United Nations

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares59 Views

    Eyewitnesses Recount Deadly Israeli Attack on Medics in Gaza

    by

    The New York Times interviewed two people who described being detained by Israeli soldiers and looking on as they opened fire on ambulances and a fire truck, killing 15.It was still dark out when a group of ambulances and a fire truck dispatched by Palestinian emergency response services slowed to a halt in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, early on March 23. They had been sent to find their paramedic colleagues, who had headed out in an ambulance on a rescue mission earlier that morning before disappearing.Now the convoy stopped next to the missing ambulance, which stood by the side of the road near some U.N. warehouses. When paramedics got out to look, Israeli soldiers about 50 meters away opened fire on them, according to two men who said they had witnessed the shootings.The two men saw what happened, they said, because they were being held by the same Israeli troops.One of the two, Munther Abed, 27, a volunteer paramedic, said he had been detained after surviving an earlier attack on the missing ambulance that killed two other crew members. The other man, Dr. Saeed al-Bardawil, 55, a physician, said he had been detained alongside Mr. Abed when he and his son were stopped by Israeli troops on their way to go fishing about 4:45 a.m.The New York Times interviewed the two men separately in Gaza days after the United Nations said it had found the bodies of 15 rescue workers — eight from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, six from Gaza’s Civil Defense and one from the United Nations — in a mass grave. Their ambulances, their fire truck and a U.N. vehicle, which had been crushed, were half-buried nearby. The United Nations has accused Israel of killing the 15 workers, discarding their bodies and destroying the vehicles.The two men’s accounts appear to support those accusations. Although their stories could not be independently confirmed, the details they gave also matched the sequence of events in a video obtained and verified by The New York Times, discovered on the cellphone of one of the dead paramedics. That video shows an intense barrage of gunfire hitting the convoy just as dawn breaks.A video captures the moment Israeli troops opened fire on a group of medics in Gaza in late March.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 175 Shares67 Views

      in Elections

      Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On

      by

      The U.N. has said Israel killed the workers. The video appears to contradict Israel’s version of events, which said the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals.A video captured the moment Israeli troops opened fire on a group of medics in Gaza in late March.A video, discovered on the cellphone of a paramedic who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in the Gaza in late March, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.Officials from the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a news conference on Friday at the United Nations moderated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies that they had presented the nearly seven-minute recording, which was obtained by The New York Times, to the U.N. Security Council.An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said earlier this week that Israeli forces did not “randomly attack” an ambulance, but that several vehicles “were identified advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals toward Israeli troops, prompting them to shoot. Colonel Shoshani said earlier in the week that nine of those killed were Palestinian militants. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video.The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the city of southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.The convoy stops when it encounters a vehicle that had veered onto the side of the road — one ambulance had been sent earlier to aid wounded civilians and had come under attack. The new rescue vehicles detour to the side of the road.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares85 Views

      in Elections

      Some Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Were Shot Multiple Times, Officials Say

      by

      The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that nearly all of the 15 bodies recovered had gunshot wounds.Days after the United Nations accused Israel of killing 15 humanitarian workers in Gaza, officials who recovered the bodies or carried out the autopsies said some of the rescue workers were shot multiple times before being buried in a mass grave.The Palestine Red Crescent Society, which had eight of its members killed and carried out the recovery mission, said that nearly all 15 bodies showed gunshot wounds, according to a spokeswoman, Nebal Farsakh. One paramedic was found with his hands and feet tied toward his body, Ms. Farsakh said.“My colleagues were shot; the bodies who were retrieved, many of them have multiple gun shots. We found all of them thrown in a mass grave, the bodies were put next to each other and covered with sand,” said Ms. Farsakh in a telephone interview from Ramallah.The deaths of the aid workers, who first went missing on March 23, have drawn international condemnation in recent days.On that day, in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, ambulances and a U.N. vehicle came under attack from Israel’s military, then went silent. On Sunday, rescue teams found 15 bodies, most in a shallow mass grave along with their crushed ambulances and the vehicle marked with the U.N. logo. The United Nations, which is typically cautious about assigning blame, accused Israel of killing them.An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said on X on Monday that nine of those killed were Palestinian militants. He said Israeli forces “did not randomly attack” an ambulance, but that several vehicles “were identified advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals toward Israeli troops, prompting them to shoot.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares75 Views

