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Global Leaders Converge in New York for the UN General Assembly

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World leaders arrive in New York for UN General Assembly
The week's events are expected to be dominated by discussion of the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza [file image]

New York in a Tangle of Flags: The UN’s 80th Session Begins

The United Nations headquarters—its façade a mosaic of flags and a century of promises—has the electric hum of a city bracing for a storm. It is High-Level Week in New York, and diplomats pour into the glinting towers around the East River like a current that can’t be stopped: prime ministers, foreign ministers, civil society leaders, and—for a country the size of Ireland—an unmistakable, earnest delegation led by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris.

The world arrives in suits and scarves, in fatigues and embroidered shawls, with briefcases and petitions. Street vendors outside Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza sell coffee and falafel to late-night aides. Taxi drivers idly point at the white UN tower and say, “So many flags—someone’s always declaring something.” But this week the announcements feel heavier than the crisp breeze off the East River. War, recognition, and protocol are colliding under the same roof.

Airspace and Alarms: The Ukraine Conflict Takes Center Stage

On the first morning, the Security Council convened to discuss a jarring escalation: Russian fighter jets alleged to have violated Estonian airspace. That incursion, whether intended as intimidation or miscalculated bluster, has thrust the war in Ukraine back to the top of the global agenda.

“When a nation’s airspace is punctured, so is the sense of order that keeps smaller states secure,” said an Estonian diplomat as he stepped into the glassy atrium, buttoning his coat. “This isn’t just about borders on a map—it’s about trust.”

The Baltic states have long been on edge; NATO patrols and air policing missions are practically routine now. Still, the news of fighter jets over Estonia sharpened the tone in the council chamber. Short, tense exchanges followed—language about sovereignty, about deterrence, about the cost of complacency in an era of aerial brinksmanship.

Palestine and the Pivot of Recognition

If the Security Council debate sounded like one war’s long echo, an afternoon conference on the Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution felt like a different kind of reckoning: diplomatic recognition as both instrument and indictment.

Several European nations—including France, Belgium, Malta and Luxembourg—were set to move, formally recognizing the State of Palestine. Their decisions were part of a cascade, coming on the heels of declarations from the UK, Canada, Australia and Portugal just the day before.

“It is a moment of conscience for many countries,” an EU envoy told me in the corridor. “For some, recognition is a lever to push back toward negotiations; for others, it’s a moral correction. Either way, it’s a seismic diplomatic choice.”

Not everyone sees it that way. The United States and Israel have been blunt: they oppose these recognitions, arguing that they risk rewarding violence and undercutting prospects for direct negotiations. The blunt term being used by some Western officials—“a reward for terror”—echoed in the media rooms and on talk shows across the weekend.

Complicating matters further, the US State Department denied visas to a number of Palestinian delegates planning to travel to New York, citing national security reasons. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, therefore addressed the conference via a pre-recorded video rather than in person—his voice traveling from Ramallah to every screen in the assembly chamber, the words arriving with the weight and distance of digital diplomacy.

Voices on the Ground: Protest, Prayer, and Quiet Heartbreak

Outside the UN, voices multiplied. On one corner a handful of protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted for sovereignty. Across the street, students from a Brooklyn campus held a candlelight vigil for civilians in Gaza. A Palestinian grocer in Long Island, who asked only to be called Samir, wiped his hands on his apron and said, “Recognition is not an end. It’s a piece of dignity. But will it change the lives of the families I know? I hope so, but I fear it will be just the start of more arguments.”

At the Irish consulate, an aide spoke on condition of anonymity about strategy and solidarity. “Ireland has a history of championing self-determination,” she said. “This week is not about theatrics; it’s about where we stand when people’s futures are being negotiated elsewhere.”

On arrival in New York, Tánaiste Simon Harris delivered words that landed with discernible anger in the press scrum: he called it “outrageous” that the Palestinian Authority were not allowed to attend and warned that the visa denials set an “extraordinarily dangerous precedent.” Those words reverberated beyond the Irish delegation; they were picked up by NGOs and human rights commentators who see access to international forums as fundamental to representation.

