Foreign News

Israel to bar 37 aid groups from Gaza

Published

2 weeks ago

2025/12/31

Priyan

Israel is to revoke the licenses of 37 aid groups working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, saying they failed to meet requirements under new registration rules.

Well-known international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) such as ActionAid, the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council are among those that will have their licenses suspended on 1 January, with their operations to end within 60 days.

Israel said the groups, among other things, had failed to hand over “complete” personal details of their staff.

The move was heavily criticised by foreign ministers from 10 countries including the UK, who said the new rules were “restrictive” and “unacceptable”.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the UK, France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland said the forced closure of INGO operations would “have a severe impact on access to essential services including healthcare”.

They added that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remained “catastrophic” and called on Israel’s government to ensure INGOs were able to operate “in a sustained and predictable way”.

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which is in charge of registration applications, said the new measures would not impact the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

It added that aid continued to be delivered through “approved and vetted channels”, including UN agencies, bilateral partners, and humanitarian organisations.

It said the primary reason aid groups were having their licences revoked was “the refusal to provide complete and verifiable information regarding their employees,” which it said was critical to preventing “the infiltration of terrorist operatives into humanitarian structures”.

Earlier this month, UN-backed experts said there had been improvements in nutrition and food supplies in Gaza since a ceasefire was brokered between Israel and Hamas in October, but 100,000 people still experienced “catastrophic conditions” the following month.

Israeli military body Cogat, which controls Gaza’s crossings, said the organisations that will be suspended “did not bring aid into Gaza throughout the current ceasefire”.

It added that “even in the past their combined contribution amounted to only about 1% of the total aid volume”.

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said that fewer than 15% of organisations providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza were found to be in violation of the new regulatory framework.

That framework includes several grounds for rejection, including:

Denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state

Denying the Holocaust or the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023

Supporting an armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or terrorist organisation

Promoting “delegitimisation campaigns” against Israel

Calling for a boycott of Israel or committing to participate in one

Supporting the prosecution of Israeli security forces in foreign or international courts

The Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory – a forum that brings together UN agencies and more than 200 local and international organisations – previously warned that the new registration system “fundamentally jeopardises” the operations of INGOs in Gaza and the West Bank.

“The system relies on vague, arbitrary, and highly politicised criteria and imposes requirements that humanitarian organisations cannot meet without violating international legal obligations or compromising core humanitarian principles,” it said.

It added: “While some INGOs have been registered under the new system, these INGOs represent only a fraction of the response in Gaza and are nowhere near the number required just to meet immediate and basic needs.”

According to the Humanitarian Country Team, INGOs currently run or support most of Gaza’s field hospitals and primary healthcare centres, emergency shelter responses, water and sanitation services, nutrition stabilisation centres for children with acute malnutrition, and critical mine action activities.

In a statement, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, said: “The message is clear: humanitarian assistance is welcome — the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism is not.”

Other organisations to be suspended include CARE, Medico International and Medical Aid for Palestinians.

[BBC]

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Foreign News

Meta blocks 550,000 accounts under Australia’s social media ban

Published

11 hours ago

2026/01/13

Priyan

Australia's landmark socual media ban for kids is being watched closely around the world (BBC)

About 550,000 accounts were blocked by Meta during the first days of Australia’s landmark social media ban for kids.

In December, a new law began requiring that the world’s most popular social media sites – including Instagram and Facebook – stop Australians aged under 16 from having accounts on their platforms.

The ban, which is being watched closely around the world, was justified by campaigners and the government as necessary to protect children from harmful content and algorithms.

Companies including Meta have said they agree more is needed to keep young people safe online. However they continue to argue for other measures, with some experts raising similar concerns.

“We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” Meta said in a blog update.

The company said it blocked 330,639 accounts on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook, and 39,916 on Threads during it’s first week of compliance with the new law.

They again put the argument that age verification should happen at an app store level – something they suggested lowers the burden of compliance on both regulators and the apps themselves – and that exemptions for parental approval should be created.

“This is the only way to guarantee consistent, industry-wide protections for young people, no matter which apps they use, and to avoid the whack-a-mole effect of catching up with new apps that teens will migrate to in order to circumvent the social media ban law.”

Various governments, from the US state of Florida to the European Union, have been experimenting with limiting children’s use of social media. But, along with a higher age limit of 16, Australia is the first jurisdiction to deny an exemption for parental approval in a policy like this – making its laws the world’s strictest.

The policy is wildly popular with parents and envied by world leader, with the Tories this week pledging to follow suit if they win power at the next election, due before 2029.

However some experts have raised concerns that Australian kids can circumvent the ban with relative ease – either by tricking the technology that’s performing the age checks, or by finding other, potentially less safe, places on the net to gather.

And backed by some mental health advocates, many children have argued it robs young people of connection – particularly those from LGBTQ+, neurodivergent or rural communities – and will leave them less equipped to tackle the realities of life on the web.

(BBC)

Foreign News

Bride and groom killed by gas explosion day after Pakistan wedding

Published

1 day ago

2026/01/12

Priyan

(Pic BBC)

A newly married couple were killed when a gas cylinder exploded at a house in Islamabad where they were sleeping after their wedding party, police have said.

A further six people – including wedding guests and family members – who were staying there also died in the blast. More than a dozen people were injured.

The explosion took place at 07:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Sunday, causing the roof to collapse.

Parts of the walls were blown away, leaving piles of bricks, large concrete slabs and furniture strewn across the floor. Injured people were trapped under the rubble and had to be carried out on stretchers by rescue workers.

(BBC)

Foreign News

Rescuers race to find dozens missing in deadly Philippines landfill collapse

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/11

Priyan

More than 30 people are thought to be missing following the landslide in Cebu [BBC]

Rescue workers are racing to find dozens of people still missing following a landslide at a landfill site in the central Philippines that occurred earlier this week, an official has said.

Mayor Nestor Archival said on Saturday that signs of life had been detected at the site in Cebu City, two days after the incident.

Four people have been confirmed dead so far, Archival said, while 12 others have been taken to hospital.

Conditions for emergency services working at the site were challenging, the mayor added, with unstable debris posing a hazard and crew waiting for better equipment to arrive.

The privately-owned Binaliw landfill collapsed on Thursday while 110 workers were on site, officials said.

Archival said in a Facebook post on Saturday morning: “Authorities confirmed the presence of detected signs of life in specific areas, requiring continued careful excavation and the deployment of a more advanced 50-ton crane.”

Relatives of those missing have been waiting anxiously for any news of their whereabouts. More than 30 people, all workers at the landfill, are thought to be missing.

“We are just hoping that we can get someone alive… We are racing against time, that’s why our deployment is 24/7,” Cebu City councillor Dave Tumulak, chairman of the city’s disaster council, told news agency AFP.

AFP via Getty Images A close up shot of a woman wiping a tear away from her eye at the scene of the landfill site, while a small boy looks across at her. — *Relatives of the missing are waiting anxiously for any news of their loved ones [BBC]*

Jerahmey Espinoza, whose husband is missing, told news agency Reuters at the site on Saturday: “They haven’t seen him or located him ever since the disaster happened. We’re still hopeful that he’s alive.”

The cause of the collapse remains unclear, but Cebu City councillor Joel Garganera previously said it was likely the result of poor waste management practices.

Operators had been cutting into the mountain, digging the soil out and then piling garbage to form another mountain of waste, Garganera told local newspaper The Freeman on Friday.

The Binaliw landfill covers an area of about 15 hectares (37 acres).

Landfills are common in major Philippine cities like Cebu, which is the trading centre and transportation gateway of the Visayas, the archipelago nation’s central islands.