Rafah crossing.

A lasting shutdown of the route, Laerke warned, "will plunge this crisis into unprecedented levels of need, including the very real possibility of a famine." He added that Israel's military is "ignoring all warnings about what this could mean for civilians and for the humanitarian operation across the Gaza Strip.""

[silicacid]

'Hell on Earth' in Gaza: Israel strikes hit Deir el-Balah

Nearly 200 people have been killed in less than two days since the resumption of Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

Injured children are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment after an Israeli attack in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, on December 2, 2023. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have stretched into a second day after a seven-day truce with Hamas ended as Qatar and Egypt mediate talks to renew a pause in hostilities.

The United Nations said on Saturday that the fighting would worsen the extreme humanitarian emergency in Gaza.

“Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office in Geneva.

“Today, in a matter of hours, scores were reportedly killed and injured. Families were told to evacuate, again. Hopes were dashed,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said, adding that children, women and men of Gaza had “nowhere safe to go and very little to survive on”.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza said Israeli tanks have not stopped shelling the enclave and gunboats are attacking its coastline.

“Houses have been targeted. At least three mosques were hit. Areas across the Gaza Strip – the north, south and centre – have all been targeted.”

The Israeli army said on Saturday that it hit more than 400 targets overnight, including in the Khan Younis area in the south, to which tens of thousands of civilians evacuated over the past month.

Palestinian rescue teams and civilians search for survivors in the rubble of buildings hit by Israeli air raids in Deir el-Balah. [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]

Israeli air strikes on Gaza have caused residential buildings to collapse. Because emergency workers have little equipment at their disposal, the bodies of the dead often have to be left under the rubble. [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]

People injured in Israeli strikes are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment in Deir el-Balah. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

The wounded wait to receive treatment at Al-Aqsa Hospital on December 2, 2023, as Israel's attacks on Gaza have stretched into a second day after a seven-day truce with Hamas ended. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

Two-year-old Palestinian Larin Hussein, who was injured in an Israeli attack, is brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. She had previously lost her parents in an Israeli air strike. [Doaa Albaz/Anadolu Agency]

Few hospitals are still functioning in Gaza. Many have been targeted by Israel since the war started on October 7, and they have few supplies and little if any electricity. [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

Relatives perform funeral prayers for five members of the Sabah family who were killed in Israeli strikes in Deir el-Balah. [Doaa Albaz/Anadolu Agency]

Palestinians are buried in mass graves in Deir el-Balah after Israel restarted its bombardment of Gaza on December 1, 2023. [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]

Palestinians mourn their relatives at a cemetery in Deir el-Balah. [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]

[sophia-zofia]

The United Nations' humanitarian aid agency warned Friday that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death." "Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death" for the approximately 1.5 million Palestinians—including around 1.2 million people forcibly displaced from other areas of the embattled enclave—sheltering in Gaza's southernmost city, U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Friday. "The hundreds of thousands of people who are there would be at imminent risk of death if there is an assault," he added, warning of not only "a slaughter of civilians, but also at the same time an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip, because it is run primarily out of Rafah." According toPolitico, Israel has shared with the U.S. government its plan to move the civilian population out of Rafah ahead of a looming ground assault the Wall Street Journalreported earlier on Friday could begin next week. Conditions in Rafah are already dire. The city—which was home to fewer than 300,000 people before the war—is now one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are crowded together in tents and other makeshift shelters. Water and other necessities are in desperately short supply. According to James Elder, the global spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people in Rafah and one shower for every 3,500 people. "Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower," Elder wrote for The Guardian this week. There are nearly 600,000 children in Rafah, nearly all of whom are "injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities," UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said Wednesday.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, who represents the U.N. World Health Organization in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, on Friday called contingency response plans for a Rafah invasion a "Band-Aid" solution. "It will absolutely not prevent the expected substantial additional mortality and morbidity caused by a military operation," he stressed. Israel's 210-day assault on Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 attacks has already killed at least 34,622 Palestinians—a large majority of them civilian men, women, and children—while wounding more than 77,800 others, according to Palestinian and international officials. At least 11,000 other Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the more than 370,000 homes and other buildings destroyed or damaged during the war. As many as 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced by Israeli forces, who despite a January International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to prevent genocidal acts continue to block adequate humanitarian aid from reaching the starving people of Gaza. Despite pleas and protestations from world leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to invade Rafah to "eliminate Hamas' battalions there." Earlier this week, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the "total annihilation" of Gaza, specifically mentioning Rafah. The South Africa-led case against Israel at the ICJ has centered similar statements of intent to destroy Palestinians—which are key to proving the crime of genocide—made by Israeli officials since October. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have ramped up aerial attacks on Rafah in what is likely preparation for a ground invasion. Palestinian and international media reported Friday that an overnight Israeli airstrike on a home killed at least eight people, mostly children. "After almost seven months of brutal hostilities that have killed tens of thousands of people and maimed tens of thousands more, Gaza is bracing for even more suffering and misery," U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said earlier this week. "The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon," he continued. "For the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled to Gaza's southernmost point to escape disease, famine, mass graves, and direct fighting, a ground invasion would spell even more trauma and death." "The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words," Griffiths added. "No humanitarian plan can counter that. The rest is detail." U.S. officials have also privately sounded the alarm over the likely consequences of an Israeli invasion of Rafah. In March, according to a leaked cable obtained by The Intercept, members of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development warned the State Department that a Rafah invasion "could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response."