Who’s Recognized Palestine—and Why It Matters

The question of recognition is both legal and symbolic. Roughly 193 UN member states exist, and by some counts more than 130 of them have already recognized the State of Palestine in some form. Recognition does not automatically redraw borders. But it does confer diplomatic standing, open doors at international bodies, and change the politics of negotiation.

One Middle East analyst in the green room summarized it plainly: “Recognition is a lever. It changes incentives. Whether it leads to peace or polarization depends on how wisely it’s used—and how willing parties are to come back to the negotiating table.”

After the Speeches: What Comes Next?

Diplomacy is often a slow-brewing tea rather than a flash of lightning. This week’s moves are no different: they will be dissected, litigated, and memorialized in press releases and angry columns. Some countries will celebrate; others will denounce. But beneath the headlines is a human calculus—families displaced, governments scrambling logistics and visas, and communities wondering whether the international system can still be a place for moral arbitration.

As you read this from wherever you are, ask yourself: what do we expect of global institutions in moments like this? Do we want them to be reactive—responding to crises only when they become too loud to ignore—or proactive, shaping the conditions for peace before violence erupts?

There are no easy answers. Yet on the pavements of New York, among the flags and the flurry, two things are clear: people want dignity, and nations are choosing whether to give it to them in formal ways. Whether that will make war less likely—or merely more complicated—remains the question the UN will wrestle with this week.

So we watch. We listen. We argue. And amid the bustle of diplomatic ritual, ordinary lives continue to tilt on the outcome.

Medics report 31 killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City

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Israeli strikes kill 31 people in Gaza City, medics say
Palestinian women are seen mourning relatives outside Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City

Gaza City: Walking through rubble, where a city and its stories are being erased

The morning felt like the end of a long winter. Smoke hung low over Gaza City, a gray ribbon that blurred concrete and sky, while the ordinary noises of neighborhood life — children’s voices, vendors’ calls, the distant hum of generators — slipped into the background like a forgotten refrain.

Then the buildings came down. Not in a slow, cinematic way, but as the sudden collapse of lives: entire apartment blocks imploded by explosions, balconies reduced to twisted rebar, rooms flattened into rubble. By Gazan health authorities’ count, at least 31 people were killed in a series of residential strikes that flattened several buildings. Among the dead were a pregnant woman and her two small children.

Faces in the dust

“We dug with our hands until they told us to stop,” Mosallam Al-Hadad told me, eyes rimmed in red, his voice breaking more from incredulity than grief. “My son is still under the sheets of his own home, but the rest — the mother, the young ones, the child in her belly — all gone. You can’t say this is war without the word murder following it.”

His son, he said, survived but with a wounded body: rushed to hospital, his leg amputated. Around them, relatives sifted through concrete and clothes, folding shirts coated in dust as if the act could make sense of what they were losing.

A bicycle wheel clattered against cracked pavement as a man edged past collapsed staircases toward a line of displaced families. Nearby, women with pots and pans queued for soup handed out by charities; the air smelled of coffee, diesel, and the cigarette tang of too much fear.

The offensive widens — and so does the displacement

Israel’s tanks have pressed deeper into Gaza City, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, from the densely packed lanes of Tel al-Hawa toward the western districts. Witnesses describe a choreography of armored vehicles and infantry moving through streets that were never designed for such machinery.

“There’s nowhere safe here,” said Amal Rashid, a teacher who fled with her two daughters. “Shelters are full. We move and move and someone always tells us to move farther. My eldest keeps asking when we will go home. I don’t have an answer.”

The scale of displacement is staggering. The Israeli military estimates more than 450,000 people have left Gaza City since early September. Hamas disputes that count, saying just under 300,000 have left and estimating roughly 900,000 people still remain. For a territory of roughly 2.3 million inhabitants, these are movements on a scale that define an emergency.

