The UNSC session on the recent three day Gaza war has now started. Egypt, Jordan and a representative of Palestine are attending as observers. UN Envoy Tor Wennesland @twennesland is now briefing.
Israel is representing itself in the meeting. Earlier the Israel's UN Ambassador @IsraelinUN held a standup meeting addressing media. He did not take questions. He said he would take media questions after today's session.
The Permanent Representative for the State of Palestine is opening the session with a searing address. He thanked several countries at the outset for supporting an appeal to allow Palesinte to brief - they included UNSC members China ,Ireland and the UAE (1 more I missed).
Israel's UN Ambassador (@IsraelinUN ) Gilad Erdan began his statement by saying that the UNSC would be left with an indelible "stain" if it did not hold Palestine responsible for the recent events. #GazaUnderAttack
Egypt and the UAE followed. Then P5 member France which delivered a short anodyne contribution.
This may set the tone for US and UK contributions. Norway is talking now making sense. Also short. Now Ireland which along with UAE called for the emergency meeting.
The Ambassador says 80% of children in Gaxa 800,000 of 1 million are in need of psychosocial assistance to deal with the constant attacks on their home.
. @USAmbUN@LindaT_G’s statement is surprisingly moderate in tone - but unsurprisingly repeats Israeli talking points condemning Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PIJ missiles killing Gazan children and accusing Gaza of delaying implementation of the ceasefire.
Mexico’s Ambassador calls for an investigation and the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. He also condemns military actions on both sides, accusing Israel of breaking rules of proportionality and distinction in their bombing, as well as PIJ for its rocket fire.
Ghana says that the council should reintegrate the tracks for the ME peace process without delay.
Russia thanks regional states and the UN for assistance with a quick ceasefire and also seeks a resumption of peace talks to resolve the conflict within the Quartet.
Rejects un-cooperative approach of US to resuming quartet activity.
Albania as usual makes a useful and articulate intervention, condemning the conflict actors on both sides. “There is no alternative to negotiations.” The, solution, he says, come through hard work, dedication and trust.
India thanks those who brokered the peace and calls for peace negotiations to resume.
Similarly Gabon wants negotiations. The UK thanks the UAE. Reaffirms support for Israel’s rights to defend itself. Calls for an investigation of what happened and reaffirms it’s support for a 2 state solution on 1967 borders.
Kenya says most of the same things.
China as President closes the meeting, he says the situation is heart breaking, he addresses the disproportionality of the attacks, condemns the killing of children and calls for the lifting of the seige of Gaza.
His statement is fairly long, and much more nuanced and activist than any of the other P5. He calls for a comprehensive just and fast conclusion to the conflict.
Jordan speaks on behalf of the Arab Group. He expresses concerns about the situation in the Holy Sites in Jerusalem and supports the call for an investigation into Israel’s attacks. “Peace will never be secured by settlements,” he says & condemns violations of the Aqsa Mosque.
In summary the usual - but for the impassioned statement made by the Palestinian representative at the beginning of the meeting - which is likely to receive the bulk of media coverage as a result.
THREAD: Some thoughts on October 7th and the importance of their being global transparency over what we know about what really happened on that terrible day.
1/ This (see screenshots in the first few posts in this thread) is one of the most important pieces of conflict related journalism published in recent years.
It relates to the orders given to soldiers on October 7th to fire on any vehicle seeking to return to the Gaza Strip to prevent the taking of hostages and was published on July 7th, 10 months later in Haaretz.
2/ As @IsraeliPM Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address congress it is vital that the public in the US, Israel and globally is fully aware of what exactly happened on October 7th in Gaza.
3/ The account in this story published by Haaretz is at this time still behind a paywall and it has therefore not been read by the very large number of people who ought to have done so. I have not seen very many reports containing the detail of this report elsewhere though I presume there are many.
OK so clearly #HurricaneBeryl is not the same as #HurricaneHarvey. But there are some striking similarities in terms of what has made it so much more persistent than either forecast or as modeled.
