It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations: Guterres
\nUNITED NATIONS
\nThe escalating war in the Middle East, now in its 8th day, has heightened growing concerns about further civilian suffering and displacement in the region and far beyond, according to UN agencies said.
\nEight days since Israeli and US bombing in Iran prompted ongoing counter-strikes across the Middle East, humanitarians confirmed massive upheaval in Lebanon, with hundreds of shelters now full, as whole suburbs of Beirut have emptied.
\n\u201cIsrael\u2019s military ground incursions into southern Lebanon, blanket displacement orders for the population in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, the Bekka region and the full area to the south of the Latani River, and its continued airstrikes on different parts of the country are bringing more misery, more suffering to an already weary civilian population,\u201d Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said in Geneva on Friday.
\nUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement warning that, \u201cAll the unlawful attacks in the Middle East and beyond are causing tremendous suffering and harm to civilians throughout the region \u2013 and pose a grave a risk to the global economy, particularly to the most vulnerable people. \u201cThe situation could spiral beyond anyone\u2019s control.
\n\u201cIt is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations. The stakes could not be higher,\u201d the UN chief added. On the other hand, US President Donald Trump said he will only accept \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d from Iran as the US and Israel continue to strike that country, prompting continued Iranian retaliation. \u201cThere will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender!\u201d the US president said on his Truth Social platform.
\n\u201cAfter that, and the selection of a great & acceptable leader (s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. Iran will have a great future,\u201d he added.
\nFrom the UN migration agency, IOM, Chief of Mission Lebanon Mathieu Luciano described the dramatic deterioration in the country on Thursday evening as the Israeli army carried out \u201cmultiple air strikes on the southern suburb of Beirut overnight\u201d. He added that many collective shelters are at full capacity, especially in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, \u201cso, people are just redirected to other shelters, especially in the north, in Al Qaa, in safe places in the Bekka as well.\u201d
\nThe UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has declared the escalating crisis a major humanitarian emergency requiring an immediate regional response. UNHCR Director for Emergencies Ayaki Ito told journalists in Geneva that the conflict is triggering significant population movements across the region and into Southwest Asia. Nearly 25 million people in the affected areas are already refugees, internally displaced or recent returnees, placing additional strain on fragile host countries.
\nThe major commercial shipping crisis caused by the war which has practically halted all vessel movement in the Strait of Hormuz south of Iran is already impacting UN agencies and partners seeking to dispatch lifesaving relief to Gaza and Sudan, among other emergencies.The narrow channel carries nearly one-fifth of global oil along with large volumes of commercial goods.
\n\u201cAll traffic via sea has significantly slowed down,\u201d said Anne Schaefer, IOM Deputy Director for humanitarian response and recovery. \u201cThis is the case in Port Sudan, but also in other ports of the continent.\u201d For Gaza, shelter items, tarps, tents and lamps \u201care all stuck in different stages, unable to now arrive\u201d, she said, before warning of \u201ca significant deterioration of the supply chain very, very quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations: Guterres UNITED NATIONS The escalating war in the Middle East, now in its 8th day, has heightened growing concerns about further civilian suffering and displacement in the region and far beyond, according to UN agencies said. Eight days since Israeli and US …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94817,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94802\/revisions\/94817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}