Numbers on the ground — contested and tragic

Beyond displacement, the human toll is further clarified in competing tallies: Israeli officials say 1,200 people were killed in the attacks of 7 October 2023 and that 251 were taken hostage. Gazan health authorities, meanwhile, report more than 65,000 Palestinians killed during the two-year-long campaign, with most victims described as civilians. Independent verification in many cases remains difficult because humanitarian access is severely restricted.

And the violence is not one-directional. In southern Israel, sirens again sounded when rockets were fired from Gaza; one intercepted by defensive systems, another landing in open ground. No casualties were reported there, but the echo of danger crosses both skies and borders.

Voices of protest, voices of despair

Back in Jerusalem, thousands gathered outside the prime minister’s residence late into the night. The crowd was a patchwork of grief and anger: relatives of those taken hostage, veterans, and young people demanding a different path. “We can’t keep losing our people and hope the answer is only more war,” said Michel Illouz, whose son was kidnapped. “We want a deal. We want them back.”

Such scenes underline one of the war’s bitter ironies: a territory pulverized by conflict simultaneously produces relentless domestic pressure to bring hostages home and to end the fighting. The politics is intimate and raw; the stakes are human and immediate.

Global ripples

The offensive has drawn sharp rebukes abroad. Some Western governments have signalled moves to formally recognise Palestinian statehood — a diplomatic earthquake timed ahead of the UN General Assembly. Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, was reported to be preparing such a recognition, a break from long-standing policy that illustrates how the war is reshaping alliances and prompting re-evaluations of long-held positions.

“Politics often lags behind suffering,” said Dr. Laila Nasser, an international law scholar in Beirut. “But once it catches up, the decisions — recognition, sanctions, humanitarian corridors — reflect a new calculus about responsibility and moral urgency.”

What’s needed now

The city’s immediate needs are brutally simple and painfully vast: shelter, surgical care, clean water, electricity for life-saving equipment, and safe passage for civilians and aid. Yet logistics are hampered by the fighting: roads are impassable, hospitals are overwhelmed, and aid convoys face delays and denials.

  • Clean water and sanitation — to prevent disease in crowded shelters
  • Medical supplies and staff — for trauma care and maternal health
  • Food and fuel — for generators and cooking
  • Safe corridors — to allow the wounded and non-combatants to evacuate

“About 70% of Gaza’s medical infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed in some areas,” said a humanitarian coordinator who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely. “When a pregnant woman’s house is hit — and she dies with a child in her belly — you feel the fault line in our collective conscience.”

Why this matters to you

It’s easy, from a distance, to reduce this to numbers and headlines. But each statistic is a household, a schoolroom, a story. When a child whispers, “When will we go home?” they are asking for something every human understands: a life not suspended by fear.

What does accountability look like in urban warfare? How do international laws meant to protect civilians stand up against the logic of artillery and armored advance? And as global capitals reassess their relationships with Israel and the Palestinians, what protections will be secured for ordinary people caught between geopolitics and rubble?

These are not abstract questions. They are the questions a father asks as he wraps a blanket around a toddler on the side of a road; the questions a nurse asks as she counts the empty beds where patients once lay. They are the questions the world must answer — not in press releases, but in concrete, sustained action.

As the sun set over the wounded city, people gathered around small fires and shared what little they had. They traded stories more than goods — names, memories, instructions for keeping safe. The city’s outline is changing, but its human core endures. For now, that core is fragile, loud, and urgently in need.

UK, Canada iyo Australia ayaa si rasmi ah u aqoonsaday dawladnimada Falastiin

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Sep 22 (Jowhar)-Marka khariidaddu is beddesho: Ingiriiska, Kanada iyo kuwa kale waxay aqoonsadaan dawlad falastiiniyiin ah duniduna neefta wayn aya ka fuqday.

Trump to lead tributes at memorial honoring activist Kirk

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Trump to lead tributes at memorial for activist Kirk
Attendees await the start of the memorial service for political activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona

In a Stadium of Flags and Fractures

Before the sun had climbed over the Sonoran flatlands, a human tide had already begun to press against the gates of State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

Lines snaked through parking lots still slick with dew. Men and women in red caps, teenagers with matching scarves, older couples with small American flags tucked into their jackets—each person carried a private story of why they had come to remember Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative organizer who was shot on 10 September while speaking at a university in Utah.

