Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
Israel assassinations put Middle East on edge
Two assassinations – both believed to have been carried out by Israel, although the country has only owned up to one – have raised fears of an escalation to all-out war in the Middle East, and are likely to have complicated attempts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a Beirut airstrike on 30 July, in a bombing that appeared to be retaliation for a 27 July rocket attack that killed 12 people in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights (Hezbollah denied it was responsible for the strike). Hours later, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran. It is widely assumed that Israel was behind the assassination of Haniyeh, who has been the international face of Hamas for years and was a key figure in ceasefire negotiations, which had made little visible progress but were ongoing. He was visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. It remains to be seen how Iran and Hezbollah will respond, with the former vowing “harsh revenge” and the latter a “definite” response. Inside Gaza, the violence continues: Local authorities said Israeli forces hit a school on 1 August in Gaza City, killing 15 and wounding 29 (Israel said Hamas fighters were using the school as a hideout), adding to the Palestinian death toll that is believed to be more than 39,000, mostly civilians. That includes two Al Jazeera Arabic journalists who were killed on 31 July when an Israeli airstrike hit their car. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 113 journalists and media workers have been killed in the war since October: 108 Palestinians, two Israelis, and three Lebanese.
Israeli actions lead to growing Gaza disease fears
Aid groups say they’re preparing for a “worst-case scenario” polio outbreak in Gaza. Polio spreads quickly amid poor sanitation, and Israel’s actions – destroying water and waste systems, and squeezing aid to a trickle among them – have provided fertile ground for disease to thrive. Israeli troops blew up a water treatment plant in southern Gaza’s Rafah, in an attack that is reportedly being investigated as a breach of international law, according to Israeli media, and that has drawn “concern” from the Canadian government, which funded the facility. The UN Development Programme says Gaza’s waste management system has “collapsed”, with zero access to landfills, and temporary dumpsites proliferating. There have been more than 575,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea – an undercount that still adds up to more than a quarter of the Gaza Strip’s estimated population. The World Health Organization said it will send one million polio vaccines, after poliovirus strains were found in mid-July. But a full vaccine campaign is untenable amid blocked roads and bombs, aid groups say. And Israeli authorities continue to constrict aid – another breach of international law. Among the many types of humanitarian supplies Israel is blocking, according to the NGO Save the Children: 17 pallets of temperature-controlled medicine, stuck in Egypt because Israeli authorities will only allow flatbed trucks.
Famine declared in Darfur displacement camp
Conflict and humanitarian access restrictions in Sudan have pushed parts of North Darfur state into famine, according to the Famine Review Committee (FRC), which is part of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a system for measuring food crises that includes UN agencies, aid groups, and national governments. The famine declaration is the first by the IPC in over seven years and only the third since the system was designed 20 years ago. The committee found that famine is ongoing in Zam Zam displacement camp, which is just south of El Fasher and home to 500,000 people. El Fasher is being besieged by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group because it is the only remaining city in Darfur where the army and aligned armed groups still have a significant presence. The FRC also found that similar conditions are likely prevailing in other nearby displacement sites. A late June report by an IPC working group had stopped short of declaring a famine. That report had been questioned by experts, who pointed out that the IPC’s chairperson in Sudan is a part of the army-dominated UN-recognised government, which has opposed a formal famine declaration. The FRC is led by independent experts and is designed to ensure neutral analysis. Sudan’s war began in April 2023 and has produced the world’s largest displacement crisis, uprooting 10 million people, and the biggest hunger crisis. Check out our homepage of Sudan-related stories for more background and reporting on the conflict.
No one’s buying Maduro win, as regional leaders pile on the pressure
The proclamation of President Nicolás Maduro as the winner of 28 July elections has sparked outrage among large sectors of the Venezuelan population, while several foreign nations, including the United States, have recognised opposition candidate Edmundo González as the rightful winner. Maduro’s government is yet to release tally sheets that could prove his triumph, but opposition members said they had access to 90% of them and that González overwhelmingly won. Hundreds of protests leading to deadly clashes with Maduro’s security forces and civilian militias kicked off nationwide after the result was declared. Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of 20 protest-related deaths. Countries in the region are particularly worried about a potential new exodus – one in four Venezuelans have already left since 2015 due to the economic freefall, worsening humanitarian crisis, and increasing repression. Even key allies like Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are calling on Maduro to release printed results from polling stations. Maduro has said he will and has asked the country’s high court to provide an audit. But critics say the institution is too close to his regime to provide proper accountability, and are urging regional leaders to up the ante on the increasingly isolated Maduro, who has already expelled the Argentinian ambassador and thrown out diplomats from Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, and Peru. For more, read our report on Venezuelans’ concerns ahead of the elections, this analysis on the country’s enduring humanitarian crisis, and this op-ed on the need to prepare for a new Venezuelan exodus.
Did Ukraine help ambush Russia’s Wagner group in Mali?
Armed groups in northern Mali have killed dozens of Wagner Group fighters in what was likely the deadliest attack yet on the Russian mercenary group’s African operations. The fighting began on 25 July and took place in the Tinzaouatene commune near the border with Algeria. It reportedly involved the mainly Tuareg CSP movement as well as JNIM, which is a coalition of al-Qaeda-aligned groups, though the former has tried to downplay the latter’s involvement. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said it had supported the operation – ensuring “the rebels received necessary information” to fight against “Russian war criminals” – though little has been independently verified and Kyiv does have its own propaganda interests. The Wagner Group has been present in Mali since late 2021, supporting army campaigns against jihadist and non-jihadist groups. It helped capture the northern town of Kidal from Tuareg armed groups last year – a victory with major political significance for the ruling junta – yet its fighters have been involved in massive huge rights abuses, most notoriously in the central town of Moura, where they joined soldiers in executing at least 500 people back in 2022.
Drought, economics, and conflict set to worsen hunger in southern Africa
Southern Africa’s already acute drought-induced food crisis, affecting more than 30 million people, is set to deepen. Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique, southern Malawi, southern Zambia, and southern Angola are some of the worst-affected countries. Conflict is also driving hunger in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (with emergency levels of need in the northeast and central areas) and northern Mozambique. Following this season’s disastrous harvest, and an early start to the lean season, poor rural households are being forced to turn to casual labour to feed their families. But increased local competition, and the economic downturn, is suppressing earnings. Meanwhile, across the region, prices of the staple maize are well above the five-year average. Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all declared El Niño-triggered national drought disasters earlier this year.
Weekend read
Niger tries a new refugee model as Nigerians flee bandit attacks
‘Before the refugees came, businesses struggled due to a lack of demand.’
Building refugee self-reliance benefits both new arrivals and host communities.
Watch this film version, from The New Humanitarian’s first-ever reporting fellow Zubaida Baba-Ibrahim:
And finally…
A taste of Yemen
Yemen is mostly viewed through the lens of war (if it is viewed at all). Its conflict has been long and devastating, but as contributors to The Yemen Listening Project reminded us, Yemenis are so much more than war, and even war sometimes has unlikely outcomes. So this week we were pleased to see The New York Times review a new Brooklyn restaurant called Yemenat, owned and managed by Ala al-Samawi, who fled his home of Sana’a in 2015 and eventually found his way to New York City, where he and some fellow exiles “cooked for one another and talked about how much they missed the flavours of home”. They opened their restaurant earlier this year, and according to the review, it’s not to be missed. So if you happen to be in Bay Ridge, stop by for some saltah, fahsah, or muva. And if you don’t know what those dishes are, try them, or just read and salivate a bit.
