Saturday, November 15, 2025

"Israel is blocking shelter materials into Gaza while tents are flooded and temperatures drop. They’re preventing the clearance of their unexploded bombs that continue to kill and maim children. They’re not allowing enough food to a starved population. The genocide isn’t over." Assal Rad

#GazaStarving

Assal Rad

@AssalRad

Israel is blocking shelter materials into Gaza while tents are flooded and temperatures drop.

They’re preventing the clearance of their unexploded bombs that continue to kill and maim children.

They’re not allowing enough food to a starved population.

The genocide isn’t over.

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES & QUOTES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

It’s cold and wet in Gaza. Displaced people are now facing a harsh winter without the basics to protect them from the rain & cold. A misery on top of misery. Fragile shelters quickly flood, soaking people’s belongings. More shelter supplies are urgently needed for the people of Gaza. UNRWA has them outside, waiting for the green light. Let us bring them in. — @‌UNLazzarini

It’s cold and wet in #Gaza.

Displaced people are now facing a harsh #winter without the basics to protect them from the rain & cold.

A misery on top of misery.

Fragile shelters quickly flood, soaking people’s belongings.

More shelter supplies are urgently needed for the people of Gaza.

UNRWA has them outside, waiting for the green light. Let us bring them in. —

@‌UNLazzarini

https://x.com/UNRWA/status/1989682382002061708

"Home is everything. Everything—safety, comfort." Shamali Shamali, in The New Yorker - November 11, 2025

As Told To

In Gaza, Home Is Just a Memory

After the ceasefire, many Palestinians who were displaced during the war are still grieving the homes they can’t return to—and which they often had to evacuate in minutes.

By Mohammed R. Mhawish

Illustration by Rama Duwaji

November 11, 2025

The New Yorker

The United Nations estimates that at least 1.9 million people were displaced during the war. One of them is Shahd Shamali, who is twenty years old, and is currently living at a camp in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip. For several weeks, we communicated via WhatsApp video calls. From my screen, I could see her sitting at a shared desk in a room, where others held their phones at chest height to catch the router’s range. When our calls dropped, as they often did, Shamali and I would switch over to text messages and voice notes...

Shamali Shamali: ".... Home

Home is everything. Everything—safety, comfort. No matter what happened during my day, I always knew I’d come back home.

There are eleven of us, in my family, and most of us lived in the apartment together. My siblings—Rawan, Dina, Rahaf, Hala, Jana, Reem, Ahmed—Mom, Dad. And then the most important member of our family, my cat, Lulu.

A typical day started with everyone gathering for breakfast. Regardless of whether one of us was sleepy or tired, we all had to eat breakfast together. After that, everyone would go off and start their days. Later, when we were back home, my little siblings and I would play music. Dad would be watching the TV. Mom and others would be using their cellphones. Still, we were all together. Being together, as a family, is very important to us.

My favorite place in our home was my room. Whenever my siblings and I felt upset, or when we wanted to escape our problems, we’d go in there and draw. We would hang the drawings on the wall. It was our safe place.... " READ MORE https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/the-war-in-gaza-has-paused-but-home-is-still-gone

Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent named young journalist of the year in UK awards Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London

Malak Tantesh (right) with family members in northern Gaza. Photograph: Enas Tantesh/The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/14/gaza-correspondent-young-journalist-of-the-year-media-freedom-awards

Julian Borger Senior international correspondent

Fri 14 Nov 2025 09.33 EST

The Guardian

The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.

The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.

Tantesh, 20, reported for the Guardian from Gaza for 18 months. She described the impact of the war, losing close relatives and witnessing the aftermath of bombing first hand. She wrote about her family’s return to her birthplace in Beit Lahia, to find their home in ruins and their orchard destroyed. “My memories are crushed and buried,” she wrote.

In October, Tantesh published an article looking back on two years of war, which took the people of Gaza through a “gateway to hell”. There were times, she wrote, when the surviving members of her family envied the dead.

Tantesh and her father Amjed return to the rubble of their home in northern Gaza. Photograph: Enas Tantesh/The Guardian

According to the UN, at least 248 journalists had been killed in Gaza by September, more than in any other conflict in modern times. There have been repeated allegations that Israel was deliberately targeting journalists. Israel has denied the charge, while claiming that some of the journalists its forces killed had been Hamas operatives.

Receiving the award on Wednesday, Tantesh thanked her parents for “raising me to be the person who I am now”.

“They are still there in Gaza, suffering what I was suffering during the past months,” she said, and went on to thank her sister Enas, who worked alongside her as a photographer in Gaza, and her cousin Seham, who has now taken up her position as correspondent. They had stood with her throughout her time working in Gaza, she said.

