This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.
Gaza war: ‘Intense ground battles’ reported, hospital hit kills five
Continuing airstrikes were reported across Gaza on Wednesday and “intense ground battles” between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in refugee camps in central areas that have reportedly left many dead.
Airstrikes and missiles struck dwellings and public buildings on Tuesday including Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis. Five were killed, among them a five-day-old baby, reports indicate.
“No child in the world should be killed, let alone one sheltering under the emblem of a humanitarian organisation; this has to end,” said Gemma Connell, a team leader from UN aid coordination office OCHA, in a video posted on X soon after the attacks.
According to Ms. Connell, the hospital was “clearly marked” with the logo of the Palestinian Red Crescent which runs the facility.
An estimated 14,000 people were sheltering at the health centre when it was shelled twice.
UN chief appeals for ‘maximum restraint’ to prevent Middle East escalation
In a related development, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged “maximum restraint” from all parties after the killing of Hamas deputy chief Saleh Arouri, in Lebanon.
The Hamas official’s apparent assassination comes almost three months into the war in Gaza which has also been marked by frequent missile fire either side of the border between the Israeli military and armed groups in Lebanon, along with increasing violence in the West Bank, attacks on Red Sea shipping by fighters in Yemen and reported Israeli strikes on armed groups in Syria.
Israel has neither confirmed or denied any involvement in the killing of the Hamas second in command.
In New York, spokesperson for the UN chief Florencia Soto Nino said that Mr. Guterres “urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint and take urgent steps to deescalate tensions in the region”.
Rights experts’ alarm at death row ‘experiment’ in US
The imminent execution of a man on death row in the United States using the untested method of inhaling pure nitrogen must be stopped, top UN-appointed independent human rights experts said on Wednesday.
Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted of murder in 1988 and sentenced to death. He is scheduled to be executed on 25 January in Alabama.
Authorities failed in their attempt to execute Mr. Smith in November 2022 by lethal injection.
UN Special Rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz and other top rights experts appointed by the Human Rights Council expressed concern that this first attempt at nitrogen asphyxiation “would result in a painful and humiliating death”.
The experts added that punishments which cause unnecessary severe pain or suffering “likely violate the Convention against Torture, to which the United States is a party”.
Daniel Johnson, UN News.
Source of original article: United Nations (news.un.org). Photo credit: UN. The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views or opinion of Global Diaspora News (www.globaldiasporanews.com).
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