… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: human rights violations

  • UN says more than 737,000 newly displaced in Gaza since March amid Israeli strikes

    Spread the love

    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

    Palestinian families begin fleeing again from shelters near the Al-Mawasi area as the Israeli army expands its ground offensive and tanks reach southwestern Khan Yunis, Gaza, marking their first displacement in nearly a year and a half, on July 10, 2025. [Hani Alshaer - Anadolu Agency]
    Palestinian families begin fleeing again from shelters near the Al-Mawasi area as the Israeli army expands its ground offensive and tanks reach southwestern Khan Yunis, Gaza, marking their first displacement in nearly a year and a half, on July 10, 2025. [Hani Alshaer – Anadolu Agency]

    The UN said Thursday that more than 737,000 people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip since an escalation of Israeli attacks in March, underscoring the scale of the humanitarian crisis facing the population, Anadolu reports.

    Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay reported at a news conference that “between the 8th and the 15th of July, more than 11,500 people were newly displaced.”

    “That brings overall displacement since the latest escalation of hostilities on March 18th to over 737,000 people – that’s about 35% of Gaza’s population. And over the past 21 months, nearly everyone has been displaced, typically multiple times,” she noted.

    Tremblay said Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours hit sites sheltering displaced Palestinians, with reports of injuries and fatalities.

    Despite mounting needs, she said that only a limited amount of humanitarian aid is reaching the enclave.

    Tremblay described the delivery of benzene for the first time in more than 135 days as a “small but important step forward,” noting that benzene is essential for powering ambulances and critical services.

    “But it’s not enough,” she stressed.

    READ: Israel refuses to renew visas for heads of 3 UN agencies in Gaza

    On the Israeli strike against a church in Gaza, Tremblay said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns today’s reports of an Israeli strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza, a place of worship and a sanctuary for civilians.”

    “Attacks on places of worship are unacceptable. People seeking shelter must be respected and protected, not hit by strikes,” she added, reiterating demands for an immediate ceasefire.

    She reiterated Guterres’ call “on all parties to ensure that civilians are respected and protected at all times and allow humanitarian aid to flow into the Strip at scale.”

    In response to a question by Anadolu on Israel’s reported reassignment of administrative control of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to a settler council, Tremblay said the UN had not seen the report, but emphasized: “We always call for the protection of all religious sites.”

    On Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Tel Aviv removed the Hebron municipality’s administrative authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque and reassigned it to a settler council.

    The Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, is a site sacred to Muslims and Jews. Tensions over control and access have long made the mosque a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    The Israeli move marks the first major shift in the status of the mosque since the 1994 recommendations of the Shamgar Commission, which divided access, allocating 63% of the site to Jewish worshippers and 37% to Muslims.

    The division followed the 1994 massacre by extremist settler Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers during dawn prayers.

    The mosque is located in the Old City in an area under full Israeli control where roughly 400 illegal settlers live under the protection of 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

    READ: UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

  • Israel refuses to renew visas for heads of 3 UN agencies in Gaza

    Spread the love

    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

    Daily life continues at Al-Shati refugee camp in the shadow of war in Gaza City, Gaza on June 19, 2025. [Mahmoud İssa - Anadolu Agency]
    Daily life continues at Al-Shati refugee camp in the shadow of war in Gaza City, Gaza on June 19, 2025. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency]

    Israel has refused to renew the visas of the heads of at least three United Nations agencies operating in Gaza, a move linked by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, to their efforts to protect Palestinian civilians in the war-torn Strip, according to Associated Press.

     “Visas are not renewed or reduced in duration by Israel, explicitly in response to our work on protection of civilians,” Fletcher said.

    UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric confirmed in recent months that visa renewals had not been granted to the local heads of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

    Speaking before the Security Council on Wednesday, Fletcher said the UN’s humanitarian role is not only to deliver aid and report what its staff witness, but also to advocate for international humanitarian law, “so that you, this Council, can take action.”

    READ: UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

  • Pope Leo calls for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza as Israeli warplanes strike Catholic church

    Spread the love

    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

    Pope Leo XIV attends general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, on May 21, 2025. [isabella Bonotto - Anadolu Agency ]
    Pope Leo XIV attends general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on May 21, 2025. [isabella Bonotto – Anadolu Agency ]

    Pope Leo XIV on Thursday renewed his call for “an immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip and expressed his “profound hope” for “dialogue, reconciliation and lasting peace in the region,” following an Israeli attack on a Catholic church sheltering civilians, Anadolu reports.

    The appeal came in a telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin after the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza was hit during an Israeli military raid.

    The pope said he was “deeply saddened” by the assault on the parish, which has provided refuge to more than 500 people since the beginning of the war.

    Among those injured was the parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli, who sustained a light leg wound and was treated at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City.

    The pontiff addressed Father Romanelli directly in the telegram, assuring him of his “spiritual closeness” and offering prayers to the entire parish community.

    READ: UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

    “Entrusting the souls of the deceased to the loving mercy of Almighty God,” the pope said he is praying “for the consolation of those who mourn and for the healing of the wounded.”

    In the course of its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has bombed several worship places, including the Gaza Baptist Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, the oldest in the Gaza Strip and the third oldest in the world.