[kp777]

By Jon Queally

Common Dreams

May 30, 2024

Experts said a military assault of this kind by the Israelis would unleash "a slaughter of civilians." It did. They also predicted it would result in a "tragedy beyond words." It has.

Despite street protests worldwide, desperate pleas from humanitarian organizations, persistent demands from United Nations agencies and leaders, and standing orders from the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the military onslaught being carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip continued on Thursday with fresh reports of innocent civilians being killed and a situation on the ground that has become synonymous with "hell on earth."

The carnage and devastation was all predicted and warned against and yet the United States and other Israeli allies have stood aside as the death toll mounts and the situation on the ground results in the slaughter of civilians in their tents, the ongoing malnutrition of children and babies, targeting of medical personnel and aid workers, and unimaginable images of carnage this week in Rafah and across Gaza for all the world to see.

The World Food Programme on Thursday said that Israel's ongoing assault on Rafah—which U.S. President Joe Biden said would be a "red line" but has continued to support—"is having a devastating impact on civilians and humanitarian operations. Adults and children are beyond exhausted from constant displacement, hunger, and fear."

On Thursday, new photos (warning: graphic) were published of a 7-month-old baby, Fayiz Abu Ataya, who died of malnutrition after he could not be saved at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza.

The people who live in Gaza, said the WFP, "are desperate for the war to end—as are humanitarian workers on the ground, who are largely displaced and dispersed along with the people they are meant to serve. There is little [our agency] can currently do in Rafah, with stocks very low and mobility severely restricted."

"Further escalation in the conflict in Gaza," said the agency, "could deepen a humanitarian catastrophe and bring aid operations to a standstill."

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Wednesday warned that humanitarian facilities in Rafah have been “forced to close one after another” with only one hospital in the area functional and that one only “partially.”

The flow of humanitarian aid supplies into all of Gaza—”already insufficient to meet the soaring needs” of its people, said OCHA—has fallen by 67% since May 7.

It was OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke, speaking in Geneva on May 3, who warned that a full-scale assault on Rafah like the one now being witnessed would "mean more suffering and death" for the people trapped there.

As Common Dreamsreported at the time, not only did Laerke say the operation would unleash "a slaughter of civilians"—which has now come to pass—but also land an "incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip, because it is run primarily out of Rafah."

Earlier that same week, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths offered this prediction: "The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words. No humanitarian plan can counter that. The rest is detail."

And those dire predictions have now come to pass.

In its Thursday statement, WFP reiterated the call by many within the United Nations, including Secretary-General António Guterres, demanding an immediate cease-fire and an end to the restriction and blocking of aid by the Israeli government. "We need all border crossings and crossing points within Gaza to be open," the agency said.

The United States government has done nothing to stop the ongoing catastrophe, say critics, but continues to provide plenty of weapons and ongoing political cover.

Late Wednesday night, USAID administrator Samantha Power acknowledged publicly, that "humanitarian partners" of the U.S. "working in Gaza tell us that conditions are worse now than ever before" and that "Israeli military operations and closed crossings are making it extremely difficult to distribute aid."

Despite that, the Biden administration continues to stand aside and allow Israel to have its way in Gaza, even after a Sunday bombing of a tent encampment by Israel killed an estimated 45 people and wounded hundreds more in what analyses showed were weapons supplied by the U.S. government.

According to new figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry on Thursday, at least 36,224 Palestinians have been killed and 81,777 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. In the last 24 hours, the ministry said, 53 people were killed and over 350 injured due to the Israeli assault.

Also on Thursday, funerals were held for some of those killed on the previous day, including two medics with the Palestine Red Crescent, Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hassouna. PRCS said the pair were targeted by the IDF in their ambulance while in the line of duty trying to save others:

"The Israeli occupation forces deliberately bombed the ambulance vehicle despite it bearing the internationally protected Red Crescent emblem," said the PRCS. "With the martyrdom of paramedics Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hassouna, the number of PRCS staff members killed since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza has risen to 19, all targeted by the occupation while performing their humanitarian duties."

According to the latest figures from OCHA and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, the Israeli attack on Gaza—coupled with evacuation orders from the Israel Defense Force (IDF)—has displaced more than 940,000 people from Rafah over the last three weeks, with an additional 100,000 people forced to flee for safer conditions in northern Gaza.

"We are way past the red line," said U.S. Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat from New Jersey, on Wednesday.

"The recent strikes on a Palestinian refugee camp, which killed dozens—including children burned alive in their tents—are unconscionable," Coleman continued, echoing human rights voices from around the world. "We cannot continue supporting this. Nobody is safer because of this."