"Israel has written one of the darkest pages of human history and the world is still holding the pen." Francesca Albanese

On #OlderPersonsDay, we honour older #Palestine Refugees. Having lived through decades of conflict and displacement, many continue to face hardship and suffering. UNRWA provides healthcare, education, and social services to support them in their daily lives.

UNRWA

@UNRWA

On #OlderPersonsDay, we honour older #Palestine Refugees. Having lived through decades of conflict and displacement, many continue to face hardship and suffering. UNRWA provides healthcare, education, and social services to support them in their daily lives.

António Guterres

@antonioguterres

 

Everyone benefits from the wisdom of older people. They have much to teach about navigating uncertainty, resolving conflict & building solidarity across generations. On #OlderPersonsDay, let’s build a world where people of every age can live with respect, security & opportunity.

 

Bantu Holomisa

@BantuHolomisa

Today we salute our elders - the living libraries of our nation, the custodians of wisdom and resilience. On #OlderPersonsDay, I reaffirm that SA’s future must be anchored in their dignity, inclusion and guidance.

UNRWA

@UNRWA

On #OlderPersonsDay, we celebrate the older generation of Palestine refugees. They are custodians of collective Palestinian memory, identity & culture. They are icons of resilience thru the long journey of Palestine refugees, from ongoing displacement to conflict to occupation.

UN Human Rights

@UNHumanRights

·

Oct 1, 2020

A new report highlights a flagrant lack of data on older persons. Closing the gap with better data collection methods is critical to give older persons a voice. Read more https://ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/lack-of-data-on-older-persons.aspx

#OlderPersonsDay #StandUp4HumanRights

 https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2020/10/expert-flagrant-lack-data-older-persons-impacts-their-human-rights

UN Humanitarian

@UNOCHA

·

Oct 1, 2021

The elderly are more vulnerable to disasters. As weather-related hazards become more frequent and intense, we must make sure their needs are considered and no one is left behind. #TheHumanRace | #OlderPersonsDay 

 

UN Human Rights

@UNHumanRights

·

Oct 1, 2020

We need more inclusive, equitable and age-friendly societies. In a year that has seen terrible harm done to older people, we must #BuildBackBetter to advance their rights and dignity – UN Human Rights Chief

@mbachelet

on #OlderPersonsDay.

 

 AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or 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://www.un.org/en/observances/older-persons-day 

Background

On 14 December 1990, the United Nations General Assembly designated October 1 as the International Day of Older Persons (resolution 45/106). This was preceded by initiatives such as the Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing, which was adopted by the 1982 World Assembly on Ageing and endorsed later that year by the UN General Assembly.

In 1991, the General Assembly adopted the United Nations Principles for Older Persons (resolution 46/91). In 2002, the Second World Assembly on Ageing adopted the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, to respond to the opportunities and challenges of population ageing in the 21st century and to promote the development of a society for all ages.

The number of older people (defined as those aged 65 years or older) tripled from around 260 million in 1980 to 761 million in 2021. Between 2021 and 2050, the global share of the older population is projected to increase from less than 10% to around 17%.

Rapid growth in the number of people reaching older ages underscores the significance of promoting health, preventing, and treating illnesses throughout the entire course of life.

In societies with aging populations, it becomes imperative to adjust to the increasing number of elderly individuals who possess a diverse range of functional capacities. The capability to carry out essential functions and partake in everyday activities is influenced not solely by an individual's inherent capacity but also by the social and physical environments in which they reside. Supportive environments play a pivotal role in assisting older individuals to maintain their activity levels and independence as they progress in age.

 

In Growing Gardens for Palestine... The United Nations: International TRANSLATION Day- Translation is more than words; it is a connection. It bridges cultures, carries histories, and gives voice to those unheard. Today, September 30th on Translation Day, we celebrate those who make dialogue possible, the quiet architects of unity in every language.

Growing Gardens for Palestine 

United Nations Geneva

@UNGeneva

Translation is more than words; it is a connection. It bridges cultures, carries histories, and gives voice to those unheard. Today, on #TranslationDay, we celebrate those who make dialogue possible, the quiet architects of unity in every language.

Why 30 September?

30 September celebrates the feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator, who is considered the patron saint of translators.

St. Jerome was a priest from North-eastern Italy, who is known mostly for his endeavor of translating most of the Bible into Latin from the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. He also translated parts of the Hebrew Gospel into Greek. He was of Illyrian ancestry and his native tongue was the Illyrian dialect. He learned Latin in school and was fluent in Greek and Hebrew, which he picked up from his studies and travels. Jerome died near Bethlehem on 30 September 420.