“We wanted to be here from the beginning,” said Asha Ramirez, a college sophomore who drove three hours with friends wearing the navy polo of Turning Point USA. “This isn’t just politics for us. It’s community. It’s the only place I can talk about my beliefs without being shouted down.”

On the tarmac as he left the White House, President Donald Trump framed the gathering in unmistakably personal terms. “To celebrate the life of a great man. Really a great man,” he told reporters. “Will be a very interesting day. A very tough day.”

What a Memorial Became

The planned program reads like a who’s who of the current political right: Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and members of Mr. Kirk’s inner circle, including his widow, Erika Kirk, who will assume leadership of Turning Point USA.

  • Venue capacity: roughly 63,000 seats.
  • Age of the slain: 31.
  • Suspect: a 22-year-old arrested after a 33-hour manhunt; prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty.

For many attendees, the event is both elegy and rally—a place to grieve and to regroup. “I stood on the lawn and I cried,” said Harold Greene, a retired teacher from Mesa. “Then I looked around and saw thousands of people. I thought: this is how you turn sorrow into resolve.”

Voices in the Crowd

Not everyone came in uniformity of thought. At the fringes of the stadium a small group of hands held up placards with messages of restraint: “Grief, not vengeance” and “Words Matter.” A woman in a worn hiking jacket, who declined to give her name, said she had come to bear witness to the energy of American youth—both the hope and the dangerous heat it can generate.

“We’re seeing the endgame of social media radicalization,” she said. “Kids follow influencers the way they used to follow rock stars.”

A Life Amplified by Screens

Charlie Kirk was, by any measure, a product of the digital age. He built Turning Point USA into a national brand by courting campuses, podcasts, and the algorithms of social media, reaching millions with a message that fused nationalist themes with a muscular religious conservatism. To supporters he was a voice for a generation alienated from the mainstream; to critics he had manufactured a culture of exclusion—particularly in his rhetoric about transgender people, Muslims, and other marginalized groups.

“He galvanized a huge number of people younger than 35,” observed a political analyst who requested anonymity. “That’s rare. That kind of reach can change elections. It can also concentrate anger.”

Violence, Responsibility, and the Language That Precedes It

Investigators say the alleged gunman, 22, told interrogators he was motivated by what he described as “hatred” stoked by Mr. Kirk’s rhetoric. The prosecutor’s intention to seek the death penalty marks the case as a crucible in the larger national debate over political violence and accountability.

“When public language becomes weaponized, it can license real-world harm,” said an expert in political violence from an advocacy think-tank. “We don’t draw a direct line from speech to act in every instance, but patterns matter. Leaders have an outsized duty to temper rhetoric when passions run hot.”

That idea is contested on the right. Even before a suspect was arrested, President Trump labeled Mr. Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom,” blaming what he called the “radical left” for creating an atmosphere of hostility. The White House has since announced plans to intensify its crackdown on what it terms “domestic terrorism” by left-wing actors, including a threatened designation of “Antifa” as a terrorist organization—an escalation likely to draw both legal and political fire.

Across the Lines: Fear of Censorship and Free Speech

The fallout has reached into media rooms as well. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was briefly pulled from the air after sharp comments about the killing prompted government threats to revoke broadcasting licenses—an episode that critics say smells of prior restraint and political intimidation.

“Silencing critics—whether by pressure on networks, broadcasters, or social platforms—won’t heal the wounds,” said a civil liberties attorney who studies freedom of expression. “It will only create martyrs and deepen mistrust.”

How This Resonates Beyond One Funeral

What happens in and around State Farm Stadium is not merely a localized expression of grief. It’s a snapshot of a broader, global trend: polarization amplified by digital echo chambers, charismatic influencers who reframe civic debate, and a political class that often uses symbolic events to consolidate power.