      in Elections

      Desperation Grows in Gaza as U.N. Shutters Bakeries

      by

      Anxious residents rushed to obtain bags of flour as the United Nations warned that Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries were deepening the humanitarian crisis.Bilal Mohammad Ramadan AbuKresh has lost his home, his job, his wife and seven other relatives during the war in Gaza. Now, as the United Nations closes 25 bakeries across the territory, he is also losing his only reliable source of food.Before Wednesday, Mr. AbuKresh, 40, said he would leave his tent in a camp for displaced people in northern Gaza at dawn and stand in line for hours at one of the bakeries, waiting for bread for his four children.“The line was unimaginable, like the Day of Judgment,” Mr. AbuKresh said on Wednesday, the day after the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, said it had run out of the flour and fuel needed to keep the bakeries in Gaza open.But at least it was affordable, compared to the $30 he paid for a bag of pasta that he bought recently to feed his family.The lack of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza over the past month has prompted violent competition for food and driven up prices.Mr. AbuKresh said he has resorted to selling his children’s jewelry and collecting trash to sell to scrounge up enough money just to buy a bit of food. “To secure a bag of bread for my children, I risk death a hundred times,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares73 Views

      in Elections

      Mining Company Seeks Trump Support to Shortcut Access to Seabed Metals

      by

      Mining companies and the Trump administration want the metals to boost manufacturing. Environmentalists and some countries worry industrial mining would harm oceans.The long-running battle over whether to allow Pacific Ocean seabed mining took an unexpected turn Thursday when a company disclosed it had been confidentially negotiating a plan with the Trump administration to circumvent a United Nations treaty and perhaps obtain authorization from the United States to start mining in international waters.The proposal, which drew immediate protests from environmental groups and diplomats from some countries, represents a radical shift in the contentious debate over accessing deposits on the sea floor that contain copper, cobalt, manganese and other metals that are needed for electric-car batteries.The International Seabed Authority, established 30 years ago by an agreement now ratified by more than 160 nations, has jurisdiction over seabed mining in international waters, outside the coastal areas of each nation.The Seabed Authority has been slowly crafting regulations governing mining, which remains highly contentious because the potential effects of industrial activity on marine life are unknown.Now the Trump administration, which has already expressed its desire to retake the Panama Canal and assume control of Greenland, is being nudged by the Vancouver-based Metals Company to disregard the Seabed Authority and grant it a license to start mining as soon as 2027.Gerard Barron, the chief executive at the Metals Company, announced the maneuver Thursday after it became clear that it could still be years before the Seabed Authority finalizes mining regulations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares80 Views

      in Elections

      What We Know About the Detentions of Student Protesters

      by

      The Trump administration is looking to deport pro-Palestinian students who are legally in the United States, citing national security. Critics say that violates free speech protections.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily.Pool photo by Nathan HowardThe Trump administration is trying to deport pro-Palestinian students and academics who are legally in the United States, a new front in its clash with elite schools over what it says is their failure to combat antisemitism.The White House asserts that these moves — many of which involve immigrants with visas and green cards — are necessary because those taken into custody threaten national security. But some legal experts say that the administration is trampling on free speech rights and using lower-level laws to crack down on activism.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily. He did not specify how many of those people had taken part in campus protests or acted to support Palestinians.Mr. Rubio gave that number at a news conference, after noting that the department had revoked the visa of a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University. He did not give details on the other revocations.Immigration officials are known to have pursued at least nine people in apparent connection to this effort since the start of March.The detentions and efforts to deport people who are in the country legally reflect an escalation of the administration’s efforts to restrict immigration, as it also seeks to deport undocumented immigrants en masse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares146 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump withdraws Elise Stefanik’s UN nomination to protect GOP House majority

