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displacement
Israel Plans 1,000 New Settlement Homes as West Bank Raids Intensify
"The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise," said one group.
Feb 17, 2025
Israeli authorities are planning to expand a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank by nearly 1,000 homes, a Tel Aviv-based peace group said Sunday as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territory.
Peace Now said Israel's Civil Administration has issued a new tender for the construction of 974 new housing units in Efrat, a Jewish-only colony located about 7.5 miles south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron. The planned expansion will increase Efrat's population of approximately 11,800 residents by 40% and geographically isolate Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank.
Emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump's return to power, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet have vowed to annex the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 in violation of international law.
On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that "the goal for 2025 is to demolish more than the Palestinians build in the West Bank," according toAl Jazeera. This, following the largest Israeli seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank in decades last year.
"The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise," said Peace Now, referring to the longtime Israeli practice of violating international law by colonizing and annexing Palestinian land to establish what one legal scholar has described as "de facto possession with the aim of attaining de jure possession."
Peace Now continued: "It is now clear that military action alone will not bring a solution to the conflict or security to Israel, and that ultimately we will have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu government is harming Israeli interests and torpedoing the only solution that can bring us security and peace."
In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement Monday that "the ongoing de facto annexation of the illegally occupied West Bank through the expansion of racially segregated illegal settlements is just one aspect of the far-right Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of the entirety of historic Palestine and of its relentless efforts to block justice for the Palestinian people."
Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at the Israel-based peace group Ir Amim, toldAl Jazeera that "since the start of 2025, Israeli authorities have demolished 27 structures in East Jerusalem, including 18 residential units, in what appears to be a systematic effort to remove Palestinians from their homes while simultaneously expanding Israeli settlements."
The Israeli settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to more than 500,000 today. Last July, the International Court of Justice, which is also weighing a genocide case concerning Israel's annihilation of the Gaza Strip, said that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."
News of the Efrat expansion came as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians across the West Bank over the weekend. Occupation forces carried out raids in the towns of al-Issawiya and Salfit, near East Jerusalem, as well as the village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah. Israeli troops also continued their siege and assault on Jenin and the Nur Shams refugee camp, where two young women, one of them pregnant, were shot dead last week.
Armed Israeli settlers from the Mikne Avraham colony also invaded al-Minya, south of Bethlehem, wounding 16 Palestinians including a pregnant woman who was attacked with clubs and rocks, according toMiddle East Eye. The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Saturday that settlers sicced dogs on al-Minya residents, wounding two people.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 876 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Since launching "Operation Iron Wall" on January 21, Israeli forces have killed at least 53 Palestinians across the West Bank. The Israeli offensive has forced around 40,000 people from their homes in what experts say is the largest displacement in the West Bank since more than 200,000 Palestinians were expelled during the 1967 conquest and occupation.
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Famine Spreading Amid 'Unprecedented' Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan: UN
"Hunger and starvation are spreading because of the decisions being made each day to continue to prosecute this war, irrespective of the civilian cost," said one U.N. expert.
Jan 06, 2025
Multiple U.N. leaders addressing the United Nations Security Council on Monday urged action to tackle the spiraling humanitarian crisis unfolding in war-torn Sudan, which has contributed to roughly half of the country facing acute food insecurity.
Sudan has been racked by violence since fighting erupted between the between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)—the nation's official military—and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023. The civil war has also led to widespread hunger in the country.
Edem Wosornu, director of operations and advocacy at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, toldthe Security Council that "Sudan remains in the grip of a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions."
"More than 11.5 million people are now estimated to be internally displaced, of whom nearly 8.8 million people have been uprooted since April 2023," she said.
Wosornu spoke about the findings of the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report from late December, which stated that there was famine—or an IPC phase 5—in in Zamzam, Abu Shouk, and Al Salam camps, as well as in the Western Nuba Mountains, affecting both residents and internally displaced people between October and November 2024. The report noted that between December 2024 and May 2025, famine is projected to continue in the same areas and expand in the North Darfur localities of Um Kadadah, Melit, El Fasher, At Tawisha, and Al Lait.
"The main drivers of famine risk remain the armed conflict and forced displacement," according to the report.
The famine declaration for Zamzam camp, which houses hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in North Darfur, came in August.
On the eve of the IPC's December report, the Sudanese government suspended cooperation with a global hunger monitor.
Wosornu in her remarks also lamented the death of three World Food Program staff members, who were killed when the agency's field office in Yabus was hit by an "aerial bombardment," according to the United Nations.
"Hunger and starvation are spreading because of the decisions being made each day to continue to prosecute this war, irrespective of the civilian cost," she added.
