Palestine

With Rafah Under Siege, ICJ Reiterates Israeli Obligations Under Genocide Convention

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinian children hold placards during a march demanding an end to the war and their right to live, education, and play on February 14, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza.  (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images.

A South African leader welcomed the court’s affirmation that “the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures” from its earlier ruling.

As Israeli forces plan a full-scale assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, the International Court of Justice on Friday forcefully reminded Israel that it must comply with a January order to meet its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

South Africa—which is leading the genocide case against Israel that led to six provisional measures from the ICJ last month—asked the World Court for emergency action on Tuesday in light of the Israeli plan to attack Rafah, whose population has surged to roughly 1.5 million as Palestinians have fled bombings and raids in northern Gaza.

The ICJ, which is part of the United Nations, weighed in just a day after Israel submitted its response to South Africa’s request.

“The court notes that the most recent developments in the Gaza Strip, and in Rafah in particular, ‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,'” the ICJ said Friday, quoting United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the U.N. General Assembly last week.

“This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January 2024, which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, and does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures,” the World Court continued.

“The court emphasizes that the state of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the ICJ added.

Clayson Monyela of South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said on social media that his country welcomes the development.

“The court has affirmed our view that the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January 2024 which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip and has clarified that this includes Rafah,” he said.

The ICJ’s decision comes as countries including South Africa prepare to participate in hearings before the Hague-based court next week about Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestine. South African representatives are set to present second, after the Palestinians.

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingWith Rafah Under Siege, ICJ Reiterates Israeli Obligations Under Genocide Convention

Israeli Assault Leaves Gaza’s Nasser Hospital ‘Not Functional’

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Injured Palestinians are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on January 22, 2024.  (Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The WHO “was not permitted to enter” the facility in recent days, said the agency chief, warning that “the cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives.”

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced Sunday that the largest hospital in the southern Gaza Strip “is not functional anymore, after a weeklong siege followed by the ongoing raid” by Israeli forces.

After claiming that Hamas was using Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for “military activity” and some hostages’ bodies may be there, the Israel Defense Forces on Thursday began raiding the facility, where around 10,000 people had sought shelter. Sources there said the IDF bombed “a ward full of patients” and multiple people who were dependent on oxygen have died due to power outages.

Tedros highlighted on Sunday that the WHO team “was not permitted to enter” the facility in recent days “to assess the conditions of the patients and critical medical needs, despite reaching the hospital compound to deliver fuel alongside partners.”

“There are still about 200 patients in the hospital. At least 20 need to be urgently referred to other hospitals to receive healthcare; medical referral is every patient’s right,” he added. “The cost of delays will be paid by patients’ lives. Access to the patients and hospital should be facilitated.”

Later Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that “150 patients who cannot move are piled inside the rooms and corridors of the old building at Nasser Medical Complex without medical care after the arrest of 70 of the complex’s management and medical staff.”

“The occupation refuses to evacuate patients for treatment in other hospitals, which endangers their lives, including seven intensive care patients, five dialysis patients, [and] three newborns in the nursery, in addition to cases of burns, amputations, quadriplegia, childbirth, and others,” the ministry added.

The IDF said on Telegram that in its operations around the facility, Israeli troops apprehended “hundreds of terrorists and other terror suspects who were hiding in the hospital, some of whom had posed as medical staff,” including alleged participants in the October 7 Hamas-led attack that led to the war.

Noting IDF claims that soldiers aimed to recover the remains of hostages believed to be in the facility, The Washington Postreported that “Israeli forces have not yet found the bodies of any hostages but said on Sunday that they discovered medicine at the hospital bearing the names of Israelis who were abducted by Hamas.”

The Israeli assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians, injured over 68,800 others, devastated civilian infrastructure—including hospitals—and left most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents displaced, hungry, and at risk of disease. Global experts and critics have accused Israel of genocide, including in a South Africa-led case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In response to IDF orders to leave northern Gaza, most residents are now crammed into the southern part of the strip. According toAl-Jazeera:

Al-Amal Hospital, the only other major medical facility still operational in Khan Younis, continues to be a target of Israeli attacks. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the third floor of the hospital with artillery fire.

