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Spokespersons for Parliament and for the political groups will hold a briefing on the 20 - 23 October plenary session, on Friday at 11.00 in Parliament’s Anna Politkovskaya press room.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The crowds were so big that the public viewing was moved from the parliament building to a stadium.

Newsletter - 20-23 October 2025 - Strasbourg plenary session

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Draft legislation adopted on Thursday seeks to protect the Union’s interests from the weaponisation of energy supplies by the Russian Federation.
Committee on International Trade
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The award ceremony will take place at 18.00, on Tuesday 21 October 2025, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg (Daphne Caruana Galizia Press Room).

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Dans un contexte où l’industrie algérienne cherche à consolider sa présence sur les marchés mondiaux, le groupe public GICA continue de faire parler de lui. […]

L’article Exportations : l’Algérie envoie 2 millions de tonnes de ce produit vers l’Europe  est apparu en premier sur .

La Société Algérienne d’Exploitation des Tramways (SETRAM) a publié un communiqué ce jeudi pour alerter les usagers d’une importante perturbation du trafic sur la ligne […]

L’article Alger : le trafic du tramway perturbé pour cette raison (SETRAM) est apparu en premier sur .

The community gets together to repair a school in the city of Saraqib, located south of Idlib, that was destroyed by bombing during the Assad regime. Credit: Sonia Al Ali/IPS

By Sonia Al Ali
IDLIB, Syria, Oct 16 2025 (IPS)

The war has deprived thousands of Syrian children of their right to education, especially displaced children in makeshift camps. Amidst difficult economic conditions and the inability of many families to afford educational costs, the future of these children is under threat.

Adel Al-Abbas, a 13-year-old boy from Aleppo, northern Syria, was forced to quit his education after being displaced from his city and moving to a camp on the Syrian-Turkish border. He says, “I was chasing my dream like any other child, but my family’s poverty and the harsh circumstances stood in my way and destroyed all my dreams.”

Adel had hoped to become an engineer, but he left school and gave up on his goal. He replaced books and pens with work tools to help his impoverished family secure life’s necessities. He adds, “We are living in extremely difficult conditions today; we can’t even afford food. So, I have to find a job to survive and help my family, especially after my father was hit by shrapnel in the head, which caused him a permanent disability.”

Adel’s mother is saddened by her son’s situation, saying to IPS, “We need the income my son brings in after my husband got sick and became unable to provide for our family. In any case, work is better than an education that is now useless after he’s been out of school for so long and has fallen behind his peers.”

Reem Al-Diri, an 11-year-old, left school after her family was displaced from rural Damascus to the city of Idlib in northern Syria. Explaining why, she speaks with a clear sense of regret: “I loved school very much and was one of the top students in my class, but my family decided I had to stop my education to help my mom with the housework.”

The young girl confirms that she watches children on their way to school every morning, and she wishes she could go with them to complete her education and become a teacher in the future.

Reem’s mother, Umayya Al-Khalid, justifies her daughter’s absence from school, saying, “After we moved to a camp on the outskirts of Idlib, the schools became far from where we live. We also suffer from a lack of security and the widespread kidnapping of girls. So, I feared for my daughter and preferred for her to stay at home.”

Causes of school dropout

Akram Al-Hussein, a school principal in Idlib, northern Syria, speaks about the school dropout crisis in the country.

“School dropouts are one of the most serious challenges facing society. The absence of education leads to an unknown future for children and for the entire community.”

Al-Hussein emphasizes that relevant authorities and the international community must exert greater efforts to support education and ensure it does not remain a distant dream for children who face poverty and displacement.

He adds, “The reasons and motivations for children dropping out of school vary, ranging from conditions imposed by war—such as killings, displacement, and forced conscription-to child labor and poverty. Other factors include frequent displacement and the child’s inability to settle in one place during the school year, as well as a general lack of parental interest in education and their ignorance of the risks of depriving a child of schooling.”

In this context, the Syria Response Coordinators team, a specialized statistics group in Syria, noted in a statement that the number of out-of-school children in Syria has reached more than 2.5 million, with northwestern Syria alone accounting for over 318,000 out-of-school children, with more than 78,000 of them living in displacement camps. Of this group, 85 percent are engaged in various occupations, including dangerous ones.

In a report dated June 12, 2024, the team identified the key reasons behind the widening school dropout crisis.

A shortage of schools relative to the population density, a shift towards private education, difficult economic conditions, a lack of local government laws to prevent children from entering the labor market, displacement and forced migration, and a marginalized education sector with insufficient support from both local and international humanitarian organizations are seen as the causes.

The team’s report warned that if this trend continues, it will lead to the emergence of an uneducated, illiterate generation. This generation will be consumers rather than producers, and as a result, these uneducated children will become a burden on society.