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

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The role of language professionals

International Translation Day is meant as an opportunity to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development and strengthening world peace and security.

Transposition of a literary or scientific work, including technical work, from one language into another language, professional translation, including translation proper, interpretation and terminology, is indispensable to preserving clarity, a positive climate and productiveness in international public discourse and interpersonal communication.

Thus, on 24 May 2017, the General Assembly adopted resolution 71/288 on the role of language professionals in connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding and development, and declared 30 September as International Translation Day.

Multilingualism, a core value of the United Nations

Languages, with their complex implications for identity, communication, social integration, education and development, are of strategic importance for people and the planet.

There is growing awareness that languages play a vital role in development, in ensuring cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, but also in attaining quality education for all and strengthening cooperation, in building inclusive knowledge societies and preserving cultural heritage, and in mobilizing political will for applying the benefits of science and technology to sustainable development.

An essential factor in harmonious communication among peoples, multilingualism is also regarded by the United Nations General Assembly as a core value of the Organization. By promoting tolerance, multilingualism ensures effective and increased participation of all in the Organization’s work, as well as greater effectiveness, better performance and improved transparency.

Translation at the UN

The United Nations is one of the world's largest employers of language professionals. Several hundred language staff work in UN offices in New York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi, or at the United Nations regional commissions in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut, Geneva and Santiago. Translators are one type of language professionals employed at the UN.

UN language specialists include:

• Editorial and desktop publishing assistants;
• Editors;
• Interpreters;
• Précis-writers;
• Production editors and desktop publishers;
• Translators;
• Verbatim reporters

United Nations translators handle all kinds of documents, from statements by Member States to reports prepared by expert bodies. The documents they translate cover every topic on the United Nations agenda, including human rights, peace and security, and development. New issues arise every day. UN documents are issued simultaneously in the six official languages of the Organization (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). Some core documents are also translated into German. This multilingual documentation is made possible by United Nations translators, whose job is to render clearly and accurately the content of original texts into their main language.

Interested in working as a language specialist at the United Nations? Please check UN Careers on Competitive examinations for language professionals.

Did you know?

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds the Guinness World Record as the most translated document. It exists in more than 500 languages.
• The United Nations is one of the world's largest employers of language professionals.
• There are six official languages of the UN - Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
• A delegate may speak in any official UN language. The speech is interpreted simultaneously into the other official languages of the UN.

TRANSLATION: From one world to another

What does it really mean to translate? Translation is often the essential prerequisite for accessing a universal, multiple, diverse culture. In this issue of the UNESCO Courier, explore what this really entails.

Related Observances

• 21 February - International Mother Language Day
• 20 March - French Language Day at the UN
• 20 April - Chinese Language Day at the UN
• 23 April - English Language Day at the UN 
• 23 April - Spanish Language Day at the UN 
• 5 May - World Portuguese Language Day
• 6 June - Russian Language Day at the UN 
• 7 July - World Kiswahili Language Day
• 18 December - Arabic Language Day at the UN 
• 2022-2032 - International Decade of Indigenous Languages

Why do we mark International Days?

International days and weeks are occasions to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity. The existence of international days predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool. We also mark other UN observances.

 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights... Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages

Jordanian King Abdullah speaks at 2025 United Nations General Assembly... FOR Peace & Palestine

Jordanian King Abdullah spoke Sept. 23 before the 80th gathering of the United Nations General Assembly. World leaders gathered to discuss a number of key issues, including the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and how to tackle climate change.

“Human rights are not an ornament of peace – they are its bedrock.” United Nations Antonio Guterres... "We will never, ever give up making this world better for everyone, everywhere."

United Nations

@UN

“We must choose human dignity and human rights.” 

At this week's United Nations General Assembly, Antonio Guterres @antonioguterres stressed that protecting human rights is essential for people to live in peace & prosperity. 

“Human rights are not an ornament of peace – they are its bedrock.”

"The movement restrictions imposed by these checkpoints and gates severely disrupt the access of nearly 90,000 people to their lands, healthcare, education, and livelihoods." Between olive groves and gates: A Palestinian’s struggle for land and livelihood September 27, 2025 by Fareed Taamallah

Group of Palestinian children in Bureyc Camp raise the Palestinian flag over the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes following announcements of recognition of the State of Palestine by Canada, Australia, the UK, and Portugal, on September 22, 2025, in Gaza City, Gaza. [Moiz Salhi – Anadolu Agency]

As a Palestinian living in Ramallah, with ancestral roots in the village of Qira in the Salfit Governorate, life has long been intertwined with the land. For generations, my family has cultivated olive trees in Qira, a tradition that sustains both livelihoods and cultural heritage. Yet this year, the olive harvest faces unprecedented threats—not only from seasonal droughts or pests, but also from the systemic obstacles imposed by the Israeli occupation.

