Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
Israel opening “gates of hell” in Gaza City
These were the words of Defence Minister Israel Katz when announcing the intensification of the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza City on 5 September. “When the gate is opened, it will not be closed” until Hamas accepts Israel’s terms for ending the war, Katz added. The Israeli military now controls about 40% of the city, and is increasingly attacking residential buildings and displacement camps. Around one million Palestinians in Gaza City – many of them already displaced – are also in the midst of an Israeli-orchestrated famine. Israeli leaders have repeatedly endorsed plans to permanently displace Palestinians to the south of the enclave or force them out entirely. In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said implementing US President Donald Trump’s vision of depopulating Gaza and constructing a “riviera” was a condition for ending the war. A prospectus proposing to implement that plan has been circulating in the White House in recent weeks. Meanwhile, people who have fled to the south are finding nowhere to stay, according to TNH contributor Rasha Abou Jalal in Gaza City. “Here in western Gaza City, among the tents and the ruins, a new awareness is emerging: Displacement to the south is not a solution,” she wrote. “We have no option but to stand our ground where we are, because evacuating Gaza City means the first step toward forcing its people into exile abroad.” We will begin publishing Abou Jalal’s diary documenting daily life in the face of Israel’s assault on Gaza City next week.
Afghan quake toll soars over 2,200 as roads slow response
A shallow 6.0-magnitude earthquake, which struck overnight Sunday/Monday, has killed more than 2,200 people and injured around 3,640 others across eastern Afghanistan, according to the Islamic Emirate government. The majority of the fatalities were in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces. The remoteness of many of the villages affected has made rescue and response efforts challenging, particularly with roads blocked due to landslides, fallen boulders, and debris. Rescue workers and volunteers said the poor road conditions greatly affected their ability to reach several areas with assistance, notably in Kunar, leaving a heavy reliance on helicopters to evacuate the injured and bring in supplies. Foreign aid is coming in from Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates, but hospitals are overwhelmed with patients and the need for further assistance is great. International aid organisations, hit by cuts and donor reluctance to fund an Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban, are struggling to help. “Local resources are stretched to the breaking point and lack of funding is limiting the scale and speed of the humanitarian response,” said a statement from Jacopo Caridi, Afghan country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. For more from the ground, read our full story from Asia Editor Ali M. Latifi, who has been reporting from quake-affected areas.
Landslide kills hundreds in Darfur’s Jebel Marra
Nearly 400 bodies have reportedly been recovered and buried in the Sudanese village of Tarasin after a catastrophic landslide that may have killed more than 1,000 people, according to the armed group that controls the area. Nestled in Darfur’s Jebel Marra mountain range, Tarasin sits on unstable volcanic soil and had been lashed by days of seasonal rain before the disaster struck. Local responders have led the emergency effort so far, clawing through thick mud and debris with shovels and bare hands. The area’s steep, rugged terrain has hampered access for international agencies, some of which only managed to arrive yesterday after completing part of the journey on foot. Darfur is among the regions hit hardest by Sudan’s war, being the base of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese army. RSF fighters have carried out relentless abuses against Darfuri civilians, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes in what some human rights groups say amounts to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
War fears grow in South Sudan as power struggle looms
Renewed fighting in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state has left at least four soldiers and 10 militia members dead, according to the national army. The militia, known as the White Army, has been battling the military since March in a conflict that has displaced tens of thousands and raised fears of a return to full-scale war. Though seemingly localised, the conflict has wider political stakes. President Salva Kiir has used the unrest to unravel a 2018 peace deal with First Vice President Riek Machar, whom he claims – many say falsely – is behind the uprising. While launching attacks on opposition military positions, Kiir (whose health is failing) has also stirred tensions within his own camp by sidelining security chiefs and ruling party elites to clear a succession path for the politically inexperienced businessman Benjamin Bol Mel. The International Crisis Group has urged African countries with close ties to Juba to press Kiir to halt attacks on opposition forces. It said they should also push Kiir to accept a forum where South Sudanese elites can debate the country’s future – and “avoid the all-out power struggle for which many South Sudanese are preparing”.
