Palestinian Ministry of Education says over 22 thousands Palestinian students have been killed by Israel in the last three years; 179 public schools and 105 UNRWA schools were destroyed. Yet 700 teaching locations in Gaza opened for Gaza students

Daoud Kuttab داود كُتّاب

@daoudkuttab

 

Palestinian Ministry of Education says over 22 thousands Palestinian students have been killed by Israel in the last three years; 179 public schools and 105 @unrwa schools were destroyed. Yet 700 teaching locations in Gaza opened for Gaza students

https://x.com/daoudkuttab/status/2107722648885080504

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 UNRWA

@UNRWA

UNRWA is more than an agency. We are teachers helping children learn, nurses providing healthcare, social workers supporting families and frontline staff meeting needs on the ground every day. Behind the disinformation are real people, real needs and real rights. #UNRWAworks

 

 

Across the occupied #WestBank, more than 48,000 #Palestine Refugee children are returning to UNRWA schools for a new year of learning, reconnecting with friends and teachers and working towards a brighter future.  From the first day of school, UNRWA supports their learning and aspirations.  #UNRWAworks #FundUNRWA

 

In the Gaza Strip, 

the occupied West Bank, 

Lebanon, 

Syria, 

Jordan, 

through every challenge, we provide essential services and lifesaving support to millions of #Palestine Refugees. 

 

We are UNRWA.  

 

#UNRWAworks #FundUNRWA 

 

https://x.com/UNRWA/status/2107350147474526212 

Peace & development are 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱. It's time to rebalancing world military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future... Global military spending is soaring, fueling a new arms race and placing immense pressure on national budgets and priorities.

 United Nations Geneva

@UNGeneva

The world is 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗱. Peace & development are 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱. It's time to rebalancing world military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future. The world must invest in people and the planet, not arms. 👉 https://bit.ly/4m2BECF  

 

#InvestInPeace

https://www.un.org/en/peace-and-security/the-true-cost-of-peace 

The true cost of peace

Rebalancing world military spending for a sustainable and peaceful future

Global military spending is soaring, fueling a new arms race and placing immense pressure on national budgets and priorities.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a staggering $2.7 trillion was spent on militaries in 2024. This marks a more than 9 per cent jump from the previous year—the steepest increase since the Cold War and the tenth consecutive year of growth.

The Cost to Sustainable Development and Peace

This unprecedented military spending surge is occurring as global security deteriorates and progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the world's blueprint for a more equitable future—is falling short. In response, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has released a new report, The Security We Need: Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future.

The report offers a stark warning: if current trends persist, global military spending could reach $4.7 to $6.6 trillion by 2035. A $6.6 trillion annual military budget would be nearly five times the level at the end of the Cold War and more than twice of what was spent in 2024.

This trajectory of accelerated militarization poses a serious threat to humanity's future by diverting critical resources from sustainable development and peace-building initiatives.

 

The Security We Need

Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future

Global military spending is rising significantly across all regions driven by escalating geopolitical tensions, conflicts and perceived security threats. But does increasing military spending truly guarantee security? No, it often fuels arms races, deepens mistrust among countries and further destabilizes international relations.

The Secretary-General’s report, as requested by UN Member States in the 2024 Pact for the Future, examines the difficult trade-offs presented by the increasing global military spending, making a powerful case for investing in peace and in people's futures.

It proposes a shift towards a human-centered and multidimensional approach to security, one that prioritizes diplomacy, cooperation, sustainable development and disarmament over military build ups.

Full report | Overview (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) | Press release | Key messages | Fact sheet | Media advisory | Remarks of the UN Secretary-General | Remarks of the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs | Remarks of the UN Development Programme Acting Administrator

Investing in humanity, not arms

Breaking down the global military spending... READ MORE 

 https://www.un.org/en/peace-and-security/the-true-cost-of-peace

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“Achieving peace is not passive or automatic. It’s an active and deliberate choice to invest in a better future.” United Nations 2026

United Nations

@UN

 

“Achieving peace is not passive or automatic. It’s an active and deliberate choice to invest in a better future.” 

 

Ahead of Monday’s International Day of Peace, @antonioguterres calls on world leaders to invest in a peaceful future for all people. 

 

 https://un.org/en/observances

 

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 https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace/message

UN Secretary-General's Message

As we mark the International Day of Peace, we face a world where this vital asset is in dangerously short supply.

Communities are shaken by violence and division.

Conflicts are growing in scale and complexity, spilling across borders and inflicting enormous suffering.

Dialogue is faltering, solutions are elusive and global solidarity is missing in action.

But around the world, people are showing that we are not powerless.

Volunteers, advocates, civil society leaders, peacekeepers and peacemakers are bridging divides, uniting communities and pushing for dialogue.

Action by action, they are building peace from the ground up.  

Like this year’s theme — “Investing in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day” — these champions of peace are showing us that achieving peace is not passive or automatic.

It’s an active and deliberate choice to invest in a better future.  

By building inclusive communities where peace can take hold.

By investing in sustainable development — in people’s health, education, nutrition and social protection.

By bridging divides and ensuring everyone’s voice is heard.

By safeguarding the human rights and dignity that belong to every person.

And by strengthening the proven tools of peace — diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation and peacekeeping.

On this International Day of Peace, let us all be inspired by the courage of those who champion peace in neighbourhoods, classrooms and communities. 

And let’s call on world leaders to invest in a peaceful future for all people.  

António Guterres
 

Secretary-General's remarks at the UN Peace Bell Ceremony

Each year, the toll of the Peace Bell reminds us of the most important and consequential job we have: 

Building peace. 

Peace is never a passive achievement. 

Peace is hard work. 