Across democracies, from Europe to Latin America, scholars trace a familiar pattern—outsized online followings translating into outsized political influence, followed sometimes by cycles of scapegoating and violence. The U.S. is not unique, but as the world’s most visible democracy, its internal storms are watched closely elsewhere.

“How do you keep a democracy healthy when every disagreement feels existential?” asks Dr. Laila Ben-Ari, a researcher who studies political polarization. “It requires institutions, norms, and leaders willing to absorb rather than inflame differences.”

Questions That Remain

Will the memorial soothe or further harden divisions? Can policy responses to political violence avoid becoming a tool for silencing dissent? Will social platforms take meaningful steps to curb dehumanizing rhetoric without trampling legitimate speech?

“We need less performance and more prevention,” said a grassroots organizer in Phoenix. “We need schools teaching media literacy, communities building real cross-ideological relationships, and leaders who model restraint.”

The Quiet After the Chanting

When the speeches conclude and the stadium lights dim, the instant replay headlines and social clips will keep the event alive across feeds and chambers of Congress. For now, the thousand small human acts—the folding of a flag, the wiping of a tear, the handshake at a gate—are what remain most real.

As you read this, consider: what does it mean to mourn in an age where grief is both national spectacle and political capital? And how do societies reconcile the deep desire to honor the dead with the desperate need to ensure no more die for the words they hear?

Outside the stadium, under a vast sky now brushed with Arizona sun, the crowd thins. Voices linger in the air—some hopeful, some furious, some weary. The country, it seems, will be sifting through these voices for a long while.

Saddex arrin oo ka dhashay ka qeyb galkii madaxweyne Xasan ee biyo xireenka Itoobiya

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Sep 21(Jowhar)-Saddex Qodob ayaa Ka Soo Baxay Ka-Qaybgalka Madaxweyne Xasan ee Furitaanka Biyo-xireenka Itoobiya.

UK, Canada and Australia formally recognise Palestinian statehood

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When the map shifts: Britain, Canada and others recognise a Palestinian state — and the world holds its breath

On a damp autumn morning in London, a crowd that had been chanting for months spilled into Parliament Square. They carried keffiyehs, placards rubbed raw by rain, the faces of children painted onto cardboard. Someone started beating a drum; everyone joined. For many there, the announcement from Downing Street felt less like a headline and more like the weather finally changing.

“Today, to revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis, and a two-state solution, the United Kingdom formally recognises the State of Palestine,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared — a sentence that ricocheted from TV screens in Westminster to refugee camps in the West Bank and alleyways in Gaza.

This was not a single-country decision. Within hours Canada echoed the move. Australia, Portugal and other states signalled they would do the same as the UN General Assembly convened. France and several European capitals were reported to be weighing similar steps. For the first time in decades, powerful Western democracies—the UK and Canada among them—have altered the long-held diplomatic posture that recognised Palestinian statehood only as an outcome of future negotiations.

What this means on the ground

For Palestinians, this is a moment heavy with history and hope. “Recognition is not symbolic,” said Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, the Palestinian foreign minister, in a statement last week. “It sends a clear message to Israelis on their illusions of continuing occupation forever.”

And yet, as local leaders and international lawyers remind us, recognition alone will not fill empty stomachs or open doors for captives taken in conflict. “Will this feed children? No,” Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told the BBC in recent weeks. “Will this free hostages? That must be down to a ceasefire.”

Those caveats matter. Gaza has borne the brunt of a devastating campaign that international agencies say has produced a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Official tallies cited in recent reporting put the death toll from the October 2023 Hamas attack at around 1,219, while Gazan authorities report at least 65,208 Palestinians killed in the subsequent Israeli offensive — figures that have shocked the conscience of many around the world and spurred unprecedented street demonstrations.

Why the move is seismic

Recognition by Britain and Canada — both members of the G7 — breaks a diplomatic logjam. Around three-quarters of UN member states already recognise Palestinian statehood: more than 140 of 193 countries have given their blessing, particularly across Africa, Asia and Latin America. What changed now was a cluster of traditionally pro-Israel Western powers deciding that continued military operations without a political horizon can no longer be the status quo.

