Jordanian Queen Rania Al Abdullah Claims Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza Is ‘Deliberate’
New Age Islam News
Bureau
13 March 2024
·
Jordanian Queen Rania Al
Abdullah Claims Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza Is ‘Deliberate’
·
Pro-Palestine Singer,
Charlotte Church, Faces Threats, UK Police Take Action
·
Iranian Activist Masih
Alinejad Sound And Others Alarm On Rise Of Global Authoritarianism
·
UN Announces Job
Opportunities For Over 16,000 Women In Afghanistan
·
'Stand Tall Against Brutal
Debarment Of Innocent Women And Children In Gaza'
·
Hijab Is Accepted Cultural
Norm In Islamic Republic: Iran Deputy President
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/jordanian-queen-rania-gaza-humanitarian/d/131908
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Jordanian Queen Rania Al Abdullah Claims Humanitarian
Crisis In Gaza Is ‘Deliberate’
Jordanian Queen Rania
Al Abdullah
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12 March 2024
Jordan’s Queen Rania has charged that the “outrageous,
shameful” humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has
warned that 2.2 million Palestinians are on the brink of famine amid the
ongoing war, was “entirely predictable… because it was deliberate.”
Speaking to CNN, Rania, who was born in Kuwait to
Palestinian parents, did not expand on the charge as she was asked another
question by host Christiane Amanpour.
Later in the interview, when asked how she could expect
Israelis to live side by side with Hamas after the terror group’s October 7
massacre, Rania sidestepped and answered, “I would say that as devastating and
as traumatic as October 7 was, it doesn’t give Israel license to commit
atrocity after atrocity. Israel experienced one October 7. Since then, the
Palestinians have experienced 156 October 7s. They have been going through this
every day.”
The war in Gaza erupted 156 days ago after thousands of
Hamas-led terrorists burst into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200
people and seizing 253 hostages, mostly civilians in their homes and at a music
festival, many amid horrific acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Vowing to destroy the terror group, Israel responded with
a wide-scale ground and air campaign that the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza
said has now killed more than 31,000 people. These figures cannot be
independently verified, and are believed to include both civilians and Hamas
members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket
misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terror operatives in Gaza
since the war started, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on
October 7.
Rania pointed the finger at “one of the most hardline,
racist governments in Israel’s history,” blaming Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu for bolstering Hamas in order to prevent the Palestinian Authority
from moving toward statehood and “keeping their people in this perpetual state
of fear of an existential threat that doesn’t exist.”
Speaking to Amanpour from the King Abdullah II Airbase,
where humanitarian aid was being prepared to be airdropped into Gaza by the US
military in coordination with Jordan, Egypt and France, Rania reiterated
previous calls for an “immediate and sustained ceasefire.”
A Monday statement from Queen Rania’s office said that
the Jordanian Armed Forces had conducted 38 solo airdrops to Gaza and 46 with
partners since the start of the war.
Rania called the airdrop operation a resort “to desperate
measures in order to address a desperate situation.”
“They’re just drops in the ocean of unmet needs,” she
said, insisting that the efforts were not a replacement for “humanitarian
access at scale.”
“As it stands today, there’s tons of food in trucks that
are miles away from people who are starving. The hunger is not a natural
disaster. This is a man-made, an Israeli-made disaster. It is deprivation by
design,” she charged.
“Since the beginning of this war, Israel has cut off
everything that is required to sustain a human life,” Rania said in the
interview released on Monday, adding that “food, fuel, shelter, medicine,
water” were in scarce supply as the war rages into its sixth month.
“This has been a slow motion, mass murder of children,
five months in the making. Children who were thriving and healthy just five
months ago are wasting away in front of their parents,” she said.
In similarly impassioned interviews with CNN in the
months since the war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s grisly October 7 onslaught,
Rania has called Israel’s bid to eliminate the terror group “short-sighted and
not entirely rational” and appeared to deny documented atrocities from the
massacre in southern Israel.
Jordan was the second Arab state to make peace with
Israel in 1994, after Egypt in 1979. Thousands of protesters have called for
Amman to rescind its peace treaty with Israel because of the war against Hamas.
Jordan, whose population is believed to be at least 50
percent Palestinian, has shown nervousness over the war in Gaza and already
tense relations have further soured.
Source: timesofisrael.com
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jordanian-queen-claims-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza-is-deliberate/
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Pro-Palestine Singer, Charlotte Church, Faces Threats, UK
Police Take Action
Welsh singer Charlotte Church
-----
March 12, 2024
LONDON: A prominent Welsh singer who has appeared at
pro-Palestine events in the UK has been visited by police after her family
faced online threats, The Independent reported on Tuesday.
