United Nations photo- Palestine Refugees, Middle East, 1951: "The Palestinian conflict forced into exile nearly a million Arabs. Great efforts were made by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] to provide work and pay for the refugees. But available funds were [are] only sufficient to provide employment for a small minority, without producing lasting economic effects. Refugees make materials and clothes for their own use."

United Nations Photo Palestine Refugees, 1951

Palestine Refugees, Middle East, 1951

The Palestinian conflict forced into exile nearly a million Arabs. Great efforts were made by the UN Relief and Works Agency to provide work and pay for the refugees. But available funds were only sufficient to provide employment for a small minority, without producing lasting economic effects.

Refugees make materials and clothes for their own use.

UN Photo

1951

Middle East

Photo # UN7707935

https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/53376742762/in/album-72177720313177543/ 

This photo is in 1 album

• History of Question of Palestine 184 items  

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Palestine Refugees 1949 

A wagonload of refugee children in the U.N. demilitarized zone at Lake Tiberias on the Israeli-Syrian frontier. [Exact date unknown] 

Photo # UN7505381

https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/53376742872/in/album-72177720313177543/

"Attacks on critical infrastructure are not only about what is destroyed, but also about the people left without what they need to live. Even wars have limits and they must be respected." ICRC Red Cross

100 countries, 1 humanitarian mission: to promote respect for the laws of war #IHL and help people caught up in armed conflicts and violence.

ICRC

@ICRC

 

Attacks on critical infrastructure are not only about what is destroyed, but also about the people left without what they need to live. Even wars have limits and they must be respected.

 https://x.com/ICRC/status/2069356238148620376

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 https://www.icrc.org/en

On the
front line for humanity

 Since 1863, we have worked to relieve suffering and preserve human dignity during war and armed violence. We deliver life‑saving aid across front lines, strive to reconnect families, advocate for humane treatment of detainees and urge compliance with international humanitarian law to keep civilians safe, including online.

120+ Conflicts. One mission: Preserve and prioritize humanity during war 

Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting ​in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent U.N. inquiry said ‌on Tuesday.

A displaced Palestinian boy peers through a tear in a tent wall, in Gaza City, May 6, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/ File Phot

Israel targeted Gaza children resulting in genocide, UN inquiry says

By Olivia Le Poidevin

June 23, 2026

• Summary

• Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children, UN inquiry says
• Israel calls report a 'libelous sham', says it strives to minimize harm to children
• Report finds 30% of those killed in Gaza war were children
• Inquiry says Israel carried out crimes against humanity in West Bank

GENEVA, June 23 (Reuters) - Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting ​in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent U.N. inquiry said ‌on Tuesday.

 

The report by the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Around 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the report found.... READ MORE https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-targeted-gaza-children-resulting-genocide-un-inquiry-says-2026-06-23/?lctg=63aab956e883a43a2a06ba90&user_email=833907525a7ed9da50588421f9a328c4ffe67eebcd2f30e04f9a17ca5f772e12

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"The demolition of homes and uprooting of olive trees are visible. But damage behind the scenes goes deeper... " Rocketing violence and an economic chokehold have been overshadowed by conflict elsewhere, but the UK and others must stop looking away

 The Guardian view on Israel and the West Bank: allies must protect Palestinian lives and livelihoods

Editorial

 

Protesters and Palestinian landowners who say some of their land was taken for Mount Tarousa settlement run from tear gas fired by Israeli forces on 19 June 2026. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images

Opinion 

Palestine

Sun 21 Jun 2026 12.30 EDT

The “ceasefire” in Gaza is a “cruel and deadly illusion”, warned James Elder, the Unicef spokesman, on Friday. Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since its declaration in October, says the Gaza health ministry, including 265 children – an average of one a day.

The killings and broader humanitarian crisis have been overshadowed by the war on Iran and have diverted attention from escalating violence in the occupied West Bank. Last week, former Israeli prime ministers, military chiefs and heads of security services were among the signatories of a letter accusing its government of “doing nothing to eradicate Jewish terror” there. Ehud Olmert, one of the former prime ministers, accused Israel of “an organized, systematic, state-funded campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”, with security forces assisting settler violence. Meanwhile, the army chief has reportedly described troops “killing like we haven’t killed since 1967”.

But a report from the International Crisis Group points to another dangerous development: the relentless campaign pushing the West Bank’s economy towards collapse. That does not only hurt individuals and families. Without a functioning economy, there can be no Palestinian state. As the report warns: “The economic conditions necessary for any Palestinian future other than permanent subjugation are being dismantled.” Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and head of a far-right pro-settler party, has said that he wants to bury the idea of Palestinian statehood and promised “economic strangulation”.

Since 1967, Israel’s controls on the West Bank have prevented it from developing an autonomous, functioning economy. The chokehold tightened dramatically after the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. The Palestinian economy saw real GDP shrink from $17.8bn to $13.7bn in 2024. Almost 300,000 Palestinians lost jobs in the West Bank and Israel.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/21/the-guardian-view-on-israel-and-the-west-bank-allies-must-protect-palestinian-lives-and-livelihoods

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"Suffice to say that, if the tables were turned and Hezbollah had been the one psychotically eradicating 5,000 years of cultural heritage and "collective humanity", western audiences would be hearing a lot more about the depravity of it all." Belen Fernandez

Debris covers ancient stone pillar bases near the archaeological site of the Roman Baths in Tyre, south Lebanon, a day after Israeli air strikes on the city, on 8 June 2026 (AFP/Kawnat Haju)

Israel and the US are erasing Iran and Lebanon's ancient heritage

Belen Fernandez

21 June 2026 

 

The Taliban's 2001 bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas was condemned worldwide, but the US and Israel's destruction of Tyre's ruins and other ancient sites barely registers

 

 In early 2001, the Taliban blew up two giant Buddha statues in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan, which dated from the sixth century.

