UN News Today 23 September 2024 |

Middle East crisis: No end to violence in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon

Tensions continued to ratchet up in the Middle East on Monday with reports of retaliatory Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon which have left hundreds dead and injured.

The development comes as the UN’s top official in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, began an official visit to Israel to meet senior government officials, insisting that “there is no military solution that will make either side safer”.

In Lebanon, it has been reported that people in the south received phone and social media messages on Monday from the Israeli military telling them to keep away from any building or village linked to Hezbollah.

The armed group reportedly launched some 150 projectiles into northern Israel over the weekend, the latest in a series of attacks that began shortly after war erupted in Gaza, and which have uprooted around 60,000 Israelis to date.

It’s been the deadliest day of conflict in Lebanon since the 7 October attacks rocked the region and in the south some 30,000 people have been displaced from their homes.

In central Gaza, meanwhile, shelters were destroyed in the strike on a refugee camp around Nuseirat, according to the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, while media reports indicated an uptick in Israeli military activity.

Belarus authorities quell ‘all avenues of dissent’, Human Rights Council hears

To Belarus, where serious rights violations continue to be committed against civil society and critics of the Government, the Human Rights Council heard on Monday.

Appointed by the Council in Geneva, the Group of Independent Experts on Belarus highlighted numerous grave abuses linked to protests at the disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.

These include deaths, torture, gender-based violence and the denial of the right to a fair trial, said Karinna Moskalenko , Chair of panel of independent experts:

“The Government continues to instil a pervasive climate of fear by quelling all avenues of dissent, including in the digital space. New electronic intelligence equipment appears to have been pursued to increase the monitoring of online activities, ahead of the Presidential elections.”

Ms. Moskalenko, who does not work for the UN, further maintained that President Lukashenko’s government was “responsible for the near-total destruction of civic space and fundamental freedoms in Belarus”.

Most opponents of the authorities had been “either imprisoned or forced into exile since the 2020 elections” she noted.

At least one in seven youngsters have a mental disorder, says WHO’s Tedros

At least one in seven youngsters has a mental disorder – that’s the warning from the UN World Health Organization (WHO) – which has appealed for much greater investment to help 1.3 billion teenagers globally.

WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that failing to address the mental and sexual reproductive needs of adolescents will have “serious and life-threatening consequences for young people”; it will also come at a massive cost for society, which justifies a major public investment.

Tedros noted that anaemia among adolescent girls remains “prevalent” and at levels similar to those in 2010, while close to one in 10 teenagers is obese.

Sexually transmitted infections including syphilis, chlamydia, trichomoniasis and genital herpes that commonly occur among youth are on the rise too.

If left untreated, they could have “lifelong implications for health”, the WHO chief said, citing new data.

Tedros also spoke out against attempts to “roll back” youngsters’ access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and sex education, in response to growing opposition to gender equality and human rights.

He said that any restrictive age of consent policies limit young people’s access to critical services including those for sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

Daniel Johnson, UN News

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