“This is a calibration,” says Dr Miriam Adler, a Middle East historian at the University of Toronto. “It’s both symbolic and strategic. Symbolic because it publicly affirms Palestinian national identity. Strategic because it reopens a political lane that had been narrowed to near closure.”

But symbolism is never just symbolism. Bilateral recognition can unlock possibilities: membership in international organisations, accession to treaties, and a stronger legal standing in international courts. It can influence aid flows, peace talks and the balance at the UN. It can also complicate the path to a negotiated two-state solution, creating friction points with allies who believe only direct negotiation can produce lasting peace.

Voices from the street and the home

In Ramallah, an elderly shopkeeper named Ahmad al-Quds watched the news feed on a tiny television. “We have waited my whole life,” he told me. “Recognition is a window. Let them not close it with words.” Nearby, a teacher, Laila, said, “My students ask me if the world finally sees them. Today I can say yes, but tomorrow we must build schools, not just form letters on paper.”

In Tel Aviv, reactions were raw and immediate. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the recognitions “a dangerous step” and vowed to oppose the motion at the UN General Assembly. “Calls for a Palestinian state would endanger our existence and serve as an absurd reward for terrorism,” he said. Among Israelis I spoke with on a phone-in program, many voiced fear and anger; others, quietly, admitted a complex weariness with a conflict that has cost both societies dearly.

“We are exhausted by the cycles of attack and reprisal,” said Yael Cohen, a social worker in Haifa. “Recognition doesn’t change that overnight, but it changes the conversation.”

Public pressure and political calculation

Domestic politics helped drive the decision. In the UK thousands march monthly; a YouGov poll released this week found two-thirds of Britons aged 18–25 support Palestinian statehood. “Leaders feel the temperature of public opinion,” noted Tomás Herrera, a London-based political analyst. “When youth and civil society move decisively, democracies respond.”

There is also a historical symmetry. Britain, which played a central role in the early 20th-century politics of Palestine through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, now finds itself making a 21st-century decision that speaks to the unfinished business of the mandate era. For many in Britain, that historical tie brings responsibility — and controversy.

Global ripples and difficult questions

How the United States reacts will be decisive. Washington remains a crucial player; its stance at the UN Security Council and its financial support for Israel are levers that shape outcomes. So far, the White House has signalled unease with unilateral recognition outside a negotiated framework.

But we must ask: if not now, when? If recognition does not end wars or solve blockades, can it at least reshape incentives? Can it tilt negotiations toward meaningful guarantees for security, human rights and sovereignty?

Professor Omar Haddad, an international law expert, argues that state recognition is a tool, not a panacea. “It can empower Palestinian institutions to claim rights and responsibilities internationally,” he says. “But without sustained diplomacy and security arrangements, it risks becoming a symbolic gesture that intensifies confrontation.”

And there is the human measure. In Gaza, a mother of three I spoke with over a crackling phone line said simply, “We want our children to learn, to dance, to sleep without sirens. Recognition is a start, but what we really need are homes and hospitals.” Her voice, tired but steady, echoed a truth that can be lost in summits and press conferences: states and symbols matter, but human security must be the measure of success.

Where do we go from here?

As the UN General Assembly opens, diplomats will argue and alliances will reconfigure. Some countries may follow Britain and Canada; others will double down on past positions. The clash between moral urgency and geopolitical calculation will play out not only in New York but in classrooms, clinics and neighbourhoods on both sides of the divide.

What should you take from this moment? That maps change — sometimes in ways that unsettle, sometimes in ways that heal. That recognition alone will not cure grief or erase fear. But it does shift narratives, and narratives shape policy.

So, what do you think? Is recognition a lever toward peace, or an opening act in a new set of conflicts? And most importantly: how do we ensure that diplomatic moves translate into food on the table, medicine for the sick, and safety for children who have already lost too much?

Mareykanka oo duqeymo culus Daacish kula beegsaday togga Baalade

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Sep 21(Jowhar)-Mareykanka ayaa maanta labo duqayn ka fuliyey togga Baalade ee gobolka Bari, kuwaas oo lagu bartilmaameedsaday kooxda IS, sida ay xaqiijisay Puntland.

