Since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thousands have suffered killings and injuries. Wiped out entire Palestinian families, leveled vicinities; destroyed housing in Gaza along with its schools, hospitals, and infrastructure portray a painful story. Restriction of aid resulted in deaths from disease, starvation, and malnutrition. Moreover, all kinds of psychological disorders have taken hold from prolonged trauma. What Israel has done is genocide, the destruction of a society, its culture, and its well-being. Now the devastation and trauma are being extended to Lebanon and Syria. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has rightly said that the values of the United Nations system and the Western world are dying in Gaza as the conflict continues there, calling for an alliance of humanity to stop Israel. Erdogan reiterated his harsh criticism of Israel over its military campaign in the Gaza Strip and of the Western countries for their support to Israel. Along with children in Gaza, the United Nations system is also dying, the truth is dying, the values that the West claims to defend are dying, and the hopes of humanity to live in a fairer world are dying one by one, Erdogan said. Those who are supposedly working for a ceasefire continue to send weapons and ammunition to Israel behind the stage so that it can continue its massacres. This is inconsistency and insincerity, he said. Erdogan also said that Turkey stands with the people of Lebanon as Israel targets Hezbollah fighters with airstrikes there. Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani has said Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip was a genocide. The blatant aggression that befalls the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip today is the most barbaric, heinous, and extensive aggression, he said. Unicef has warned that a further escalation in the conflict will be catastrophic for children in Lebanon, particularly those who have been forced into displacement by Israel’s attacks. With the majority of identified victims being women and children, the devastating effect on their mental health is evident. Watching people around them dying, especially parents and close family members and friends makes the children in Gaza very afraid, lonely, and depressed. They do not receive the emotional support or psychological care needed, thus these negative feelings exacerbate their mental health issues. The lack of security resulting from losing family members, homes, and safe places to live, prolongs their stress. Treatment of the mental health problems of Gaza’s children is only possible when there is peace in the region. The violence has to stop immediately or the consequences will be unconscionable, said Ettie Higgins, the UN agency’s deputy representative to Lebanon. Schools are closed today across the country, leaving children at home in fear. Their caregivers are themselves afraid of the uncertainty of the situation. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the situation in Gaza is a non-stop nightmare and condemned the growing level of impunity worldwide. The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable. The Kremlin has warned that Israeli strikes on Lebanon have the potential to completely destabilize the Middle East and widen the conflict there. Israel struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the group attacked military facilities in northern Israel, increasing fears of a full-blown conflict. Israeli strikes are extremely dangerous when it comes to the expansion of the conflict, to the complete destabilization of the region. Of course, this is of extreme concern to us. The international community must join a massive relief effort to deliver food, clean water, medicine, and other vital supplies to the Gaza Strip, where nearly a year of war has triggered unprecedented suffering. Our world has failed politically, but our humanity must not fail the people of Mideast any longer.
Overseas Pakistani group’s offer to buy PIA for over Rs
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