Each time I want to visit my hometown — to see my family, to walk the streets where I grew up, or to tend to my olive groves — I am confronted by gates and checkpoints. What used to be a 30-minute drive can now take hours, or be impossible. Like thousands of other Palestinians, I feel my life narrowing, not by chance but by design.

Checkpoints and gates: Tools of dispossession

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), up until 2024 the Israeli occupation has established a total of 849 checkpoints across the occupied West Bank, with gates blocking roads constituting a third of these obstacles. The number has dramatically increased in 2025. Approximately 1,000 military gates and checkpoints massively fragment the West Bank, which covers an area of no more than 5,000 square kilometers, meaning there is a gate or checkpoint every five kilometers. For Palestinians, these statistics are not abstract. Each gate is a choke point in our daily lives.

Gates mean more than inconvenience, they mean economic collapse, and deprivation of basic services and cutting social life. Villages once connected to markets now see their shops shuttered, their youth unemployed. When access roads are blocked, workers cannot reach cities or Israel for employment. Farmers cannot reach groves or sell their produce.

In Salfit governorate, where Qira is located, the situation is particularly dire. The movement restrictions imposed by these checkpoints and gates severely disrupt the access of nearly 90,000 people to their lands, healthcare, education, and livelihoods. Gates have severed rural communities from Salfit city, where hospitals, administrative offices, and markets are located. The entrance to my hometown has been closed for months due to locked gates, forcing residents to take long, unpaved, and rough roads to reach the village.

Perhaps worst of all, gates break families apart. Weddings, funerals, and daily visits that once required a short drive now become logistical nightmares or impossible journeys. The feeling of unpredictability — never knowing if a road will be open or closed — has seeped into the fabric of Palestinian life, a constant reminder of powerlessness.

Settler violence: A growing threat

The challenges posed by checkpoints and gates are compounded by the escalating violence from Israeli settlers. These incidents include physical assaults, threats, and the destruction of olive trees.

OCHA documented over 200 settler-related incidents during the 2024 harvest season, in which more than 1,600 olive trees were vandalised, burned, or cut. Tools and harvests were stolen; farmers were assaulted.

Between January and March 2025, settler violence increased by an estimated 30 per cent compared to the same period in 2024. This surge in aggression is often carried out with impunity, as Israeli security forces frequently fail to intervene or even provide protection to Palestinian communities under attack.

My village has witnessed numerous settler crimes, the most recent of which occurred last March when a number of settlers sneaked in under the cover of darkness, attacked a house on the outskirts of the village, and set fire to a farmer’s vehicle. The occupation authorities did not bring any settlers to justice and the incident was recorded—as usual—as an unknown person.

The olive season is approaching, and it is unclear to me and my family – like many Palestinians – whether we will be able to reach our olive groves.

The olive grove: A symbol of resilience

For Palestinians, olive season is part of our heritage, identity, and resilience. The harvest season is a time of family gatherings and collective labour, a ritual passed down for generations. These trees have witnessed centuries of history, bearing witness to our ancestors’ toil and perseverance.

The olive tree, a symbol of Palestinian identity and resilience, has become a target in the broader strategy of displacement and dispossession. A report issued by the Palestinian Land Research Center revealed that the Israeli army and settlers uprooted more than 59,000 trees and confiscated approximatel 50,000 dunams of land in the occupied West Bank during 2024.

The numbers are staggering: between 1967 and 2011, over 800,000 trees were uprooted. From 2010 to 2023, another 278,000 were destroyed. Each tree takes years to grow; each uprooted grove... READ MORE  https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250927-between-olive-groves-and-gates-a-palestinians-struggle-for-land-and-livelihood/

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United Nations Geneva REMINDER: Humanitarians are #NotATarget. Civilians are #NotATarget. Hospitals are #NotATarget. Schools are #NotATarget. Children are #NotATarget. Journalists are #NotATarget.

United Nations Geneva

@UNGeneva

 

 𝙍𝙀𝙈𝙄𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍

Humanitarians are #NotATarget. 

Civilians are #NotATarget. 

Hospitals are #NotATarget. 

Schools are #NotATarget. 

Children are #NotATarget. 

Journalists are #NotATarget.

Israel is waging a taxation assault on Jerusalem’s Christian presence, endangering its very survival: Patriarchs and Heads of The Churches in Jerusalem renew their condemnation of unjust foreclosure hearing against Armenian Patriarchate, urging immediate intervention.