34 Palestinians killed as Hamas posts hostage images online

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34 Palestinians killed, Hamas shares hostage images
Israel has attacked and levelled up to 20 high-rise towers in Gaza

A City Remapped by Rubble: Walking Through Gaza’s New Geography

Dust hangs in the air like a second sky. You can taste it—metallic and bitter—after the blast waves that have been reshaping Gaza City into a skyline of absences: empty foundations, sheared façades, the ghostly skeletons where high-rise apartments once housed families, shops and the ordinary bustle of daily life.

“My building was the place everyone met,” says Amal, a woman in her thirties I met near the cratered spine of Sheikh Radwan. “We used to argue over coffee, then we would watch the sunset from the roof. Now there’s nothing left to come back to.”

This week Israel intensified a campaign that has included the demolition of apartment towers and high-rise blocks across Gaza City—up to 20 tower blocks in recent weeks, Israeli military spokespeople say—while carrying out ground operations from positions in the eastern suburbs.

According to Gaza health authorities, 34 people were killed in the most recent wave of attacks. The longer arc of the conflict has already left a staggering toll: more than 65,000 Palestinians dead in almost two years of fighting, health officials say. Homes, hospitals, and schools have been reduced to rubble; entire neighborhoods have been emptied as people flee or find themselves trapped.

Neighborhoods Under Fire

The military has been bombarding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas—zones that overlook or buffer central and western Gaza City, where most of the population has sought refuge. “They’re trying to break the city’s backbone,” an aid worker who has been operating in the area told me. “But the backbone is people, and people don’t just break neatly.”

Israel estimates some 350,000 Palestinians have fled attacks on Gaza City since the start of September. Yet another 600,000 remain—packed into what is left of the urban fabric, living in tents, partially destroyed apartment blocks, or temporary collective shelters.

Hostages, History and a Nation’s Pain

Amid the rubble and the human flood of displacement, another painful thread runs through the crisis: hostages. Of 251 people seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attacks on Israel, 47 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 25 of those are dead; Hamas disputes those figures and has released images that it says show the remaining captives.

“We put up photos so the world knows who is still there,” said a statement from the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades accompanying the images. In a move heavy with symbolism, the captions invoked the name of Ron Arad—the Israeli navigator missing since 1986 after his plane went down over Lebanon—tapping into a long national trauma in Israel where bringing home the lost is a sacred duty.

“When we think of Ron Arad, generations remember. This is how families keep hope alive or are forced to let it die,” one Israeli relatives’ rights campaigner explained. “That’s why photos have real weight here.”

Two Narratives, One City

Each side frames the crisis in arguments that feel irreconcilable. Israeli officials argue that military pressure is aimed at degrading Hamas’ capacity to launch attacks and that a surrender by Hamas could end the fighting. “Hamas could stop this now,” a military spokesman told journalists. “Disarm, release the hostages, and there would be no justification—no need—for this destructive operation.”

Hamas, for its part, has been emphatic. It says it will not disarm until a Palestinian state is established. “This is not just a tactical position,” a political analyst in Gaza noted. “It is a demand linked to the broader political question that has shadowed this land for decades.”

Recognition, Diplomacy and the Global Conversation

Against the backdrop of explosions and displacement, a diplomatic drumbeat resounded in New York: ten countries—including Australia, Belgium, Britain and Canada—had been scheduled to formally recognise an independent Palestinian state on a Monday before the annual leaders’ gathering at the UN General Assembly.

What does symbolic recognition change on the ground? It is tempting to think of a single act as a neat solution, but the reality is messier. Recognition can shift diplomatic leverage, open new legal pathways, and empower Palestinian demands in international forums. But it cannot instantly patch broken pipelines of food or rebuild a hospital ward.

“Recognition matters. It is about dignity and a claim to equal standing,” says Dr. Laila Mansour, a scholar of international law based in the region. “But those diplomatic moves must be matched with protections, aid corridors and pressure to limit civilian harm.”

