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Palestinian children are seen under dire humanitarian conditions despite the ceasefire signed with Israel in Khan Yunis, Palestine on April 03, 2026. [Doaa Albaz – Anadolu Agency]
On Palestinian Children’s Day, the reality for children in Gaza reflects a profound humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands growing up without parents amid ongoing war and devastation.
Recent data indicates that the number of orphans in the Gaza Strip has reached approximately 64,616 children, most of whom have lost one or both parents during the latest Israeli aggression. The figure underscores the scale of the social catastrophe affecting an entire generation and is expected to rise as the consequences of the war continue to unfold.
Before the war, the number of orphans in Gaza did not exceed 22,000, highlighting the unprecedented increase in a short period.
Amid ongoing destruction, children in Gaza face a daily reality marked by loss, displacement, and deprivation. In shelters and displacement camps, many are seen waiting in aid lines or sitting silently among the ruins of their homes, having lost the families that once provided stability and protection.
The crisis extends beyond immediate humanitarian needs, posing a long-term societal challenge that requires not only relief efforts but also sustained support to rebuild lives and communities.
For many children in Gaza, orphanhood is not only the loss of a parent, but also the loss of security, stability, and a sense of normal childhood, with lasting psychological and social consequences.
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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Cuban President and First Secretary Miguel Diaz-Canel is seen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025, and US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Mauro Pimentel and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House accused Cuba of supporting terrorist groups as the Trump administration cut off much of the island’s energy supply and threatened countries with tariffs if they continue to send Cuba oil.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday said the country is open to expanding “bilateral cooperation” with the US, following President Donald Trump’s comments that the White House is “going to make a deal with Cuba”—but diplomatic officials emphasized that they vehemently reject Trump’s recent accusations that they harbor terrorists and pose an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US.
“Cuba categorically declares that it does not harbor, support, finance, or permit terrorist or extremist organizations,” said the ministry.
The statement was released days after the White House issued an executive order to address what it called threats that Cuba poses to the US, threatening to impose new tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
Trump’s invasion of Venezuela—which had been the top energy supplier to Cuba—and his push to take control of the South American country’s oil has left Cuba’s economy struggling with a virtual energy blockade and rolling blackouts. The US has also been pressuring Mexico to stop supplying energy to the island nation, prompting fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Millersaid last month that the US has the right to take over any country if doing so furthers its interests, and said the Trump administration should “secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere.”
In the executive order last week, the president made sweeping accusations against Cuba, claiming that it provides support for countries including Russia and China—though the Trump administration has also sought improved relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—and offering no evidence for the allegation that it also supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Cuban storytelling platform Belly of the Beast called the accusation “laughable, if it weren’t so serious,” and spoke to some of the hundreds of Palestinian medical students who are studying to be doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine and other institutions.
“The vast majority of Palestinians in Cuba are medical students,” said Ihab Masri, who is studying there alongside students from about 100 other countries. “Trump is a person who says he stopped 10 or 12 wars… a person who not only justifies but also denies the genocide in Gaza that they commit and have committed. You can’t trust someone like that.”
In his attempt to block oil shipments to Cuba, Donald Trump now claims the country is a safe haven for Hamas and Hezbollah, without presenting any evidence. Cubans say it’s complete nonsense. The real story? Hundreds of Palestinian students training to be doctors in Havana. pic.twitter.com/3X24dhF6mN — Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) February 1, 2026
Trump’s executive order also accused Cuba of spreading “its communist ideas, policies, and practices around the Western Hemisphere, threatening the foreign policy of the United States.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday emphasized that “Cuba does not host foreign military or intelligence bases and rejects the characterization that it is a threat to the security of the United States. Nor has it supported any hostile activity against that country, nor will it allow its territory to be used against another nation.”
The US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than six decades and has had hostile relations with the country since the communist revolution gave rise to the late President Fidel Castro and overthrew authoritarian leader Fulgencio Batista, who was backed by the US.