The world erupted in outrage at the destruction of cultural heritage, and western media engaged in handwringing over the loss of statues that most people presumably had not known existed in the first place but were nonetheless symbolic of our "collective humanity".

Philip T Reeker, deputy spokesman for the State Department of the United States, issued a press statement declaring the US to be "distressed and baffled" by the Taliban's decision to demolish the Buddhas and other ancient artefacts: "Deliberate destruction of statues and sculpture held as sacred by peoples of different faiths is incomprehensible."

Of course, when the US launched the so-called "war on terror" later that same year and undertook to bomb Afghanistan to smithereens, there was no similar distress over the "deliberate destruction" or the mass slaughter of "peoples of different faiths".

But such hypocrisy is part and parcel of an imperial mindset predicated on orientalist dehumanisation, selective cultural concern and the weaponisation of "heritage".

While the prevailing Bamiyan narrative was that the Taliban had done away with the Buddhas because they were idolatrous, The New York Times presented a slightly different version of events in an article published on 19 March 2001.

The article quoted Taliban envoy Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, who claimed that the destruction had instead been ordered by a council of religious scholars enraged by European and other foreign offers of money to preserve the statues – but not to assist a million Afghans facing starvation.

The scholars had been "so angry" at the misplaced priorities, the envoy told the outlet, that "they said, 'If you are destroying our future with economic sanctions, you can't care about our heritage.' And so they decided that these statues must be destroyed".

War on civilisation

Fast forward a quarter of a century to the 2026 war on Iran by the US and its genocidal buddy Israel, and the Bamiyan Buddha hypocrisy once again comes to mind. Iran, after all, is home to a lot of cultural heritage and ancient sites, many of which have been damaged in the months-long assault.

But because it's Us and not Them doing the destroying, no one is terribly up in arms over the loss of history - to say nothing of the vast loss of life. In one of the war's opening salvos, a US cruise missile strike on an elementary school in the city of Minab killed more than 175 people, most of them schoolgirls... READ MORE https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-and-us-are-erasing-iran-and-lebanons-ancient-heritage 

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The U.S. provides Israel more than $63 million in military aid per day... The United States spends more on military aid to Israel than to any other country. Israel receives this extraordinary amount of money even though it is the 22nd wealthiest country in the world.

Aid to Israel in Previous Years

From October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, the U.S. gave Israel a total of at least $17.9 billion. This works out to $49,041,095.89 per day.

The Real Costs to US Taxpayers

 Like many government policies, this disbursement of U.S. tax money is not because it serves American interests, but instead is the result of special interest lobbying.

 https://ifamericansknew.org/download/StaggeringCost.pdf

The United States has granted more total aid to Israel since World War II than to any other country.

Cumulative US foreign assistance obligations between 1946 and 2022 to the top ten recipients. Inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars. (source)

 https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/usaid.html

IF AMERICANS KNEW 

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More articles on US Aid to Israel 

"Over the last 3 months, two thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your [Israeli] homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars." JD Vance, June 18 2026

"Over the last 3 months, two thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your [Israeli] homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars."  

JD Vance warns Israel officials that attack Trump: 'Only powerful ally' you have left

Jun 18, 2026

 

In a rare rebuke, Vice President JD Vance blasted Israeli officials attacking President Trump over his Iran deal, warning that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world” currently sympathetic to Israel and urging critics to “wake up” to the country’s reality. 

"It more than a little ironic that these experts at tax avoidance are at the helm of a technological revolution that could drive inequality to new, unprecedented heights." Eduardo Porter in The Guardian

Analysis

by  Eduardo Porter

Condemned to plutocracy? The relentless rise of US inequality

Elon Musk is a beneficiary of America’s lopsided prosperity – does the country have any appetite for redistribution?

People protest against the SpaceX IPO in New York. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

As Barack Obama’s presidency was coming to a close, Jason Furman, then chairman of the president’s council of economic advisers, laid out the strides his administration had made to curb the nation’s exorbitant income inequality in “the largest investments in reducing inequality since the Great Society”.

Indeed, by the end of 2016, taxes and transfers cut the share of income accruing to the richest 1% of households by just over a fifth, according to estimates from the congressional budget office (CBO), more than under any government since at least Jimmy Carter’s. They raised the slice of income going to the poorest fifth from 3.9% to 7.9%, the highest share since at least 1979.

Those were the days.

As Elon Musk is anointed the world’s first trillionaire, following the public offering of shares of his internet to AI conglomerate SpaceX, that moment, just 10 years ago, when the government bragged about its efforts to curb America’s lopsided distribution of prosperity, might give us some hope that we are not condemned to plutocracy; social and political forces can stop inequality’s relentless rise.

Benjamin Franklin liked to talk of America’s “happy mediocrity” – a country with “few … so miserable as the poor of Europe … few that in Europe would be called rich”. And yet, America’s history of combating inequality is rather grim. Obama’s track record as the United States’s most committed equalizer in over half a century underscores the ultimate lack of interest of the nation’s political coalitions in bringing about a more equitable distribution of the fruits of prosperity.

Supposedly a populist champion of the working stiff, Donald Trump’s priorities quickly turned elsewhere. His Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 offered massive tax cuts to Americans in the upper percentiles of income... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/21/us-inequality-plutocracy

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