Category World News

The idea of deploying a protective or peacekeeping force in Palestine is nothing new. After Israel was established through the horrendous massacres and mass ethnic cleansing of 1948, the United Nations set up its Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) to observe the implementation of the 1949 Israel-Arab Armistice Agreements. In 1974, it sent the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) to support the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, and in 1978, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was deployed on Lebanese territory. None of these forces was able to stop Israeli aggression.

After the Israeli reinvasion of the occupied West Bank and the massacre in Jenin in 2002, former United States President Bill Clinton reawakened the idea of an international force in the occupied Palestinian territory.

With the outbreak of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023, this proposal started getting diplomatic traction again. In May 2024, the Arab League called for a peacekeeping force for the occupied Palestinian territory. The likes of the Atlantic Council supported the idea, and so did various Western officials, including Germany’s genocidal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

In July this year, a high-level conference led by France and Saudi Arabia also suggested an “international stabilisation mission” in Gaza, premised on an invitation by the Palestinian Authority. The idea was refloated following the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) much-belated proclamation of famine in Gaza.

Undoubtedly, such an intervention, armed or unarmed, would not only be legal under international law but would also be a way to comply with the international legal principle of responsibility to protect. The key question, however, is: How would such a protection force work in real life?

Looking at the geopolitical reality, it is hard to imagine it could work without Israeli agreement. Israel enjoys full, unconditional support from the US and acts with impunity. It has already demonstrated that it would act aggressively against any attempt to break the siege on Gaza; it has gone as far as breaching European Union airspace to attack a Gaza-bound humanitarian vessel. Any protection force attempting to enter Palestine without Israeli agreement would be attacked before it could get even close.

Therefore, the only option is for Israel and the US to agree to it. That is possible, but it would take place under their conditions, which would most likely lead to the internationalisation and normalisation of the genocide.

The first step in that direction has already been taken with the deployment of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) at the end of May. Since then, Israel and GHF mercenaries have killed at least 2,416 Palestinians seeking aid and injured more than 17,700.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, has called it “an abomination” and “a death trap costing more lives than it saves”. UN experts have denounced “the entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous nongovernmental entities”. The UN emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, has denounced the GHF’s operations as a dangerous and “deliberate attempt to weaponise aid”.

The recent revelations by The Washington Post that US President Donald Trump’s plan to transform Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is still on the table give an indication of how the protection force could become a reality.

The plan, called Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (GREAT), would see a foreign force deployed as part of the 10-year US-sponsored trusteeship over the Gaza Strip. The contingent would be formed by private contractors hired by the GHF, while the Israeli army would be responsible for “overall security”.  This would effectively mean the continuation of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the supervision of foreign mercenaries.

This is certainly not the type of protective force that pro-Palestinian proponents of the idea would like to see, but it is the only one realistically possible as of now.

We are all longing for the genocide to stop and for Palestinians to be protected from Israeli aggression until its regime of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation ends. A protective force should have been deployed a long time ago – when the Zionist movement first started its genocidal project in Palestine in 1947.

Today, promoting the idea of a protective force not only opens the way for the realisation of the Trump plan, but also distracts from the most strategic and impactful form of intervention: ending international complicity and imposing sanctions on Israel. This is what is possible and real. This is what states willing to protect Palestinians and defend our rights and international law must do and can do, without depending on any other actor.

Twenty years ago, we started the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the path towards sanctions. Now we are on the verge of seeing the sanctions become real and impactful.

Last year, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution committing member states to partial sanctions on Israel. If we can implement it, this will effectively undercut Israel’s capacity to continue to feed its genocide machine.

Meanwhile, the BDS action is taking effect. We are starting to be able to interfere with the supply chain of the genocide. We have stopped some steel shipments and military supplies from reaching Israeli buyers.

In August, Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued a second decree banning coal exports to Israel. Shortly after, Turkiye announced a complete stop to all commercial ties and the closure of its seaports and airspace to Israeli vessels and aircraft; the country used to be Israel’s fifth-largest import partner.

Israeli businessmen are admitting to local media that “a reality of a quiet boycott of Israel in the field of imports has been taking shape from suppliers in Europe, and especially from neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt”.

Should South Africa, Brazil, and Nigeria stop supplying energy to fuel Israel, this would have a huge short-term impact. China could stop its companies from operating the port of Haifa. The Global South has the power alone to stop the global supply chain of genocide by blocking the continuous flow of raw materials and components.