      by

      Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was pulling US House representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a stunning turnaround for his cabinet pick after her confirmation had been stalled over concerns about Republicans’ tight margins in the House.Trump confirmed he was withdrawing the New York Republican’s nomination in a Truth Social post, saying that it was “essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress”.“We must be unified to accomplish our Mission, and Elise Stefanik has been a vital part of our efforts from the very beginning. I have asked Elise, as one of my biggest Allies, to remain in Congress,” the president said, without mentioning who he would nominate as a replacement for his last remaining cabinet seat.Stefanik’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Trump had tapped Stefanik to represent the US at the international body shortly after winning re-election in November. She was seen as among the least controversial cabinet picks, and her nomination advanced out of committee in late January, but House Republicans’ razor-thin majority kept her ultimate confirmation in a state of purgatory for the last several months.In recent weeks, it had seemed as if Stefanik’s nomination would advance to the Senate floor, given two US House special elections in Florida in districts that Trump easily won in 2024. Filling those vacant GOP seats would have allowed Stefanik to finally resign from the House and given Republicans, who currently hold 218 seats, a little more breathing room on passing legislation in a growingly divided Congress. Democrats hold 213 seats.But Democrats’ upset in a Tuesday special election for a Pennsylvania state Senate seat in Republican-leaning suburbs and farming communities surely gave the GOP pause.Stefanik is the fourth Trump administration nominee who didn’t make it through the confirmation process. Previously, former US House representative Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for attorney general, Chad Chronister was pulled for the Drug Enforcement Administration and former Florida representative Dr David Weldon was yanked from contention to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Stefanik had been in a state of limbo for months, not able to engage in her official duties as a member of the 119th Congress or to participate in the action at the UN. The vacancy of a permanent US ambassador was happening at a critical moment for the international body as the world leaders had been discussing the two major wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.In late February, the US mission, under Trump, split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in votes on three U.N. resolutions seeking an end to the three-year war. Dorothy Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, has been the face of America’s mission in New York during the transition. More

    • 125 Shares115 Views

      in Elections

      U.N. to Pull International Workers From Gaza Amid Israeli Strikes

      by

      The United Nations is withdrawing about one-third of its international work force in Gaza, with the reduction coming after an Israeli tank shell hit a U.N. compound.The United Nations announced on Monday that it would reduce its presence in Gaza by withdrawing about one-third of its international workers there, following repeated strikes of its facilities by Israel.Secretary General António Guterres said in a statement that the decision to reduce the organization’s footprint in Gaza was “difficult” at a time when humanitarian needs were soaring and as a resumption of Israeli attacks were killing hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children.The drawdown announced Monday would be the first time since the start of the Israeli-Hamas war in 2023 that the United Nations has reduced its work force in Gaza, but it will retain a presence there.“The U.N. is not leaving Gaza. The organization remains committed to continuing to provide aid that civilians depend on for their survival and protection,” Mr. Guterres said in the statement.At least 280 U.N. staff members have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, the organization’s largest loss of life in any conflict in its history, Mr. Guterres has said.Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said that about 30 percent of the organization’s 100 or so international staff members from different agencies would be leaving Gaza over the next week and that likely more would depart in the coming weeks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Stefanik Will Be Released From the House Soon for UN Ambassador Confirmation

      by

      Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, is set to be released from the House on April 2 and head toward a confirmation vote to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, after weeks of waiting to join President Trump’s cabinet.Senate Republicans have been slow-walking Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation because of the too-tight margins in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson could not afford to lose a reliable Republican vote when he needed to pass the stopgap government funding measure that Democrats almost unanimously opposed.So, despite being Mr. Trump’s first announced nominee to serve in his cabinet, Ms. Stefanik is now the only one who has yet to be confirmed. That has left her in a strange in-between: She is a member of the 119th Congress who is not seated on any subcommittees, and she attended the first Trump cabinet meeting despite the fact that she is not technically in it yet. When Mr. Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, she sat with the cabinet rather than her House colleagues.But Ms. Stefanik’s awkward life in limbo can start to resolve on April 2, when two Trump-endorsed Republicans are expected to fill a pair of seats that were left vacant after the departures of former Representatives Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Senate Republicans are then expected to move ahead with Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation, according to two people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The details of Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation proceedings were first reported by Axios.A spokesman for Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, declined to comment on the schedule for the confirmation vote.The Republican majority in the House will remain slim, but Mr. Johnson will have a little more room to maneuver. He has been forthright about his challenges.“I had 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats, and then President Trump began to cull the herd,” Mr. Johnson said last month, referring to the president’s decision to select House Republicans to serve in his administration. “We have a one-vote margin now — smallest in history, right? So for a big chunk of the first 100 days of the Congress, and perhaps beyond, this is not an easy task, but we’re going to get it done.” More