UNRWA remains one of the largest providers of emergency learning and psychosocial support across Gaza #UNRWAworks

UNRWA

@UNRWA

 

Children in #Gaza continue to seek support amid immense challenges. 

 

Since the war began, UNRWA counsellors and social workers have delivered over 330,000 psychosocial support sessions. 

 

In more than 300 temporary learning spaces and on digital platforms, UNRWA supports children to get back a sense of routine. 

 

 #UNRWAworks

 

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]  

Life in Gaza 2025 photo posted by Palestinian Journalist Motasem A Dalloul

Motasem A Dalloul

@AbujomaaGaza

Life in Gaza

 

https://x.com/AbujomaaGaza/status/1992688097449152811/photo/1

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COSTS of WAR: "The “Military-Industrial Complex” is enmeshed with Silicon Valley. A growing portion of Pentagon spending goes to large tech firms..."

 

 

Costs of War

Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include: 

Recent Findings

• In the two years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the U.S. government has spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel.
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• The U.S. has spent an additional $9.65 – $12.07 billion on military operations in Yemen and the wider region since October 7, 2023, for a total of $31.35 – $33.77 billion and counting in U.S. spending on the post-10/7 wars.
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• As of October 3, 2025, 67,075 people in Gaza have been killed and 169,430 people injured according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. These 236,505 casualties constitute more than 10% of the pre-war population in Gaza.
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• At least 5.27 million people have fled or been forced to leave their homes (as of early September 2025) in the post-Oct.7, 2023 wars in Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and the West Bank. This total includes an estimated 1.85 million children under 18.
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• Military spending produces an average of 5 jobs per $1 million. The same investment in other sectors creates more employment - nearly 13 jobs in education, 9 in healthcare, and 7-8 in infrastructure and clean energy.
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• From 2020 to 2024, private firms received $2.4 trillion in contracts from the Pentagon, approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4 trillion.
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• The expanding tools of political influence used by the arms industry include extensive lobbying, millions in campaign donations, the revolving door, funding think tanks, and involvement in government advisory committees.
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• U.S.-backed Israeli military operations since Oct. 7, 2023 will lead to far higher indirect death than direct death rates.
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• Over the course of the war in Afghanistan (2001-2021), 24% of U.S. women service members and 1.9% of men experienced sexual assault.
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• The “Military-Industrial Complex” is enmeshed with Silicon Valley. A growing portion of Pentagon spending goes to large tech firms.
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• War contributes significantly to climate change: The U.S. Defense Department is one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters.
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• Official U.S. discourses about security threats from China and Russia are characterized by threat inflation.
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• Americans are inundated with cultural products that promote militarism – many of them influenced by the Pentagon. From movies to sporting events, the entertainment we consume normalizes war, reducing reflection about U.S. policy choices and their consequences

United States Post-9/11 Wars 

• The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
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• The U.S. government is conducting counterterror activities in 78 countries.
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• An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.
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• At least 940,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including civilians, armed forces on all sides, contractors, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
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• U.S. policymakers scarcely considered alternatives to war in the aftermath of 9/11 or in debating the invasion of Iraq. Many of those alternatives are still available.
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• The cost of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere totals about $8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars.
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• 38 million people have been displaced by the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines.
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• The costs of caring for post-9/11 war vets will reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion by 2050 - most of which has not yet been paid.
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• Post-9/11 war veterans are suffering a mental health crisis. At least four times as many active duty personnel and war veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died of suicide than in combat.
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• The ripple effects on the U.S. economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.

 https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/findings

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 https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/about

The Costs of War project conducts and publishes research about the ongoing consequences of the United States post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere; the costs of global U.S. military operations; and the domestic effects of U.S. military spending.

Created in 2010 and housed at Brown University’s Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs, the Costs of War project builds on the work of over 70 scholars, experts, human rights advocates, and physicians from around the world. 

We aim to raise awareness and foster public debate by providing the fullest possible account of the human, economic, political, and environmental costs of U.S. militarism, laying the foundation for better informed U.S. foreign and domestic policies.

About Costs of War

The Costs of War project publishes public-facing research about the broad consequences of U.S. military operations and spending, including their domestic effects, and the ongoing costs of the U.S. post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond.

https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/economic/us-federal-budget

 

“States clearly operate in ways that terrify,” Elden said. “The terrorism of non-state actors is a very small proportion of terrorism taken as a whole, with states having killed far more than those who oppose them.” A large body of research supports this claim.... Daniel Mendiola in The Guardian

 ".... Watching this play out, I am reminded of a passage from the geographer Stuart Elden’s award-winning 2009 book, Terror and Territory. In discussing how to study the “war on terror”, Elden observed that it did not make sense to study terrorism as something unique to non-state actors.

“States clearly operate in ways that terrify,” Elden said. “The terrorism of non-state actors is a very small proportion of terrorism taken as a whole, with states having killed far more than those who oppose them.”

A large body of research supports this claim.

Researchers with Brown University’s Costs of War project, for example, have found that US-led interventions in the “war on terror” from 2001 to 2023 killed over 400,000 civilians in direct war violence. They also show evidence that when considering indirect deaths – for example, people in war zones dying from treatable medical conditions after clean water or medical infrastructure was destroyed – death toll estimates rise to at least 3.5m. Moreover, even beyond direct war zones, a recent study in the Lancet found that sanctions during the same period were also extremely deadly, causing as many as 500,000 excess deaths per year from 2010 to 2021.

We have already spent decades terrorizing civilian populations around the world in the name of fighting terror

In short, we have already spent decades terrorizing civilian populations around the world in the name of fighting terror. This is well known, and yet... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/24/war-on-terror-venezuela-donald-trump

 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]   

  

https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/ 

Costs of War

Promoting research and public awareness of the human, economic, social, and environmental costs of U.S. militarism