Yemen’s Houthis raid international aid agencies, detain 19 workers
Yemen’s Houthi rebels detained at least 19 UN employees in raids on aid agency offices in Sana’a on 30-31 August – an escalation of their ongoing crackdown on aid workers and civil society members. Those arrested at the offices of the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and elsewhere join 23 detained UN workers as well as many employees of international NGOs, some of whom have been held incommunicado for a year and a half. At least one WFP employee and a Save the Children staffer have died in custody. The Houthis have accused previous detainees of spying, but have so far given no reason for this wave of detentions, which came shortly after a wave of Israeli bombings late last week that killed 11 Houthi leaders, including prime minister Ahmed al-Rahawi. The Houthis have since sent more rockets towards Israel and the two sides have traded threats: A Houthi military leader vowed that Israelis “would no longer taste the flavour of security” and Israel’s defense minister promised that “the Houthis will learn the hard way that those who threaten and harm Israel will get the same back tenfold”. As Mohammed al-Basha, a US-based Yemen analyst put it, in this standoff, “civilians are going to be caught in the middle.”
Muted regional response to US strike on alleged Venezuelan gang boat
A US military strike in the Caribbean Sea killed 11 people that US President Donald Trump said were drug smugglers from the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. In the past month, the US has deployed eight warships and 4,500 officers into international waters off Venezuela. The moves, officially part of a strategy to fight drug cartels, have largely been perceived as intended to put pressure on Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro to play ball with Trump’s deportation strategy, or even to force him out of power. Given that the strike is legally dubious and violates Article 51 of the UN Charter, the response to Trump’s show of force from most Latin America countries has been muted. The exception was Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who explicitly expressed support for Maduro and called the strike “a murder”. Perhaps keen to seek favourable treatment from the US on tariffs, immigration, and security aid, other countries, including Mexico, have limited their comments to calls for peace and respect of non-intervention. Insight Crime, meanwhile, challenged the idea that Tren de Aragua is an international drug trafficking group and flagged that the US had provided no evidence for its allegations nor any legal basis for the strike.
Weekend listen
Rethinking Humanitarianism | The UN and the crisis of liberalism
“When is the UN a force for good that doesn’t function well, and when is it a fig leaf that covers for a massive failure by not speaking out?”
Tammam Aloudat and the hosts of To Save Us From Hell discuss the global rise in illiberalism – and whether the way liberalism has been practised needs to be re-examined.
And finally…
From the page to the stage
The Lebanon Displacement Diaries, which we first published in May, tell the stories of 10 people – out of nearly a million – forced to flee their homes by Israel’s bombardment and fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The words of of Abu Ali, Abbas, Hassan, Leo, Nour, Ragida, Riham, Robert, Zahraa and Yasmina are a window into what displacement is really like, and are reminder that that – for the civilians caught in the middle of a war – the end of the conflict is not the end of the story.
Now these stories have a new home on the Beirut stage, in al-Tamma (“The Catastrophe”), a play created with Lebanon’s Laban Theater. The Arabic production is a true extension of the conversation about displacement and its aftermath, with audience members sharing their own stories throughout the show. As Middle East Editor Annie Slemrod and displacement diaries coordinator Zainab Chamoun wrote in this recent piece, the play “feels like the natural next step in a journalistic practice that was designed to be a collaboration with Lebanese communities”. It’s also an acknowledgement that stories don’t end when we hit publish, or when the media moves on. This felt true on the opening night, which was a raw experience for many in the packed theatre, who had all felt the effects of the war (and Israel’s ongoing bombing of south Lebanon) in some way.
The final showing of al-Tamma is 5 September, and we hope to see any and all Beirut Cheat Sheet readers there. You can find more details here.