Beth Bechdol, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, also provided a Monday briefing to the Security Council, saying that "the latest reports on food security are the worst in the country's history."
"Let me remind council members that over the last 15 years, only four famines have been confirmed: Somalia in 2011; South Sudan in 2017 and 2020; and now Sudan in 2024," she said.
Bechdol highlighted a number of actions that the Security Council should aid, including using "political leverage to end hostilities and to bring relief to the people of the Sudan."
She also called on the body to support "immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access" and delivery of "multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance," saying that "while scaling up food, water, and cash assistance is vital, this alone cannot address the full scope of the hunger crisis."
Wosornu added that the Security Council should help "press the [warring] parties to comply with international humanitarian law," and mobilize international funding to address the "unprecedented scale of the needs in Sudan."
This comes a week after U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and two of her colleagues pressed President Joe Biden to do more to help the people of Sudan, including requesting an increase in U.S. humanitarian aid, specifically that a portion of that funding go toward supporting Sudanese organizations and entities that are aiding civilians on the ground.
This comes a week after U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and two of her colleagues pressed President Joe Biden to do more to help the people of Sudan, including requesting an increase in U.S. humanitarian aid, specifically that a portion of that funding go toward supporting Sudanese organizations and entities that are aiding civilians on the ground.
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Over 1 Million Flee 'Total Destruction' in Lebanon, With Cease-Fire Demanded
"The shelter system is set to collapse if there is no peace on the horizon."
Oct 04, 2024
About 1.2 million people have been displaced as Israeli forces have surged into southern Lebanon and undertaken a bombing campaign in multiple parts of the country, including in and around Beirut, leaving many people out in the street, with shelters mostly full as of Friday.
Nasser Yassen, Lebanon's environment minister, announced the displacement figure Wednesday, saying that about 160,000 had landed in shelters. Roughly half the displacements occurred over just a few days earlier in the week—both before and after Israel ordered people in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate—according to Save the Children.
Most of the country's 900 shelters are full, Rula Amin of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday at a press conference in Geneva, adding that some hotels and nightclubs were acting as makeshift shelters.
Mathieu Luciano of the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said the situation was dire.
"Roads are jammed with traffic, people are sleeping in public parks, on the street, the beach," he said, according to Reuters.
Bachir Ayoub, Oxfam's Lebanon country director, said that the shelter system in Lebanon, whose entire population is roughly 5.5 million, couldn't handle the high numbers of refugees.
"The shelter system is set to collapse if there is no peace on the horizon," Ayoub said in a statement.
"There must be an end to this violence," he added. "All parties must stop fighting. We need safe space to get people the aid they need."
#Lebanon: People uprooted by Israeli airstrikes, including in central Beirut, describe being forced to flee “total destruction”, amid fresh reports of Hezbollah projectile attacks into Israelhttps://t.co/0mM7MowD0B
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) October 3, 2024
Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party, have traded airstrikes and rocket fire for the last year, and the conflict has seen a major escalation in the last two weeks. Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week, reportedly using 2,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs manufactured in the U.S.; the attack flattened residential buildings and killed at least six others, in addition to Nasrallah.
This was one of series of airstrikes Israel has made on Beirut and its southern outskirts—a campaign that continued Friday, with the possible use of more "bunker buster" bombs.
The death toll over the last two weeks in Lebanon is over 2,000, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Israel launched a ground incursion in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, leading to close range fighting with Hezbollah and mass displacement of the residents there.
"People are coming to us traumatized," said Gheith Bittar, executive director of SHiFT Social Innovation Hub, a Beirut-based group that partners with Oxfam. "Most of them have lost their houses and relatives. Some of them were scared because of the scale of bombardment as they were fleeing, and many others because of their fear of the unknown coming to a new city."
The most vulnerable members of Lebanese society are at the most risk, experts say. For example, many women from low-income countries are domestic workers in Lebanon and have been abandoned by their employers; some don't seek shelter or aid for fear of being deported.
"They don't have papers... and as a result, they are reluctant to seek humanitarian assistance because they fear that they may be arrested and they may be deported," Luciano said.
The conflict has also led to the mass displacement of children, as Common Dreamsreported last week.
More than 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled to Syria in the last 10 days, according toAl Jazeera. The group likely includes Syrians who had previously fled war in their home country.
However, the main route to Syria became far more difficult to take on Friday: Israel bombed it, leaving a huge crater.
Lebanon's hospitals have been overwhelmed and at least 28 on-duty Lebanese medics were killed in just a 24-hour period this week, according to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
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