Even in Europe, some ties of complicity are starting to get loose. In the Netherlands, five ministers, including the foreign minister and the deputy prime minister, resigned after the cabinet was not able to agree on sanctions against Israel, plunging the government into crisis. Slovenia and Spain have announced arms embargoes. Workers’ mobilisations in ports across the Mediterranean and beyond have made maritime transfers of military materiel to Israel ever more difficult.

Popular pressure is mounting on governments to meet their legal and moral obligations and impose sanctions on Israel. This is not the time to push for impossible or insidious projects that could give them an excuse not to act.

We all saw how genocidal Israel shredded the Oslo plans for a two-state solution to pieces. Those accords were never more than an effort to make Europe, in particular, feel better about its role in our dispossession.

Let us not fall into the same trap again by supporting initiatives that would only make the world feel better about Israel’s genocide. Concrete pressure and sanctions remain the most effective measures at hand that the US-Israel axis cannot manipulate as much.

Let us strengthen concrete global multilateral initiatives in support of Palestine and international law, such as The Hague Group. Let us pressure states to implement sanctions and cut off the supply chain for the genocide.

The pressure must be sustained until apartheid and settler colonialism are dismantled between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli resigned on Tuesday amid surging protests that began as a movement against corruption and inequality but exploded into broader calls for change after 19 youths were shot dead by security forces during clashes on Monday.

Protests continued on Tuesday morning, with agitators torching several buildings seen as associated with Nepal’s elite, even as ministers resigned and pressure built on Oli to follow suit.

However, despite Oli’s resignation, Nepal remains on edge, with protesters seeking sweeping changes to the country’s political landscape. Kathmandu’s international airport cancelled all flights scheduled for Tuesday.

Here’s the latest on the churn in Nepal, and the triggers driving the anger that has fuelled these protests:

What happened during the protests on Monday?

Protests began at 9am (03:15 GMT) on Monday in Kathmandu’s Maitighar neighbourhood. Thousands of young protesters, including high school students in their uniforms, took to the streets.

Dubbed the “Gen Z protest”, it was organised by the nonprofit organisation Hami Nepal, meaning “We are Nepal”. According to the Kathmandu District Administration Office, the NGO had secured approval for it. The protest spread to other cities.

Within hours, some protesters broke barricades set up by the police and entered the parliament premises in New Baneshwor. This resulted in clashes with the police, who opened fire on the protesters. Authorities imposed a curfew in the area until the evening.

At least 17 people were killed in Kathmandu, while two were killed in the eastern city of Itahari after protests turned violent, according to the police.

More than 100 people, including 28 police officers, were being treated for their injuries, according to police officer Shekhar Khanal, the Reuters news agency reported.

In a statement released late on Monday night, Oli said he was “deeply saddened” by the protesters’ deaths and called for an investigation into the violence.

What’s the latest on the ground in Nepal?

Authorities have imposed an indefinite curfew, which now covers Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts. The curfew order bars public gatherings, sit-ins and protests.

Oli resigned from his position on Tuesday, his secretariat confirmed.

However, on Tuesday, young protesters continued to rally on the streets of Kathmandu. They gathered near the parliament building, but did not carry any posters, local media reported.

They burned tyres while demonstrating in Kathmandu’s Kalanki area.

They also set fire to the Nepali Congress (NC) party’s central office in Sanepa, a neighbourhood in Lalitpur, about 5km (3 miles) from Kathmandu. Since last year, the NC — one of Nepal’s largest political parties — has been a coalition partner of Oli’s governing Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).

Oli’s resignation came after some of his ministers stepped down in the aftermath of Monday’s deaths. On Monday, Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned. Agriculture Minister Ramnath Adhikari quit his post on Tuesday.

Who are ‘nepo kids’ and why are they upsetting Nepali youth?

A key trigger for the protests, say activists and experts, has been a growing perception that the families of the ruling elite live lives of relative luxury in an otherwise poor nation, exposing deep inequalities.

On Nepali social media, the term “nepo kids” — a play on nepotism — was viral in the weeks leading up to Monday’s protests. The term is commonly used to refer to the children of top government officials and ministers.

Nepal’s government officials and politicians have long faced accusations of widespread corruption, opacity over how public money is spent, and whether parts of it are used to fund the lavish lifestyles that their families appear to enjoy, despite modest official salaries.

Several videos on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram show the relatives of government officials and ministers travelling in or posing next to expensive cars and wearing designer brands.