This thread is going to look at this issue a bit more deeply.
- The overall cloud mass of the #HurricaneBeryl thunderstorm complex proved much more resilient than expected once it came over land. Why?
- Also Like #Harvey Beryl did slow down after making landfall and continued to spin over land. Why?
- I think the answer to both questions relates to the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Like Harvey back in 2017, Beryl has been fueled by a constant stream of warm wet atmospheric flows of energy off of the Gulf of Mexico.
- This is obvious in part simply from observing the astonishing expansion of the cloud field after #Beryl made landfall early this morning.
A clue to understanding this can be found in looking at the the astonishing growth progression of #HurricaneBeryl's cloud field over landafter Beryl strengthened and formed itself into a Hurricane in the period after making landfall south of Houston.
Over the course of the rest of the morning you can see in these images how much the wind field expanded.
Like Harvey #Beryl also grew and strengthened itself by feeding off of the gulf of mexico, specifically the area between the Texas coastline and what looks like the outer boundary of the convection field which expanded extremely strongly to the north.
The only source for all this additional atmospheric moisture can be the oceanic convection which took place in what is a fairly clearly bounded 136,000 km2 area of ocean which as you can see in this animation is very closely bound to the rest of the circulation.
This is a much much larger area than the area of active rainfall which settled over the city and metropolis of Houston for the morning and which is finally starting to move off to the north now.
This version of the graphic shows the comparative sizes of the area of water which is responsible for the astonitising growth of post landfall #HurricaneBeryl - and the area of the storm that remained over the ocean and which is almost certainly responsible for both why this storm was so persistent and why it (like Harvey) slowed down after coming ashore.
#HurricaneBerylis not expected to give up lightly as it moves onshore and turns north eastward over Texas and then heads north east across the great planes towards the great lakes.
Typically we expect hurricanes to weaken rapidly over land - especially wind wise. But #Berylis not forecast to behave as normal - probably because like Harvey, its tail over the Gulf is keeping it fueled. - the currently forecast pattern from Fox News's exclusive model shown in these images was present in some of the simulations of Beryl after it crossed the Yucutan a couple of days ago.
To my mind questions ought to be asked about the accuracy of the forecasting for this storm, as - like the last super destructive Texas Hurricane, Harvey in 2017 [] Beryl is proving to be a LOT more destructive in its impacts than initially forecast.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane…
The final image in this sequence of screenshots of Fox Weather Graphics is worth drawing attention to as it shows how much broader the impacts of this hurricane are expected to be as it moves across the great planes roughly speaking heading up the Mississippi river, and continuing to dump potential flooding rain as it goes.
This image shows the forecast expected severe weather threat from the remnants of #HurricaneBeryl in Arkansas and Missouri up as far as Saint Louis.
ALERT: High Target News Environment in play - numerous consequential news events with global implications.
1. British elections - (Thursday July 4th-Friday July 5th): Delivering an unprecedented landslide win to the left's @UKLabour Party + strong showings for the Liberals and Greens . The UK Chancellor @RachelReevesMP will shortly set out her economic policy in a speech.
2. French elections (Sunday July 7th) deliver a remarkable 2nd big win for the left in politics in France - dashing the hopes of Marine le Pen's hard right wing "Rassemblement National" of first parliamentary victory
3. Overnight (7th-8th July): an unprecedented huge Hurricane , #Hurricane Beryl - makes landfall in Houston as a Category 1 Hurricane, its main threat to the epicenter of the global fossil fuel industry will be flooding. It is still night in Houston at present.
Hmmmmmm…. Why is the audio of the @youtube version of the UNSG office daily briefing for 1st July missing sound from 5:24 to 6:07?
Afghanistan, Lebanon, Myanmar & other topics - Daily Press Briefing (1 J... via @YouTube
The content of this portion is available as it is simply a quote from written remarks of UNSG @antonioguterres made to a meeting in Austria. But the missing YouTube audio is unprecedented in my experience and hard to explain.