Search Results for: syria

In the grand halls of the United Nations, where the fate of nations is debated, an increasingly urgent conversation is taking place. It’s a discussion about the very foundation of global security governance – the UN Security Council (UNSC). Calls for reform have been presented in academic circles, yet in the past few years, such [...]

High Commissioner of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, warned on Monday that displacement crises in Lebanon and Syria could worsen and urged effective solutions from stakeholders. In an opening statement to the Executive Committee at UNHCR’s annual meeting in Geneva, Filippo Grandi shed light onto the situation of about 123 million displaced persons and refugees [...]

The EU on Saturday expressed  grave concern over draft legislation in the Israeli parliament that would ban the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating within Israel and potentially restrict aid to Gaza. The proposed bills, if enacted, would abrogate the 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA, terminating the agency’s operations [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on Tuesday that attempts to bar two Syrian migrants from reaching Cyprian territory and their subsequent expulsion violated multiple provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges unanimously found violations of Article 3 prohibiting torture and degrading treatment; Article 4 of the additional Protocol 4, [...]

“For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War.” Proverbs 24.6 For mostly good reason, policy discussions of Israel’s nuclear strategy and doctrine have been intentionally vague and without evident nuance. More specifically, there have been few open-literature assessments of a limited nuclear war and its law-supported capacity for enhancing Israel’s strategic deterrence. Now, however, [...]

The head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, arrived in Lebanon on Saturday in an effort to express solidarity and bring awareness to alleged breaches of humanitarian law that include Israel’s targeting of medical facilities and displacement of civilians. Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, expressed serious concern [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report released Wednesday raised concerns over the forcible recruitment of children into a youth group associated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). HRW interviewed multiple families whose children were taken by the Revolutionary Youth Movement of Syria, or Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger. The report revealed that in the vast majority [...]

Iran launched scores of ballistic missiles into Israeli territory on Tuesday, in what it described as an exercise of its “legitimate right to self-defense under the UN Charter.” The attack came hours after Israel announced a ground incursion into Lebanon, and as UN experts warned of the dire consequences of regional hostilities. In a statement, [...]

The imperatives are plain. Whatever the trajectory of wars in the region, Israel has a law-based obligation to keep Iran non-nuclear. Immediately and incrementally, therefore, Jerusalem will need to ensure “escalation dominance” during periods of competitive risk-taking. This overriding responsibility concerns both Iran’s sub-state proxies (especially Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni Hamas) and Iran directly. What [...]

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Saturday that an IDF strike targeting Hezbollah’s Central Headquarters, underneath residential buildings in Beirut, killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shia organization Hezbollah on Friday night. The IDF claims that the headquarters were a “legitimate military target under international law.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas criticized Israel’s [...]