“The anger over ‘nepo kids’ in Nepal reflects deep public frustration,” said Yog Raj Lamichhane, an assistant professor at the School of Business in Nepal’s Pokhara University. What strikes ordinary Nepalis is how political leaders — the parents of the so-called nepo kids — who once lived modestly as party workers “now flaunt extravagant lifestyles as established figures,” Lamichhane told Al Jazeera.

That is why protesters are demanding the formation of a special investigation commission to “thoroughly investigate the sources of their [politicians’] property, highlighting broader concerns about corruption and economic disparity in the country”, he said.

Nepal has traditionally been a deeply feudal society, with a monarchy in place until less than two decades ago, pointed out Dipesh Karki, an assistant professor at Kathmandu University’s School of Management.

Throughout the country’s history, “those who came into power have wielded their control over the resources and the wealth of the nation, resulting in what we can dub as an elite capture”, Karki told Al Jazeera.

Earlier this week, a video on TikTok showed images of Sayuj Parajuli, the son of former Nepali Supreme Court Chief Justice Gopal Parajuli, posing next to cars and in fancy restaurants. “Openly flexing luxury cars and watches on social media. Aren’t we tired of them by now?” the caption read.

Another video showed similar images of Saugat Thapa, son of Bindu Kumar Thapa, the law and parliamentary affairs minister in Oli’s government.

Karki said urban wealth and businesses, as well as educational opportunities, are largely concentrated among elite families, particularly those with political connections.

“The children of politicians are living off the political dividend.”

How unequal is Nepal?

Nepal’s per capita annual income of approximately $1,400 is the lowest in South Asia. Its poverty rate has consistently hovered over 20 percent in recent years.

The country’s youth unemployment has been a big challenge, while the percentage of unemployed Nepali youth also not pursuing education stood at 32.6 percent in 2024, compared with 23.5 percent for neighbouring India, according to World Bank data.

As a result, about 7.5 percent of the country’s population was living abroad in 2021. By comparison, about 1 percent of Indians live outside their country. In 2022, about 3.2 percent of Pakistan’s population was abroad.

Nepal’s economy heavily relies on remittances from its citizens working abroad. “It’s really a harsh reality that most of the poor are outside Nepal, sending remittances to Nepal,” Karki said.

As of 2024, personal remittances received comprised 33.1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) — among the highest in the world, after Tonga, for which the percentage was 50 percent; Tajikistan at 47.9 percent; and Lebanon at 33.3 percent.

For India, this percentage was 3.5 percent and for Pakistan, 9.4 percent, in the same year.

Karki said land ownership remains unequal despite land reform efforts. “The top 10 percent of households own over 40 percent of land, while a large share of the rural poor are landless or we can say near landless.”

At least 60 people have been killed while attending a funeral in the conflict-ridden eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in an ISIL (ISIS)-affiliated group attack carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), officials said.

“The ADF attack caused around 60 deaths, but the final toll will be given later this evening because the territory has just deployed services to the area to count the number of beheaded people,” Col Alain Kiwewa, local administrator of the Lubero territory in Ntoyo, North Kivu, where the attack took place, told The Associated Press news agency on Tuesday.

Macaire Sivikunula, another local administrator, said the victims were “caught off guard at a mourning ceremony” Monday night, and that the majority of them were “killed with machetes” while others were shot.

The mineral-rich Kivu region has been a flashpoint for months as the DRC and allied groups have been battling the Rwanda-backed M23 group, and has dozens of armed groups operating there. ADF has taken advantage of the volatile security situation to expand its operations.

ADF has carried out a series of deadly attacks this year. At the end of July, it attacked a Catholic church, killing more than 40 people and kidnapping between 12 and 14.

In another attack in August, the rebel group killed 52 people, carrying out “kidnappings, looting, the burning of houses, vehicles, and motorcycles, as well as the destruction of property”, according to the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed there.

Gross rights violations, possibly including war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia and the Congolese military and its affiliates in eastern DRC, UN investigators said last week.

A fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Office said on Friday that it has determined that all sides in the devastating conflict had committed abuses since late 2024, including summary executions and rampant sexual violence in the provinces of North and South Kivu.

The ADF group is believed to be made up of about 1,000 to 1,500 members, according to UN experts, and includes foreign fighters who rely on light arms, machetes, mortars and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to carry out their attacks.

“They aren’t strong enough to hold territory, but they are strong enough to survive,” Stig Jarle Hansen, an expert on al-Qaeda and ISIL in Africa, told Al Jazeera.