Initiatives to Restore Destroyed Schools

The destruction of schools in Syria has significantly contributed to the school dropout crisis. Throughout the years of war, schools were not spared from destruction, looting, and vandalism, leaving millions of children without a place to learn or in buildings unfit for education. However, with the downfall of the Assad regime, several initiatives have been launched to restore these schools. This is seen as an urgent and immediate necessity for building a new Syria.

Samah Al-Dioub, a school principal in the northern Syrian city of Maarat al-Nu’man, says, “Syria’s schools suffered extensive damage from both the earthquake and the bombings. We have collected funds from the city’s residents and are now working on rehabilitating the school, but the need is still immense and the costs are very high, especially with residents returning to the city.” She explained that their current focus is on surveying schools and prioritizing which ones need renovation the most.

Engineer Mohammad Hannoun, director of school buildings at the Syrian Ministry of Education, states that approximately 7,400 schools across Syria were either partially or completely destroyed. They have restored 156 schools so far.

Hannoun adds, “We are working to rehabilitate schools in all Syrian regions, aiming to equip at least one school in every village or city to welcome returning students. The Ministry of Education, along with local and international organizations and civil society, are all contributing to these restoration efforts.”

Hannoun points out that the extensive damage to school buildings harms both teachers and students. It leads to a lack of basic educational resources, puts pressure on the few schools that are still functional, and causes a large number of students to drop out, which ultimately impacts the quality of the educational process.

As part of their contingency plans, Hannoun explains that the ministry, in collaboration with partner organizations, intends to activate schools with the available resources to accommodate children returning from camps and from asylum countries. This effort is particularly focused on affected areas that have experienced massive waves of displacement.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in 2025, 16.7 million people, including 7.5 million children, are in need of humanitarian support in the country, with 2.45 million children out of school, and 2 million children are at risk of malnutrition.

The phenomenon of school dropouts has become a crisis threatening Syria’s children, who have been forced by circumstances to work to earn a living for their families. Instead of being in a classroom to build their futures, children are struggling to survive in an environment left behind by conflict and displacement.

 

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Joseph Kabila appears in Kenya with other opposition leaders two weeks after being sentenced to death.

The UN General Assembly endorses New York Declaration on a two-State solution between Israel and Palestine. 12 September 2025. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Oct 16 2025 (IPS)

The ceasefire agreement and the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are only the first steps on the long and treacherous road that could end the calamitous, decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In my recent article, “A Rare Alignment:The World Stands Ready, Are the Palestinians?”

I tackled what the Palestinians must do to realize their national aspirations. In this article, I address what the Israelis must do not only to end their conflict with the Palestinians, but also to salvage Israel’s moral standing, which lies in ruin in Gaza.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a new breaking point, more precipitous now than any time before. Although Israelis have experienced unfathomable trauma as a result of Hamas’ horrific attack, now is the time for all Israelis to carefully examine the circumstances that have brought them to this fateful crossroads.

Decades of violent conflict and the persistent denial of each other’s rights culminated in Hamas’ savagery, followed by the longest and most devastating war, which has reframed the nature of the conflict. It made it clearer than ever before that those who wrote the obituary for a two-state solution must now rewrite their script. As much as co-existence is inescapable, so is the inevitable rise of a Palestinian state.

Choosing the right path would require courage and a new vision. The Israelis must first disabuse themselves of several beliefs embedded in their psyche and push for a just solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, which is central to gradually restoring Israel’s shattered moral standing, which only the Israelis themselves can reclaim.

Existential Threat
The Israelis have been indoctrinated to believe that a Palestinian state would pose an existential threat and must be prevented at all costs, which has been falsely promulgated for decades by egocentric, nationalist and corrupt politicians like Netanyahu. At this juncture, the Israelis need to accept the irrevocable reality of Palestinian existence and take action to mitigate their fear rather than perpetuate enmity.

Israel was created as a sanctuary for any Jew who wishes to live in peace and security. This millennium-old dream however, cannot be realized, as time has shown, as long as the Palestinians are denied a state of their own.

The Israelis need to overcome their anxieties and misguided beliefs by finding meaning and self-affirmation, which does not hinge on denying the Palestinians their own state. They should step away from the deeply rooted, misguided fear that a Palestinian state indeed poses an existential threat, because without it, Israel renders itself permanently insecure, as time has shown.

Hatred Toward the Palestinians
The Israelis’ hatred of the Palestinians is rooted in a century-old conflict, which has only deepened due to the continuing acts of violence and the prevalence of mutually acrimonious narratives. This is further compounded by the Israelis’ belief that the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist. Instead of focusing on practical measures of reconciliation necessitated by the inescapable coexistence, they clung to hatred, which subconsciously justifies their continuing resistance to Palestinian statehood.

A well-known proverb notes that “Hatred is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Indeed, hatred is self-destructive, and letting go of it is essential for peaceful coexistence. The Israelis must live in the present to free themselves from the shackles of past prejudices against the Palestinians and reach out rather than shun them.