Peace is action.  

But in our world today, action for peace is faltering. 

Violence and division are tearing apart communities.

Conflicts are widening and deepening. 

People are suffering. 

And the dialogue and solidarity that solutions require are missing in action. 

But where governments are failing to deliver peace, people are showing another way. 

Around the world, volunteers, advocates, civil society leaders, peacekeepers and peacemakers are doing the heavy lifting of peace. 

Raising their voices.

Bridging divides. 

Healing communities. 

Through their actions, large and small, they are bringing to life the theme of this year’s International Day of Peace: “Investing in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” 

As world leaders prepare to gather at the United Nations in the coming weeks, I urge them to follow the lead of these champions of peace. 

By investing in sustainable development — in people’s health, education, nutrition and social protection. 

By building institutions and systems that people can trust. 

By safeguarding the human rights and dignity that belong to every person. 

By re-committing to the proven tools of peace — diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation and peacekeeping. 

And by ending wars and conflicts. Now.  

Today, I call on world leaders to stand with us:

Take action;

Invest in solutions;

And do the hard work of building lasting, sustainable peace. 

This is the last time I will ring the Peace Bell. 

But I will always stand with the champions of peace around the world. 

Thank you.

António Guterres
9 September 2026

"There is something historically inevitable in this. Immigration from countries and backgrounds against which the US has waged military and ideological war eventually yields not a cowed assimilation, but a sort of political cosmopolitanism – kryptonite for American exceptionalism."

Zohran Mamdani after the ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks in New York, 11 September 2026. Photograph: Adam Gray/Reuters

 

The US right still paints Muslims as the ‘enemy’. But they are fighting for a brighter future for Americans

Progressive politicians such as Zohran Mamdani offer answers to the bitter post-9/11 legacy of failures at home and abroad 

Nesrine Malik

Mon 14 Sep 2026

Twenty-five years after 9/11, two pieces of journalism, describing two different phenomena in contemporary New York, tell us a great deal about a city, and indeed a world, caught between two eras. In one, New York Magazine dives into “Habibi City”, a New York where a “cultural shift is underway, led by a generation of New Yorkers coming into its own”. This new generation is labelled as originating in “SWANA” – south-west Asia and north Africa, a region that “includes countries from Palestine to Iran to Sudan”. In the other, Vanity Fair describes calls for Zohran Mamdani to not attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony as partly founded in “inchoate, emotional” impulses, that see “the city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the ‘them’ who attacked ‘us’.”

Together they capture what has changed over a generation, and what remains stubbornly the same. Members of a diaspora of Muslim background are indeed breaking through and accumulating, as New York Magazine says, “clout”. They are no longer simply a fixture of bodegas and halal carts, but of Saturday Night Live, upmarket dining, entertainment and politics too. Mamdani is both the expression of that cohort and the catalyst of its recognition as an emerging force. They care deeply for their local communities but also for those in Gaza and beyond.

I use the descriptor “of Muslim background” rather than “Muslim” because this diasporic identity is a diverse one that is rooted in a religion but expands to encompass everyone from the practising to those for whom Islam is a cultural totem.The capaciousness of this heritage is demonstrable in its integration – without compromise – into mainstream American society. Mamdani and the Democratic Senate nominee for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, recuse themselves from the rote fealty to American glory and dare to point out both US support for Israel and the calamitous outcomes of the “war on terror” in the Middle East.

This is the result of this new generation of Americans coming from an immigrant background that has cultivated a less parochial and supremacist view of the US. There is something historically inevitable in this. Immigration from countries and backgrounds against which the US has waged military and ideological war eventually yields not a cowed assimilation, but a sort of political cosmopolitanism – kryptonite for American exceptionalism.... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/14/9-11-anniversary-islamophobia-us-politics-zohran-mamdani

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From 400 hives to 35: the Gaza beekeeper refusing to let war end his life’s work - Ibrahim al-Dabba continues to care for his colonies despite losing his home and most of his hives and equipment. Story by Lina Abu Zayed, photographs by Omar Ashtawy

Ibrahim Naji al-Dabba, 49, (in green) working with his sons. He was displaced from the Shuja’iyya area, east of Gaza City to Tel al- to the south

    "Beekeeping... is our life, our livelihood, and our future."  

The Guardian picture essay 

Each morning, Ibrahim Naji al-Dabba climbs to the roof of a damaged residential tower in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, where rows of beehives sit surrounded by shattered concrete and the scars of war. The rooftop is far from an ideal place for beekeeping, but for the 49-year-old father of seven, it is the only place where he can continue the profession that has sustained his family for decades.

Before the war, al-Dabba owned more than 400 beehives spread across eastern Gaza. His apiaries, equipment, storage facilities, and four-wheel-drive vehicle allowed him to manage a thriving beekeeping business that supported his family. Today, almost everything he built over years of work has disappeared.

“Beekeeping is not just a business,” he says. “It is my family’s only source of income. It is our life, our livelihood, and our future.”

Al-Dabba, who also serves as president of the Gaza Beekeepers’ cooperative society, says beekeeping became a passion long before it became a profession. Over the years, he specialised in producing honey, breeding queen bees, and developing bee strains adapted to Gaza’s climate. Before the war, Gaza’s beekeeping sector had continued to grow despite years of blockade, with hundreds of beekeepers producing honey and supporting local agriculture through pollination.

That changed after the war erupted.

Unable to reach his apiaries because of bombardment and displacement, al-Dabba watched his life’s work vanish. He lost his home, more than 400 beehives, honey-processing equipment, storage facilities, and nearly all the tools required for his trade... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jul/29/gaza-beekeeper-refusing-to-let-war-end-lifes-work

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