As a result, to evade detection by the DRC’s authorities and neighbouring Uganda, which has been fighting the group, too, they “tend to be mobile” and enter villages to “carry out attacks for recruits and to establish their dominance”, Hansen added.

“They take children after these mass casualty attacks, through forced recruitment.”

ADF emerged in the 1990s during internecine disputes within Uganda’s Muslim community, initially known as the Ugandan Muslim Freedom Fighters. The group wanted to overthrow the Ugandan government, but was pushed back into the DRC.

It remained in the DRC’s rural areas near the Ugandan border until a change of leadership. The group’s founder, Jamil Mukulu, was arrested in Tanzania in 2015, and replaced by Musa Seka Baluku, who tied the ADF’s fate to ISIL in 2017 when he pledged allegiance.

In 2019, it was recognised as part of the group, becoming one half of the Central Africa Province, the other being in Mozambique. The United States designated it a terror organisation in 2021.

China’s state-led investment in clean energy is now the main determining factor in how quickly the world decarbonises, according to a report by London-based think tank Ember.

“Within China there is a realisation that the old development paradigm centred on fossil fuels has run its course, and is not fit for 21st century realities,” says the report, published on Tuesday. “The government’s aim to establish an ‘ecological civilisation,’ which simultaneously delivers on economic, social and environmental goals, is the response, embedded in the Constitution since 2018.”

China produces 60 percent of global wind turbines and 80 percent of global solar panels, driving cost reductions for everyone else, Ember’s Sam Butler-Sloss told Al Jazeera.

“Since 2010, the cost of solar modules has come down over 90 percent … and China has been responsible for three quarters of the cumulative solar manufacturing in that period,” she said.

“Now, we’re at a point where solar modules are sub-10 cents per watt. Batteries are coming in at sub-$70 per kilowatt hour. And this is enough … to profoundly change the economics of energy around the world.”

China’s decisions were partly driven by economic realities, according to the report.

Its vast manufacturing industry consumes energy, much of which it imports in the form of oil and gas. China sought to remain competitive and energy-secure by becoming autonomous.

That brought a powerful added benefit. Beijing has financed a domestic market for electric technologies and invested in a growing patent gap with the rest of the world.

In 2020, it was responsible for 5 percent of global energy patent applications. That figure is now 75 percent.

In bringing about this transformation, it is becoming the hub of a global market supply chain.

“Today, in solar and batteries, China’s manufacturing capacity is greater than global demand,” said Butler-Sloss. Unlike China’s overinvestment in real estate in the last decade, which harmed parts of its financial system, she believes this bet is a winner because batteries and solar panels can be exported.

“You get some people using language, like oversupply. I think the uptake market is more dynamic and responsive, and we’re seeing that oversupply meets these emerging markets,” she said.

China yet to tackle greenhouse gas emissions

China helped ensure this uptake by investing beyond its borders.

“Chinese battery and [electric vehicle] firms have invested about $80bn in facilities in emerging markets and around the world. And this is the technology, know-how, and the finance to build up these industries … in different countries,” she said.

Last year, China invested almost a third of the global total in renewable energy capacity – $625bn, while Europe invested $426bn and the US $409bn. Its return was triple the investment.

China’s clean energy sector – led by the “new three” industries of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles – expanded three times faster than the rest of the economy, adding $1.9 trillion to China’s output.

The US and Europe have watched on with alarm because China’s state-subsidised industries have undercut everyone else’s.

When dedicating hundreds of billions of dollars to the rollout of solar and wind energy in his Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden, the former US president, marked that money strictly for investments on US soil.

Even so, said Ember’s lead on the report, Biden was still benefitting from Beijing because its investment stimulated other countries to develop.

“If China had not made these investments, then where would we be now?” said editor Richard Black. “Would we have seen the same scale of investments in any particular country or region?”

“My own personal opinion is probably that we wouldn’t have done,” Black said. “The Chinese government, in collaboration with the major companies, realised some time ago that there was going to be an enormous export market here and invested accordingly in a strategic way, bringing together deployment policies … manufacturing policies and export policies. And I’ve never really seen any other country trying to do that.”

Europe remains competitive on some metrics. For example, whereas electricity accounts for a third of China’s energy mix versus one-quarter in Europe, Europe’s electricity is cleaner, with three in 10 gigawatts coming from renewables, compared with China’s two in every 10.

And for all its investment, China has yet to show a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, which is, after all, the main objective of the energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency, emissions from the European Union and the US have been falling since the turn of the century.