Tantesh also acknowledged the support of her editors and colleagues at the Guardian and “all the people who have stood with me all the way”.

The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, said: “I am thrilled that Malak’s brave, meticulous, moving reporting, delivered under the most awful of circumstances, has been recognised by the judges. A brilliant journalistic future is ahead of her.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/14/gaza-correspondent-young-journalist-of-the-year-media-freedom-awards

Israel breaching international law by limiting Gaza aid, says Unrwa official - Natalie Boucly says supplies are ready but only about half of what is needed is getting into territory

People walk among makeshift shelters and the ruins of buildings in Gaza City on Friday. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels

Sat 15 Nov 2025

The Guardian

Israel is breaching international law by continuing to impose restrictions on aid flows into Gaza, where the population remains critically short of food and life-saving goods as winter sets in, a senior official at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.

In an interview during a recent visit to Brussels, Natalie Boucly, an Unrwa deputy commissioner general, said the whole world – including the EU and US – needed to increase the pressure on Israel’s government to ensure the unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza.

Unrwa has enough food, tents and other essentials to fill the equivalent of up to 6,000 trucks, Boucly said.

“As winter approaches and famine continues to grip the population, it is critical that all this aid is allowed into Gaza without delay,” she said. “Our supplies would be able to provide food … for the entire population for about three months. And that is sitting outside [in Jordan and Egypt], not able to come in. And that is the case for the other UN agencies because the restrictions and the constraints are still there.”

She estimated that only about half, “if that”, of the 500-600 daily truckloads needed were getting into the devastated territory.

Boucly said Israel as an occupying power was “not abiding by international humanitarian law and international human rights law”, referencing the fourth Geneva convention as well as a recent advisory opinion from the international court of justice that said Israel had to ensure the people of the occupied Palestinian territory had “the essential supplies of daily life”.

The same ICJ ruling, issued on 22 October, concluded that Israel had an obligation to cooperate with Unrwa. The court found no evidence that Unrwa lacked neutrality or that significant numbers of it staff were members of Hamas, claims repeatedly made by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Israel severed diplomatic relations with Unrwa after accusing*... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/15/israel-breaching-international-law-by-limiting-gaza-aid-says-unrwa-official

* “It’s outrageous that a member state of the United Nations is working to dismantle a UN agency which also happens to be the largest responder in the humanitarian operation in Gaza,” Juliette Touma, spokesperson for Unrwa, said in a statement.

Friday, November 14, 2025

H.Res.876 formally recognizes Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza as constituting the crime of genocide and calls on the US to uphold its responsibilities under international and US law to prevent and punish this crime.

Tell your Representative to co-sponsor H.Res.876 -- the new resolution for the US to recognize Israel's genocide in Gaza and meet its obligations under international and US law. It takes just a minute to send a letter: https://punishgenocide.org/?source=twitter&

BREAKING: A new resolution introduced today in the House of Representatives by

@RepRashida

with 20 original co-sponsors would, if passed, have the US officially recognize Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

https://x.com/RepRashida/status/1989352589981569341/photo/1

By giving Israel $30 billion in weapons over the past two years, we've failed miserably in our obligation to prevent genocide. This resolution is the first step in holding Israel accountable for its atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza.

Aid still woefully short of Gaza needs as heavy rains, winter approach- UNRWA slams Israel for crippling Gaza efforts. Despite the ceasefire mandating the passage of humanitarian aid, only a fraction of that needed for the population has been let in by Israel.

Young Palestinian girls play in a new displacement camp set up by the Egyptian Committee in Nuseirat, Gaza Strip, on November 11, 2025 [Eyad Baba/AFP]

By Mariamne Everett and News Agencies

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has accused Israel of deliberately crippling its operations and blocking the entry of vital aid to Gaza amid its more than two-year genocidal war, as Palestinians face the onset of heavy rains and winter with sparse shelter or relief.

“Safeguarding UNRWA’s mandate and operations is required under international law; it is vital to the survival of millions of Palestinians; and it is essential for a political solution,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the UN General Assembly Fourth Committee on Thursday, citing recent findings by the UN Commission of Inquiry and rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) obligating Israel to lift restrictions on the agency.

Lazzarini also told a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York that severe funding shortfalls were threatening UNRWA’s essential services, urging donor nations for more money, so that it could continue its operations in Gaza despite funding cuts by the United States.

“We run week by week, month by month. I know that as of today, we will be able to process our salaries in November, but have no idea if or no visibility if we will be able to process our salaries in December,” said Lazzarini.

Israel has barred UNRWA from operating on its soil after baselessly accusing some of its employees of participating in the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which triggered the war.

Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA employees of involvement in the October 7 attack without providing proof.

Following those allegations, the US – historically the agency’s biggest donor – suspended its support.

