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Building Among Destruction: UN Aids Gaza Farmers

CrossFireArabia
July 19, 2026

The UN is supporting farmers in Gaza who are struggling to rebuild their smallholdings in areas devastated by the Hamas-Israel war.

These growers include Taysir Dahdouh, whose farm in the Zeytun neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, is a little smaller than a football pitch.

His land was once covered with greenhouses, but they’ve been destroyed or lost during the conflict that erupted on 7 October 2023. Today, he needs tools, seeds, fertilizer and water to grow the cucumbers and tomatoes he used to.

200 new homes

Alessandro Mrakic, Head of the Gaza Office for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), told UN News’s correspondent in the enclave that families who had once lived in one heavily bombed area had had to move multiple times before returning.

“We have provided 200 relief housing units to provide shelter to the families who came back and started, as you see behind me, agriculture – started producing eggplants, tomatoes, molokhia, among others,” he said.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday it has scaled up its cash assistance programme to help around 1,500 Palestinian farmers cultivate land across Gaza during the 2026 planting season, enough to produce fresh vegetables for more than 100,000 people.

Not enough space

But FAO warned that farmers “are squeezed into rapidly shrinking space” amid ongoing Israeli military activity, and it is calling for access to land, sea and production inputs including seeds, fertilizers, irrigation equipment and fishing gear.

Elsewhere, Deputy Special Coordinator for the peace process Ramiz Alakbarov welcomed new commitments worth almost $58 million from eight Member States to the UN Horizon Fund, and called on further partners to join the initiative.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said people forced to move within Gaza risk losing access to basic services and called for safe access to reach those in need; despite the obstacles, it and its partners reached more than a quarter of a million people across 36 distribution sites in the first 12 days of this month.

Summer respite

Humanitarian partners also distributed more than 5,440 educational kits to support around 217,600 children during summer learning activities.

Children play and swim in the waves at Gaza City's beach to escape the summer heat. — UN News Children play and swim at Gaza City’s beach to escape the intense summer heat.

Turning to the West Bank, a high-level delegation led by aid coordination office OCHA visited Deir Nidham village in the Ramallah governorate on Wednesday, meeting Palestinian families affected by settler violence and the expansion of settlement outposts.

Settler attacks accounted for around 55 per cent of all Palestinian injuries in the West Bank so far during 2026.

Guterres voices alarm

UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the Secretary-General is “deeply alarmed” that Israeli authorities have granted city status to Givat Ze’ev, a settlement northwest of Jerusalem, adding that the designation “does not alter the city’s legal status under international law as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, Mr. Dujarric reiterated, recalling the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of July 2024.

He said settlements remain a major obstacle to a two-State solution, and renewed the Secretary-General’s call on Israel to halt all settlement expansion. UN News

News

Israel Continues to Target Children – UN Report

CrossFireArabia
June 23, 2026

Israel continues to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children, a UN report said on Tuesday.

“Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank,” read the report published by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

The commission said it had concluded last year that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, causing unprecedented death, injury and trauma among Palestinian children.

“The deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza,” the commission said.

“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the commission.

“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,” he added.

“Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts,” the commission said.

“Israeli security forces have also used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities,” it added.

The report said Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centers in Gaza directly harmed the survival of newborns and Palestinians’ reproductive future, including increases in miscarriages, birth defects and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns.

“Starvation imposed by Israel through blockade and siege have further caused the death of Palestinian children and severely impacted the health of many others, depriving them of essential nutrition and increasing disease risks amid reduced immunization, food insecurity and destroyed health services,” it also said.

“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight,” Muralidhar said. “The destruction of their health, education and development is irreversible.”

“The protection, care and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” Muralidhar said. “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.”

The commission said it had identified Israeli military units responsible for killing and injuring Palestinian children and made recommendations to Israel and UN member states to ensure accountability.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Israeli attacks have killed 1,021 Palestinians and injured 3,249 others since late 2025 in daily violations of the ceasefire in effect.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 has killed 73,032 people, injured over 173,300 and caused massive destruction to about 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure, with the United Nations estimating reconstruction costs at about $70 billion.

Since October 2023, West Bank cities and towns have seen near-daily Israeli raids, including arrests and home searches. The escalation by the Israeli army and occupiers has killed 1,173 Palestinians, wounded 12,666, led to the arrest of about 23,000 and displaced 33,000, according to official Palestinian figures. Anadolu

News

Amidst War 50,000 Lebanese Return Home

CrossFireArabia
June 19, 2026

Nearly 50,000 people have returned home in southern Lebanon, though more than 106,000 remain in collective shelters across the country, the UN said Thursday. “Nearly 50,000 people have now returned to their homes in Nabatieh and South governorates,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, citing data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “However, more than 106,000 people remain in collective sites across the country, with many others seeking shelter elsewhere.”

News

Third Year: Israel on UN ‘Black List’ Because of Child Atrocities

CrossFireArabia
June 17, 2026

The United Nations has, for the third consecutive year, included the Israeli armed and security forces among parties that commit grave violations against children in armed conflict, according to a report.

Seen by Anadolu on Wednesday, the yet-to-be-released report, which contains data for 2025, said: “In 2025, violations against children in armed conflict reached unprecedented levels. The UN verified 38,558 grave violations affecting 24,174 children in 2025 (15,493 boys, 7,990 girls, 691 sex unknown), the highest number of children affected by grave violations since the beginning of the mandate.”

A senior UN official said on Wednesday that government forces were “the main perpetrators of grave violations against children” for the first time in the 30-year history of the Children and Armed Conflict mandate.