Kegham Balian

@kbalian90

Jerusalemite Armenian 

https://x.com/SavetheArQ   The official page of the movement for the defense and preservation of the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem  #Save_the_Arq

Israel’s ecocide in Gaza sends this message: even if we stopped dropping bombs, you couldn’t live here... Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life.

An Israeli tank on the northern border of Gaza, 28 May 2024. Photograph: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images

by George Monbiot in The Guardian  Sat 27 Sep 2025

A landless people and a peopleless land: these, it appears, are the aims of the Israeli government in Gaza. There are two means by which they are achieved. The first is the mass killing and expulsion of the Palestinians. The second is rendering the land uninhabitable. Alongside the crime of genocide, another great horror unfolds: ecocide.

While the destruction of buildings and infrastructure in Gaza is visible in every video we see, less visible is the parallel destruction of ecosystems and means of subsistence. Before the 7 October atrocity that triggered the current assault on Gaza, about 40% of its land was farmed. Despite its extreme population density, Gaza was mostly self-sufficient in vegetables and poultry, and met much of the population’s demand for olives, fruit and milk. But last month the UN reported that just 1.5% of its agricultural land now remains both accessible and undamaged. That’s roughly 200 hectares – the only remaining area directly available to feed more than 2 million people.

Part of the reason is the systematic destruction of farmland by the Israeli military. Ground troops have demolished greenhouses; bulldozers have toppled orchards, ploughed out crops and crushed the soil; and planes have sprayed herbicides over the fields.

What is ecocide and could it become a crime under international law?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) justify these attacks by claiming that “Hamas often operates from within orchards, fields, and agricultural land.” And apparently from hospitals, schools, universities, industrial estates and any other resources on which the Palestinians depend. All the IDF needs to do in order to rationalise destruction is to suggest that Hamas has operated or might operate from the thing it wants to destroy. And if there’s no evidence – sorry, too late.

The IDF is steadily expanding the “buffer zone” along Gaza’s eastern border, which happens to contain much of the Strip’s agricultural land. As the human rights specialist Hamza Hamouchene points out, rather than “making the desert bloom” – a mainstay of Israeli state propaganda – it is turning fertile and productive land into desert.

The Israeli government has been felling Palestinians’ ancient olive trees for decades to deprive them of subsistence, demoralise them and break their connection with the land. Olives are both materially crucial, accounting for 14% of the Palestinian economy, and symbolically powerful: if there are no olive trees, there can be no olive branch. Israel’s scorched-earth policy, in conjunction with its blockade of food supplies, guarantees famine... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/27/israel-ecocide-gaza-bombs-agricultural-land-genocide

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US marketing companies are helping to rebrand the genocide in Gaza: Reports say PR teams are busy rewriting history in real time – not that the American media needs the help.

‘It’s not just media outlets working overtime to help rehabilitate Israel’s image.’ Photograph: APAImages/Shutterstock

by Arwa Mahdawi   in The Guardian  Fri 26 Sep 2025

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

You’ve heard that one before, but here’s a new version of the thought experiment: if a genocide takes place but you prevent foreign journalists from observing it, kill the key witnesses and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda, then will anyone care?

Israel’s far-right government, and its many allies in the US, are betting the answer to that question is “no”. As I write this, Israel is razing Gaza City to the ground in the latest stage of what many respected international human rights organizations and scholars have called a genocide. There aren’t as many images coming out of Gaza City as there should be because the Israeli military is still not allowing foreign reporters free access to Gaza and has murdered many of the journalists in the ground. In August, Al Jazeera’s team in Gaza City were deliberately targeted by Israel.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but propagandists love it. As Gaza burns and information coming out of the strip is deliberately limited, highly paid marketers and PR people in multinational firms are busy rewriting history in real time. Earlier this month, Drop Site News, which has done essential work on Gaza, reported that an American polling firm called Stagwell Global, founded by Mark Penn, was commissioned by Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs to rehabilitate Israel’s global image. Penn, for the uninitiated, is a pollster who facilitated Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996 and then helped Hillary Clinton lose to Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries with a combination of hubris and racist stereotyping. “The right knows Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun,” Penn wrote in a Clinton campaign memo. He also proposed characterizing Obama as un-American. (Stagwell told Adweek the work in Israel was run by a “small team” and that its agencies work “across the political and issue spectrum”. Last week, a spokesperson told PRWeek the work was a “defined project with a specific brief” that had now concluded.)

Per Drop Site, the report from Penn’s firm apparently assessed that Israel has a good chance of making people forget about that nasty little genocide business if they stoke fear of “Radical Islam” and “Jihadism”... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/26/gaza-us-marketing-companies

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