Humanitarian Lines and Political Crossroads

UN agencies and relief organizations have repeatedly warned of famine conditions and collapsing services in Gaza. Israel has countered that the severity of the famine has been exaggerated. Independent access to verify conditions is often denied by security constraints—leaving aid workers to piece together a grim and incomplete picture from interviews, hospital records and satellite imagery.

“We are racing against a clock that keeps skipping minutes,” said a UN logistics coordinator who has helped organize convoys into Gaza. “Every delay, every closure of a route, is a renewal of risk—more lives teetering on the brink.”

Faces, Fragments and a Question for the Reader

On a narrow street where a bakery once fed half the block, a child pushes a toy car across a pile of shattered concrete. An old man, beard flecked with dust, sits on the remains of what was once a walled garden and recites a line of poetry as if it were a prayer. These are not statistics but stories: small, stubborn forms of life that persist amid ruin.

What does accountability look like when buildings become weapons and civilians become strategic calculations? How does a global community translate recognition and outrage into concrete safety for people who want nothing more than bread, shelter and the ability to bury their dead?

Perhaps the most human answer is also the most political: justice that is paired with protection, diplomacy that is paired with humanitarian corridors, and a recognition that neither walls of rubble nor hashtags will alone resolve the deeper questions driving this cycle of violence.

“We are tired of being a page in other people’s strategies,” Amal told me as we parted. “We just want to be people again—allowed to live, to love, to bury our children.”

As the world watches, acknowledges nations, exchanges statements and photographs of hostages circulate, Gaza is remapped every hour—by displacement, by demolition, and by the stubborn persistence of its people. The urgent challenge for policymakers, aid workers and citizens worldwide is to turn that watching into protection and those words into pathways toward a life beyond the rubble.

Eswatini oo ciidan nabad ilaalin ah usoo diraysa Soomaaliya

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Sep 21(Jowhar)-Boqortooyada Eswatini, ayaa 32 askari oo ka tirsan ciidanka booliska dalkaas usoo direysa Soomaaliya, iyagoo qeyb ka noqon doona Hawlgalka Nabad Ilaalinta iyo Xasilinta Soomaaliya (AUSSOM).

RW Xamsa ☓ukuumadda waxa ay dadal badan galisay tayeynta waxbarashada Dalka

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Sep 21(Jowhar)-Ra’iisul Wasaaraha Xukuumadda Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya, Mudane Xamsa Cabdi Barre, ayaa maanta dhagax-dhigay xarunta Wasaaradda Waxbarashada, Hiddaha iyo Tacliinta Sare, taasi oo laga hirgelinayo dhisme casri ah oo qeyb ka qaadan doona horumarinta adeegga Waxbarasho ee dalka.

Coalition of the Willing aims to force Putin to negotiate

International coalition seeks to compel Putin into peace negotiations

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A Royal Reception, a Red Carpet — and a Moment of Reckoning There are moments when diplomacy feels almost ceremonial: the clip-clop of horses, the...
Russian strikes on Ukraine kill at least two

Russian strikes in Ukraine leave at least two people dead

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Nightfall and Shrapnel: Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk After Another Round of Strikes When the first explosions rip through the hush of a Ukrainian night, the sound...
Alabama executes convicted murderer with nitrogen gas

Alabama carries out execution of convicted killer using nitrogen gas

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A Quiet Town, a Loud Decision: Alabama’s Latest Execution and the Questions It Leaves Behind In the late heat of an Alabama evening, the town...
Rubio seeks quick deployment of international Gaza force

Rubio pushes for swift deployment of multinational Gaza security force

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A warehouse, a truce and the weight of a war: Inside the fragile pause in Gaza There is an oddness to the place: a cavernous,...
Two Ukrainian journalists killed by Russian drone

Russian drone strike kills two Ukrainian journalists while reporting

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Under a Grey Kramatorsk Sky: Two Journalists Killed, a Community Shaken On a crisp, ordinary morning in Kramatorsk — a city of factories, bazaars and...