Charlotte Church has taken part in major campaigns
calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, including a Sing for Palestine fundraising
event late last month.
The 38-year-old has denied accusations of antisemitism
for leading a rendition of a song based on the slogan “From the River to the
Sea,” saying in a statement: “I hold the Jewish people in my life very dearly,
and have always kept great reverence for Judaism and Jewish culture, since
travelling around Israel and Palestine as a teenager.”
After appearing at a protest in London last Saturday,
Church said her family had been threatened “by some pretty scary people.” The
online hate had led to police involvement to safeguard the singer and her
family.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British-based NGO,
has led the antisemitism allegations against Church, and has called on the
Charity Commission to investigate her activities.
She said the campaign has resulted in her receiving
“imaginative and violent hate,” and being labeled a “traitor.”
In a statement on her website, Church said: “The threats
to my safety have resulted in the police coming round to check in on us. My
safety and the safety of my family has been threatened by some pretty scary
people, emboldened by the rhetoric of frontline politicians, as well as
cravenly irresponsible coverage by liberal legacy media outlets.”
She added that her rendition of “From the River to the
Sea” aimed to raise money for a new ambulance for Al-Awda hospital in Gaza.
Church denied that the slogan “is in any way a call for
the ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israelis.”
She said: “A call for one group’s liberation does not
imply another’s destruction, and those suggesting that it does, when it is in
fact that first group who are currently being murdered in their thousands, are
leveraging a grotesque irony.
“I will not have my rhetoric around resistance and
solidarity redefined by those who most violently oppose my democratic
engagement.”
Source: arabnews.com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2475586/world
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Iranian Activist Masih Alinejad Sound And Others Alarm On
Rise Of Global Authoritarianism
13 March 2024
Iranian activist Masih Alinejad warned of a surge in
global authoritarianism and the decline of democracy with two thirds of the
world living under autocratic regimes.
In a Tuesday press conference with the World Liberty
Congress, the dissident now living in exile, said the group, made up of
dissidents from 56 autocratic regimes, are calling "to sound the alarm on
what we see as a rising tide of authoritarianism across the globe."
Alinejad highlighted the concerning state of democracy
worldwide, noting, "Democracy is in recession. More than two thirds of the
world’s population live under autocratic regimes." The organization called
for an end to political detention and dictatorship, emphasizing the need for
legitimate choice in elections.
Alinejad also addressed the recent killing of prominent
Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, underscoring the heightened danger
faced by political prisoners worldwide. "The killing of Alexei Navalny has
shown that none of us is safe. Political prisoners’ lives are in more danger
than ever since the end of the Cold War," Alinejad remarked.
More than brutal suppression at home, Alinejad, who has
been the target of multiple assassination attempts by Iran's security forces
abroad, said, "The world’s dictators don’t just repress dissidents
internally - they are now murdering on foreign soil, to push the boundaries of
what the international community will accept".
In addition to Alinejad's remarks, Garry Kasparov, a
vocal critic of the Kremlin and former world chess champion, also part of the
World Liberty Congress, urged for a stronger Western response to Moscow's
aggression in Ukraine.
"We’re here today to call for an end for political
detention, and an end to dictatorship," Alinejad said. Referencing the
recent elections in Iran in which turnout was at a record low, she added,
"This year, 2 billion people will vote, but 500 million won't have a free
choice. “Elections” in countries including Russia and Iran, are nothing of the
kind. We demand legitimate choice for all."
Source: iranintl.com
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202403136029
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UN announces job opportunities for over 16,000 women in
Afghanistan
Fidel Rahmati
March 12, 2024
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has
announced that it has created short-term job opportunities for more than 16,000
women in Afghanistan who are heads of their households.
The organization stated on Monday, March 11, through a
message on its social media platform X that single women in Afghanistan face
serious challenges in meeting their needs.
According to the UNDP, the support of this organization
in the area of assisting women for initial income generation will be focused.
Yesterday, the United Nations also announced its support
for 40 female entrepreneurs in 20 provinces of Afghanistan to showcase their
products at an exhibition in Kabul.
This comes as UN support for women entrepreneurs has
increased in various sectors to further expand job opportunities in
Afghanistan.
Simultaneously, this United Nations Development
Programme, it has announced support for 89,000 tons, including 21,000 female
farmers in Afghanistan.