Such an approach may surprise many Israelis, who will find that generally the Palestinians are a willing partner eager to engage, albeit only if they believe they stand a good chance of realizing their national aspirations.

Refusing the Reality of Coexistence
The Israelis need to come to terms with the fact that accepting what cannot be changed and embracing it with understanding and even compassion would ultimately serve their own interests. In essence, Israelis must use their collective power to create the conditions that produce mutual political, economic, and security gains, which is the only way to coexist peacefully. Israelis must ask what the alternative to peaceful coexistence is.

Has anyone come up with a viable and mutually acceptable alternative whereby both can live in peace, short of a two-state solution?

The irony is that while Netanyahu spent decades trying to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, his devastating onslaught on the Palestinians has only produced precisely the opposite. It has rallied the international community to support an independent Palestinian state like never before.

Israel can annex all the West Bank and Gaza, assuming that it could live with international isolation, sanctions, expulsion from various international organizations, etc., but where will the Palestinians go?

For how long can seven million Israeli Jews suppress seven million Palestinians living in their midst and around them? How many Palestinians can they kill, displace, or starve to death? What choice would the Palestinians be left with other than armed struggle?

Since coexistence is inescapable, under what kind of an umbrella do the Israelis want to live? Hamas’ savagery and Israel’s devastating retaliation only attest to the consequences of decades-long mutual systematic dehumanization.

Unless the Israelis accept coexistence as an unmitigated reality, they will have to raise generations of warriors trained to kill Palestinians, destroy their properties, and live by the sword for as far as the eye can see.

The Catastrophic Loss of Israel’s Moral Standing
There are no words to describe the lasting damage that the Netanyahu government has inflicted on Israel as a country and the Israeli people. The whole world was astounded to see Jews, of all people, committing crimes against humanity in broad daylight beyond the capacity of any human being with a conscience to grasp.

Yes, the world applies a double standard when it comes to the Jews, and for good reason. The Jews have suffered for millennia from persecution, discrimination, and expulsion, culminating with the Holocaust, and are expected, because of their tragic experience, to uphold the sanctity of life.

And while the Jews have lived by and spread the values of caring, compassion, empathy, and altruism—values that have shielded them throughout their dispersion—the barbaric Netanyahu government has betrayed these tenets of Judaism. It has left Israel, and by tragic extension, Jews round the world, with no moral ground to stand on while precipitating the exponential rise of antisemitism.

It is hard to imagine how any Israeli government would desert these values and perpetrate this inconceivable cruelty and vengeance upon the Palestinians. The killing of tens of thousands of women, children, and the elderly, the bombing of hospitals and schools, and the deliberate starvation of a whole people as a weapon of war, sent shock waves throughout the world, bewildering friends and foes.

The countries that admired Israel for its incredible achievements in all walks of life are now looking at it as a pariah state that has lost its moral compass and its way.

My Plea to the Israelis—Facing a Moral Reckoning
No one can make light of the trauma and the horrendous suffering so many of you have and continue to endure because of Hamas’ butchery and heartless imprisonment of the hostages. But your government’s retaliatory war, which quickly became a war of revenge and retribution that killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, did not do justice to your sacrifices by committing horrific war crimes in your name.

The war in Gaza and its consequences demand that Israel face a moral reckoning. You need to confront your government’s actions that plundered the depths of human immorality. Your moral obligation is to rise against Netanyahu’s government.

Remember, the Palestinians will recover from the catastrophe they have endured, rebuild their lives, and coalesce around a renewed effort, with the mounting support of the international community, to realize their aspiration for statehood.

Israel, however, has sustained a far greater catastrophe by forsaking Jewish values. It will take a generation (or more) before your country can regain a measure of moral standing, and that is only if it ends the conflict with the Palestinians in a fair and just way based on a two-state solution.

Now it’s time for accountability. Following the release of the hostages, you now need to embark on bringing an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Pour into the streets by the hundreds of thousands and demand the immediate resignation of Netanyahu and force him to face a commission of inquiry about his conduct before and after Hamas’ attack.

What you need to pursue now is building on the ceasefire and demanding that a newly-formed government move step-by-step toward implementing the Trump peace plan, which must culminate in establishing a Palestinian state.

This will not be a gift to the Palestinians. Rather, this is what you must do to transform the calamitous war in Gaza and the horrific pain, suffering, and losses you have sustained into a breakthrough on the road toward the long-awaited and desperately needed peaceful Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The destruction and hunger that Sudan's war has brought leaves parents with some impossible choices.

The destruction and hunger that Sudan's war has brought leaves parents with some impossible choices.

The destruction and hunger that Sudan's war has brought leaves parents with some impossible choices.

The Council today decided on its position for negotiations with the European Parliament regarding the provision of a further €500 million in macro-financial assistance (MFA) to Jordan.

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