    The Holy Family Church is the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, which has been sheltering many displaced Christian and Muslim Palestinians since October 2023.

    The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing nearly 58,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

    Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

    Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

    READ: Several injured as Israeli warplanes strike Catholic church in Gaza City

  • UNICEF: Israeli attacks killing 28 children daily in Gaza

    Spread the love

    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

    Injured Palestinians, including children are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on July 16, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas - Anadolu Agency]
    Injured Palestinians, including children are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on July 16, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]

    During a session at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, the Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, revealed alarming figures about the impact of the ongoing Israeli offensive on Gaza. 

    She confirmed that more than 17,000 children have been killed since the beginning of the war, at an average rate of 28 children each day– the equivalent of an entire classroom.” It is as if we are losing an entire classroom of pupils every single day for two years.”

    “Children are not political actors. They do not start conflicts, and they are powerless to stop them. But they suffer greatly, and they wonder why the world has failed them,” she added.

    Meanwhile, the UN Under-Secretary-General Mr Tom Fletcher warned that the health situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels.

    “Only 17 of 36 hospitals and 63 of 170 primary healthcare centres are functioning, all only partially, even as mass casualties arrive daily,” he highlighted.

    Fletcher indicated that half of all medical equipment has been damaged, with the ongoing fuel crisis remaining critical, despite its vital role in powering ambulances and other essential services.

    Expressing concern over the alarming rates of child starvation in June, he revealed that “more than 5,800 girls and boys have been diagnosed as acutely malnourished.”

    “Last week, amid this hunger crisis, children and women were killed in a strike while waiting for the food supplements to keep them alive,” he warned.

    READ: UNRWA: Israel kills the equivalent of a classroom full of children each day in Gaza

  • Speech ban ruled unlawful: Palestinian doctor wins in German court

    Spread the love

    Original article by Leon Wystrychowski republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Ghassan Abu-Sittah and other health workers hold press conference after Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, October 2023. Source: Ghassan Abu-Sittah/X

    A judge in a German court ruled that the ban on activity imposed on renowned Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful.

    The Palestine Congress in Berlin, which was organized in mid-April of last year, was violently shut down by the police on its first day, just minutes after it began. The pretext for this action, which was deemed unlawful by attorneys, was a live-stream of Palestinian historian Dr. Salman Abu Sitta.

    His nephew, the doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, was banned from entering Germany on the morning of April 12, 2024. He had arrived on a flight from the UK, was detained and questioned for hours at Berlin airport, and then deported. He was also told that he was banned from practicing any political activities in Germany for the month of April, even from abroad. The organizers of the conference are taking legal action against the dissolution of the event, the trial of which is ongoing.

    Witness to the genocide wins in Berlin

    But Ghassan Abu-Sittah won a victory on Tuesday, July 15, at Berlin’s Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht). From the UK, the doctor had filed a lawsuit against the actions of the German authorities. The surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow has worked as a doctor in a dozen war and crisis zones over the course of his life, including the Gaza Strip. Shortly after the genocide began in October 2023, he went there again as part of a “Doctors Without Borders” mission to provide aid at Al-Shifa Hospital. The hospital was repeatedly attacked and ultimately destroyed by the Israeli army in November 2023 and again in March/April 2024. Israeli forces massacred hundreds of doctors, patients, and refugees.

    The court’s judge ruled that the ban on activity imposed on Abu-Sittah was unlawful. According to a spokeswoman for the court, there was no sufficient evidence that Abu-Sittah’s statements posed a threat to Germany’s constitutional order or public safety. In particular, the authorities were unable to produce any statements by the renowned doctor that referred positively to the Palestinian resistance’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation or even to possible war crimes committed by the Palestinian resistance. Even if such a danger had existed, a preventive ban on the doctor’s activities would have been disproportionate.

    The spokesperson also pointed out that Abu-Sittah was heard as an eyewitness to the genocide in the International Criminal Court proceedings against Israeli government politicians, and was also announced as such at the Palestine Congress.

    Racist repression

    His lawyer, Alexander Gorki, explained on request: “The hearing showed that the ban on activities was unlawful from start to finish. What was to be sanctioned via the residency rights were opinions expressed by my client, who knew the situation on the ground in Gaza very well as a Palestinian and a doctor.” The court “put a stop to the abuse of immigration law”. However, the ruling will not prevent the immigration authorities from abusing their power in the future, warns the migration law expert. To counter this, “political pressure is needed”.

    In fact, the repressive authorities in Germany have been using all kinds of tricks and legal means for years to bypass the courts and exert pressure on the Palestinian solidarity movement and Palestinians in Germany: from expulsions and deportations, to bans on organizing, employment bans and the cancellation of welfare benefits. Migrants and refugees with a precarious status are particularly affected. Just two weeks ago, on the orders of a court, Musaab Abu Atta, a Palestinian refugee and political activist, was released from four months of custody. The public prosecutor’s office is trying to lock him up again because of an alleged “flight risk”, even though he has a fiancée and a job in Berlin. At the same time, there are indications that they want to deport him to Syria.

    Leon Wystrychowski is a former member of the Palästina Solidarität Duisburg (Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, PSDU).

    Original article by Leon Wystrychowski republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.