US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) warned that Trump’s “latest economic assault against the island is designed to cause a humanitarian collapse, deepening our collective punishment of the Cuban people and forcing more migration.”
“Cuba poses no threat to the United States, but that’s not the point. Trump is manufacturing an excuse for cruelty and regime change,” added the congressman, while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced Trump’s executive order as “pure cruelty” that could “kill countless innocent Cubans.”
This Executive Order will kill countless innocent Cubans. I am horrified by the Trump Administration's attempt to strangle an entire people. Homes, schools, hospitals without power. Children without food or medicine. Cuba poses no threat to the US. This is pure cruelty. https://t.co/C28fHUmbW9
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week that Trump’s threat against countries that continue to supply energy “reveals the fascist, criminal, and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends.”
On Monday, the global organization Progressive International joined Cuban officials in denouncing Trump’s executive order as a “cruel and criminal act of economic warfare that will bring nothing but starvation, deprivation, and despair to [Cuba’s] people.”
“With this new executive order, the logic of siege has reached its apotheosis: Sanction not only Cuba but every nation that dares show solidarity, effectively demanding that sovereign states choose between the interests of their own people and the dictates of an empire,” said the Cabinet of Progressive International.
The group called on the international community to “coordinate diplomatic resistance, demand that governments refuse to enforce secondary tariffs, and amplify Cuban voices against this assault on international law, human dignity, and basic human rights.”
“History will judge those who saw this moment and turned away. Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally—from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics—and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force,” said Progressive International.“
“Stand with the Cuban people now,” the group added. “Stand against this siege, this economic assault, this unfolding humanitarian disaster; join together in the provision of key supplies to the island, from medicine to food to fuel for its people; and stand for the right of all nations to self-determination and human dignity, or be complicit in its destruction.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Children’s commissioner says any Labour strategy to tackle deprivation must scrap the two-child benefit cap
Children in England are living in “almost Dickensian levels of poverty” where deprivation has become normalised, the children’s commissioner has said, as she insisted the two-child benefit limit must be scrapped.
Young people said they had experienced not having enough water to shower, rats biting through their walls, and mouldy bedrooms, among a number of examples in a report on the “crisis of hardship” gripping the country.
Dame Rachel de Souza said she had noticed a significant shift in how young people talked about their lives since she became children’s commissioner four years ago, and that “issues that were traditionally seen as ‘adult’ concerns are now keenly felt by children”.
“Children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some in almost Dickensian levels of poverty,” she said. “They don’t talk about ‘poverty’ as an abstract concept but about not having the things that most people would consider basic: a safe home that isn’t mouldy or full or rats, with a bed big enough to stretch out in, ‘luxury’ food like bacon, a place to do homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, and not having to travel hours to school.”
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She said that, in “one of the richest societies in the world”, people in power “should be ashamed that children are growing up knowing their futures are being determined by their financial circumstances”.
An extra 260,000 children are on the breadline since before the Covid pandemic. Photograph: Orlando Britain/Alamy
Exclusive: Study finds almost quarter of UK population living in poverty, reaching the highest level this century
More than one in three children and a quarter of adults are living in poverty in the UK as deprivation levels rise to the highest in the 21st century, according to a landmark report.
The study by the Social Metrics Commission (SMC), which uses measures recently adopted by the UK government, found the cost of living crisis had plunged 2 million more people into severe hardship since 2019.
In total, more than 16 million people are defined as living in poverty, or 24% of the UK population – the highest since comparable records began in 2000.
Children accounted for the biggest rise of any social group falling into poverty, the report found, with an extra 260,000 on the breadline since before the Covid pandemic, meaning a record 36%, or 5.2 million children, were in deprivation.
It is likely to reignite calls for Labour to scrap the two-child benefit cap as, of those 5.2 million children, more than half (55%) lived in families with three or more children. About one in four of the children in poverty lived in a single-child household, with the same proportion in a two-child family.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.Zionist Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.