Among government forces, the senior UN official said the Israeli government ranked first among countries committing grave violations against children, followed by Russia.

Noting an increase of 34% and 10%, respectively, in incidents leading to the death and injury of children compared with the previous year, the report said: “The highest numbers of grave violations were verified in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (12,445), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (4,114), Nigeria (2,560), Myanmar (2,203) and Somalia (2,195).”

According to the report, in 2025, 6,266 children were killed, 7,958 were injured, 6,607 were recruited into armed groups, 8,322 were denied access to humanitarian aid, and 4,573 children were abducted.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report that he is “appalled by the magnitude of grave violations against children” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.

“I am shocked by the ongoing grave violations in the Gaza Strip, and I am deeply alarmed by the escalating violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” he said.

He further pointed to the “staggering rise in attacks” carried out by Israeli occupiers and denounced the “persistent lack of accountability for these violations.” Anadolu

Features

Diving in a War Zone

CrossFireArabia
June 8, 2026

By Jing Zhang

When US and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran on 28 February, triggering one of the most serious geopolitical crises in years, the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow channel just 34 kilometres wide at its narrowest point – became a global flashpoint overnight.

Iran closed the waterway to foreign shipping, attacking merchant vessels and cutting off around 20 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Some 20,000 seafarers were stranded in the Persian Gulf. The UN Secretary-General called for an immediate ceasefire.

Beneath all of it, the fish kept swimming.

Back in the water

Three Chinese divers based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – diving instructor Rui Li, freediver Shanshan Du and technical diver Jie Zhang – had been locked out of the water for weeks by the coastal closure. When a ceasefire allowed limited access in mid-April, they went straight back in.

World Oceans Day, marked each year on 8 June, carries the theme this year of Reimagining the Relationship Between Humans and the Ocean. For these three, that reimagining is anything but abstract.

“We were actually a little worried before setting off,” says Du, who dived the narrowest stretch between the UAE and Oman on 18 April, just days after the UN welcomed Iran’s announcement that the strait would be open to commercial vessels during the ceasefire.

“But after more than two months, we all felt it was fantastic to be able to dive again. We encountered a large group of dolphins. There was none of the war-torn atmosphere I had imagined – only peace and beauty before my eyes.”

Zhang, who dived the area as recently as last week, describes coral diversity she has rarely encountered elsewhere – soft and hard corals varying with the topography, and sea turtles gathered in such numbers they evoked a nature reserve.

A person in a scuba diving suit and mask makes a peace sign against the ocean and blue sky. — Courtesy of Jie Zhang. Jie Zhang is back from the depths, feeling the warmth of the sun.

Troubling signs

She also noticed something more troubling. “I saw more white debris on the seabed than before,” she says, uncertain of its origin. And when she and her companions followed dolphins near the eastern side of the strait, the water around the animals was streaked with green algae, oil fumes and floating rubbish.

“I recalled that when I used to chase dolphins, the water was blue. Seeing this scene with my own eyes is still very heartbreaking.”

Li is careful to hold both realities at once. The strait is not the world’s most biodiverse marine zone, he notes, but its complex topography sustains coral reefs of unusual variety – formations “as white as silver needles” alongside colonies “as purple as pine forests” – as well as seahorses, whale sharks and species rarely seen elsewhere.

He describes witnessing a boat captain who, unable to dive and with no other means of communication, could reliably find a pod of dolphins that seemed to recognise him. “We would greet each other and then go our separate ways,” Li says. “This place is truly magical.”

A wide bay with deep blue water, bordered by arid, rocky mountains and a small coastal settlement on the right. — ©Jie Zhang Overlooking the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam Peninsula, Oman.

Potential catastrophe

Yet he is also acutely aware of what armed conflict can do to such a place. An attack on oil storage facilities, he points out, could be catastrophic for marine life. “Many marine organisms are small and vulnerable. A single attack could be enough to wipe out some amazing species that have never been seen by humans.”

Zhang frames the underwater world’s vulnerability in blunt terms. “No one can speak for the underwater ecosystem – fish can’t speak, and neither can large animals.

“We dump all the disputes, wars and pollution on land onto the ocean, ignoring the fact that the ocean has no good self-protection capabilities and can only bear all the conflicts and damage caused by human activities.”

Diving has quietly dissolved certain certainties for all three. “Underwater, the ocean has no borders,” says Zhang. “Ocean currents and schools of fish move freely. When whale sharks cruise, they follow fixed routes through different countries – they are free. Humanity should share this blue world instead of tearing it apart with disputes.”

A person in a wetsuit and goggles floats in the ocean, adjusting their mask with both hands. — ©Jie Zhang Rui Li makes a heart gesture to his dive buddy on the water’s surface, which also stands for “OK” in diving hand signal terms.

Mother ocean

Li reaches for a different metaphor – warmer, and perhaps more honest about the limits of human agency. The relationship between people and the sea, he suggests, is something like that between a child and a parent: the ocean sustains us, nurtures us, occasionally punishes us.

“We have grown old enough to want to protect it, he says, yet what we can actually do remains small. “Our parents are still quietly waiting for us, helping us, and continuing to nurture us.”

Du, diving in a country where people of dozens of nationalities converge, has found that underwater, borders feel beside the point. Communication happens through gesture alone. “Because of this hobby, and because of the ocean, it has created a wonderful environment for us.”

The conflicts raging above the surface have not ended. Talks between Washington and Tehran remain fragile, conditions volatile. But 71 per cent of the Earth is ocean – and, as Li says to anyone who has yet to see it: come and touch the refreshing water whenever you can.