Previously, the United Nations Office in Afghanistan
(UNAMA) had announced the launch of a project to empower 75,000 female
entrepreneurs in Afghanistan.
According to the United Nations Development Organization,
the adaptation of projects strengthens Afghanistan’s economy and enables female
entrepreneurs to manage businesses.
This comes as female entrepreneurs in Afghanistan have
always demanded more support for women in business in the country.
Source: khaama.com
https://www.khaama.com/un-announces-job-opportunities-for-over-16000-women-in-afghanistan/
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'Stand tall against brutal debarment of innocent women
and children in Gaza'
March 12, 2024
TEHRAN - Ensieh Khazali, the vice-president for women and
family affairs, has urged nations to set out for the immediate delivery of food
to the hunger-stricken, oppressed population in Palestine and to stand tall
against this brutal debarment of innocent women and children by the Israeli
regime.
“Providing relief aid to the hungry and the wounded is
nothing more than the bare minimum. Still, the truth of the matter is that the
true face and nature of the illegal colonialism-born occupation has now been
exposed to millions of people the world over and they know for a fact that the
Zionist terrorists, backed by certain veto holders, are carrying out an
excruciating genocide, namely the Gaza Holocaust,” Khazali said in her address
to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York on Monday.
She urged the revocation of the membership of the
terrorist Israeli regime to this Commission.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Khazali said that the Zionist
terrorists, backed by certain veto holders, are carrying out an excruciating
genocide, namely the Gaza Holocaust. “This will have ramifications for the
United Nations which is expected to serve as an anchor point and haven for
nations.”
The full text of Khazali’s speech is as follows:
Today, as we gather here to share the headway our
countries have made in advancing women's affairs, Palestinian women are
struggling to survive a relentless genocide. In the past 5 months or so alone,
over 30,000 Palestinians, including 22,000 women and children, have been
murdered, 3,000 women have been widowed, and children have been orphaned by thousands.
According to a UN Women report, an average of two Palestinian mothers are
killed every single hour. Also, more than 126 journalists and media workers
have been killed.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Our meeting is convened to address poverty alleviation for
women. Yet, concomitant with it, the United Nations is warning of imminent
famine in Gaza. A UN Women rapid assessment found that more than 84 percent of
the women who were questioned have said their family eats half what they did
before the war broke out in Gaza and indicated that at least one of their
family members has had to skip meals during the past week. In 95 percent of
those cases, mothers are the ones going without food, skipping at least one
meal to feed their children. Gaza has registered the UN's highest-ever recorded
population falling on the verge of starvation, to say nothing of the agonizing
scenes before the very eyes of the earth dwellers of shooting children who had
queued in the hopes of getting their share of food aid.
A staggering 10 out of 12 women’s organizations surveyed
in Gaza have reported that due to the impact of the genocidal policies of the
Israeli regime and their blockade over imports of basic food needs, less than 1
percent of the allocated aid reaches people.
Dear Audiences,
Let us join hands and set out for this meeting’s out-turn
to be that of immediate delivery of food to the hunger-stricken, oppressed
population in Palestine and to stand tall against this brutal debarment of
innocent women and children. And just
like we strive for the elimination of poverty from the face of our own
countries, let us regard the pain of all women as ours. As, Sa’adi, this
world-renowned Persian poet, once said:
Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul,
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy shall remain.
Providing relief aid to the hungry and the wounded is
nothing more than the bare minimum. Still, the truth of the matter is that the
true face and nature of the illegal colonialism-born occupation have now been
exposed to millions of people the world over and they know for a fact that the
Zionist terrorists, backed by certain veto holders, are carrying out an
excruciating genocide, namely the Gaza Holocaust. This will have ramifications for
the United Nations which is expected to serve as an anchor point and haven for
nations.
Today, the free-spirited people of the world expect that
a regime responsible for long decades of forced displacement, aggression, and
massacre of millions of women and children has no place in the United Nations
Commission on the Status of Women. Therefore, on behalf of the powerful women
of Iran and in one voice with the resistant and pacifist women, I urge the
revocation of the membership of the terrorist Israeli regime to this Commission
At this time, as I move on to the second part of my
remarks, I would like to give you a report on the endearing Iran and how its
powerful community of women has been able to take long strides towards the
elimination of deprivation as we have witnessed their pacey progress in the
years since the victory of the Islamic Revolution. It is owing to this
independence and self-sufficiency that today in my country the
pregnancy-related maternal mortality rate has dropped to as low as 23 per
100,000 live births; All Iranian pregnant and nursing women and children under
7 years of age enjoy free-of-charge insurance coverage; Quality healthcare is
readily accessible and is provided in abundance to not only my fellow country
women but also immigrant and refugee women, earning Iran’s universities of
medical sciences a top status in provision of such services. Another gain is
the growth of gender justice in education recording a high of 97 percent; Sixty percent of our teachers and
40 percent of our specialist doctors are women; Further, in the course of the
past two years alone, the number of licenses issued to women-owned home-based
businesses and employment loans granted to women have seen a whopping 25-fold
hike and women’s employment opportunities saw a 2 percent rise last year.