In the wake of Israel’s decision, UNRWA was forced to repatriate its international staff from Gaza and the occupied West Bank, limiting its food aid distribution abilities.

But it still employs 12,000 people in the Palestinian territory, and its services are vital to Palestinians, Lazzarini insisted.

“About 75,000 people were sheltered in 100 of our premises across the Gaza Strip,” he said.

“We have, over the last two years, provided more than 15 million primary health consultations. Today, the average is about 14,000 a day,” he added, also noting the agency’s joint vaccination campaign with UNICEF and the World Health Organization. UNRWA also provides education for tens of thousands of children.

“In the absence of a significant influx of new funding, the delivery of critical services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region will be compromised,” Lazzarini added.

While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said UNRWA will have no role in post-war Gaza, in sync with Israeli demands, Lazzarini noted that since the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold, “we have expanded our services”.

‘Terrifying nightmare for a lot of families’

Under the ceasefire, which took effect on October 10, and which Israel has violated hundreds of times, aid deliveries were supposed to be significantly ramped up, with at least 600 trucks a day due to enter Gaza to fulfil the population’s needs.

However, only “around 150 trucks” have been entering Gaza daily, carrying supplies that are not sufficient for the “two million Palestinians that are currently displaced and homeless”, said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.

“There are a lot of Palestinian families who have said that there are no tarps, no tents, and they didn’t receive any humanitarian aid”, despite the arrival of the aid trucks, said Khoudary.

The lack of supplies, coupled with the onset of winter, is a “terrifying nightmare for a lot of families and especially for those who are living in makeshift camps”, said Khoudary.

The lack of supplies has prompted the UN to warn that the hunger crisis in Gaza remains catastrophic, particularly in the north, where famine was declared in August, due to the slow and difficult route aid convoys face from the south.

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and commercial cargo resumed passage through the northern Zikim border crossing earlier this week.

Israel had closed the crossing, the main entry point into the hard-hit northern Gaza Strip, for two months, with its reopening welcomed by Palestinians and UN aid agencies.... READ MORE https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/14/unrwa-slams-israel-for-crippling-gaza-efforts-aid-woefully-short-of-needs

"... Children ran barefoot through the storm, wearing thin summer clothes in winter rain, not with the wild beauty poets imagine, but with the quiet tragedy of a people trapped in their fourth season of exile. Their tents sagged under the downpour, the earth beneath them dissolving into mud, and because the homes that once held them are now dust, the sky itself has become their only roof. A roof that bleeds cold, punishes bone, and spares no heart beneath it. This city has become the throne of eternal grief.... One day, perhaps, the scribes of some future scripture will write: Gaza, the land where the forsaken walked, where angels wept, and where even storms remembered to grieve." Dr. Ezzideen

Dr. Ezzideen

@ezzingaza

"It feels as if the Hand that shaped the heavens has turned its face away from this land, leaving its people to breathe sorrow the way exiles breathe the cold of outer darkness.

Gaza is no longer a city; it is a place cast out of creation, a forgotten limb of the world, a valley where even fallen angels would tremble to descend.

Today was meant to be my single day of rest, the one hour in the week when my spirit could loosen its chains and drift into silence.

But Gaza does not grant rest to any soul.

Gaza is the place where rest goes to die.

Gaza gives nothing; Gaza only receives the weight of human suffering.

I woke early, not by my own will, but to thunder breaking open the sky as though the heavens themselves were mourning.

For a heartbeat, I cursed the sound, and then remembrance struck me: more than seventy percent of Gaza’s people now live beneath cloth instead of ceilings.

And truthfully, calling them “tents” is already a mercy. `

These are not dwellings; they are scraps of defeated fabric trembling in the wind, veils meant more to hide human humiliation than to shield from rain.

They stand as frail testaments to those forced to sleep within them, as if stitched by angels who had lost their wings.

I looked out the window. Children ran barefoot through the storm, wearing thin summer clothes in winter rain, not with the wild beauty poets imagine, but with the quiet tragedy of a people trapped in their fourth season of exile.

Their tents sagged under the downpour, the earth beneath them dissolving into mud, and because the homes that once held them are now dust, the sky itself has become their only roof.

A roof that bleeds cold, punishes bone, and spares no heart beneath it.

This city has become the throne of eternal grief. Here, God seems to gather those He has marked with sorrow upon their foreheads. This is not a city. It is a mausoleum of memory, a curse carved into the earth, a wound so deep it demands a new word in the language of the heavens.

One day, perhaps, the scribes of some future scripture will write: Gaza, the land where the forsaken walked, where angels wept, and where even storms remembered to grieve. #WoundedGaza"

https://x.com/ezzingaza/status/1989355741002502361

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