In another attempt to eliminate deprivation, we embarked
on a program last year distributing free-of-cost ‘food baskets’ to pregnant
women and children of lower income deciles with the aim to contribute to
supplying their nutritional needs and ensuring their development in accordance
with the growth standards and guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health.
At the Vice-Presidency for Women’s and Family Affairs, we
attach priority to nutritional education and the promotion of family health. In
this regard, our Working Group on Health and Population has already begun to
educate the families and students of 10 provinces.
In conclusion, by adopting a universal, divine, and
humanitarian perspective, I underline the need for immediate action to
eradicate poverty and starvation of the oppressed Palestinian women and I
should like to remind you that women’s allegiance to resistance is ever-lasting
while they are rapidly being drained of trust in international organizations.
Source: tehrantimes.com
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/496094/Stand-tall-against-brutal-debarment-of-innocent-women-and-children
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Hijab is accepted cultural norm in Islamic Republic: Iran
deputy president
Mar 13, 2024,
New York, IRNA – Iran’s Depty-President for Women and
Family Affairs Ensiyeh Khazali in a meeting with Finland’s Minister of Social
Security Sanni Grahn-Laasonen in New York responded to her concern about the
issue of hijab, calling it an accepted cultural norm in the Islamic Republic.
Khaz'ali and Grahn-Laasonen exchanged views on a number
women-related issued in their respective countries while they sat down
face-to-face on the sidelines of the United Nations Commission on the Status of
Women on Tuesday night, according to the IRNA reporter at New York.
We believe that privacy should be taken seriously to
protect women against violence because researches indicate that failure to
respect women's privacy has led to an increase in violence against them, the
Iranian vice-president told the Finnish minister after thanking her concern on
the issues of hijab and chastity.
Although Iranian laws punish men who commit gender
violence, but looking at the hijab as a preventive measure, women's safety has
been established more seriously, she added.
In the shadow of the existing security system in Iran,
women with Hijab have been excelling with complete safety in various social,
sports, cultural, artistic and scientific arenas, which are confirmed by
official statistics and documents, Khaz'ali clarified.
She also stressed the need for the respect to the
cultural diversity in all countries, saying the approach of some western
nations toward violence against women is punitive and curative, while Iran’s
approach toward this issue is preventive, and the statistics of international
organizations seem to confirm the success of the Islamic Republic in this
regard.
Hijab is accepted cultural norm in Islamic Republic: Iran
VP
The Iranian Vice President also touched on gender
equality after the Finnish minister called it the central issue in her country.
The Islamic Republic also believes in promoting
"gender justice" with the aim of improving the status of women and
families. But we believe in gender justice that goes beyond gender equality
which is not sufficient, fair and a guarantee of women’s comfort and benefits
considering their characteristics and conditions, she emphasized, adding that
Iran has been providing special concessions in the form of laws to women,
especially pregnant and nursing mothers with the aim of women’s development and
progress as well as improving their status in families.
"In Iran, as per laws, women are not obliged to
provide for the family and this is considered to be the duty of men,"
Khaz'ali further said.
Grahn-Laasonen, for her part, also highlighted her
country’s approach toward women as well as initiatives taken by respective
governments in this regard in Finland.
The development of women's progress and improvement of
human rights is considered a serious matter in the welfare state of Finland,
she said, adding that “ensuring gender equality for women is the center of all
government programs”.
Hijab is accepted cultural norm in Islamic Republic: Iran
VP
At the end of their meeting, both the Iranian
vice-president and the Finnish minister of social security condemned the
killing of women and children across the world and emphasized the need for
joint measures to more seriously pursue sending humanitarian aid to the Gaza
Strip where people, especially women and children have been grappling with dire
humanitarian situations.
Source: irna.ir
https://en.irna.ir/news/85416989/Hijab-is-accepted-cultural-norm-in-Islamic-Republic-Iran-VP
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/jordanian-queen-rania-gaza-humanitarian/d/131908