The Israeli military has expanded its siege on Khan Younis and its medical facilities as it pushed further south into Rafah on the border with Egypt.

Throughout the week, people around the world including humanitarian and United Nations leaders have pressured Israel to refrain from a full-scale attack on Rafah. The ICJ on Friday echoed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ warning that it “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingIsraeli Assault Leaves Gaza’s Nasser Hospital ‘Not Functional’

Patients with chronic illnesses in Gaza failing to get treatment, doctors warn

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/17/patients-with-chronic-illnesses-in-gaza-failing-to-get-treatment-doctors-warn

A Palestinian woman receives dialysis treatment at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital on February 8, 2024. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The lack of medicine, food and water means thousands of people with asthma, kidney disease or diabetes are unable to treat or control their conditions

Four months of conflict in Gaza is jeopardising the health of thousands of people with chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, diabetes and asthma, doctors have warned.

The chronically ill are the hidden casualties of the war, as access to water, food and medicine is severely restricted, said Guillemette Thomas, the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator for Palestine.

“Hospitals that are still functioning are overwhelmed with injured people, they are not able to deal with chronic illness at all,” she said. “Before the war there were 3,500 hospital beds in Gaza, now there are fewer than 1,000, and hundreds and hundreds of injured. We don’t know how many people are dying because they can’t access healthcare.”

Currently, only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are able to provide any medical services.

When medication is allowed into the territory there are no safe ways of distributing it, Thomas said. “We have some insulin coming in aid trucks, but patients can’t get to the places where it is stocked because of the airstrikes. People are bombed on their way to the hospital.”

The scarcity of clean water combined with the lack of medicines means many are unable to control their conditions. About 70% of Palestinians in Gaza have had to resort to drinking contaminated or salinised water, while 50% are experiencing food insecurity and 25% of the population are starving, according to the UN.

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/17/patients-with-chronic-illnesses-in-gaza-failing-to-get-treatment-doctors-warn

Continue ReadingPatients with chronic illnesses in Gaza failing to get treatment, doctors warn

75% of all journalists killed across the world in 2023 were killed in Israeli war on Gaza, says CPJ

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

A protest against the killing of journalists in Gaza. Photo: International Federation of Journalists/X

A report by the Committee to Protect Journalists said that 78 journalists and media workers were killed in Gaza in the first three months of Israel’s war. The report added that the circumstances leading to the killing of these media professionals were difficult to ascertain due to Israel’s refusal to cooperate

Nearly three fourths of all journalists and media workers killed in 2023 were Palestinians who were killed in the first three months of the Israeli war in Gaza, said the annual report of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released on Thursday, February 15.

According to the CPJ, at least 99 journalists and media workers were killed in 2023. This is the highest number of journalists and media persons killed in a year since 2015 and was a 44% increase from last year when the figure was 69.

Among the 78 journalists and media workers killed in the Israeli war on Gaza, 72 were Palestinians, three were Lebanese and two were Israeli journalists.

The report stated that the details of the circumstances leading to the killing of most of the journalists and media workers in Gaza were difficult to obtain due to Israel’s refusal to cooperate. A large number of family members of those journalists and media workers were also killed in the Israeli bombings and ground offensive which made the task of investigating the circumstances of their killing difficult.

A total of more than  28,700 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 69,000 others have been wounded in the Israeli war in Gaza since October 7. Many journalists have lost their entire families in Israeli attacks.

CJP claimed that at least 78 of the journalists and thirteen media workers were killed on duty in 2023. It also claimed that there were eight more journalists killed last year but the investigation into the circumstances in which they were killed was still not complete.

CJP claimed that a large number of journalists in Palestine were killed deliberately and it has raised the issue with the Israelis.

Most of the Palestinian journalists killed on duty in Gaza were in full gear and easily identifiable when they were targeted in air strikes or during Israeli ground offensives.

Deliberately targeting and killing journalists on duty is a war crime as per international law. Israel often claims that journalists killed in Gaza were members of “terrorist groups” without providing any evidence.

The numbers are much higher, say other groups

Several more journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since December, including Al-Jazeera journalist Hamza al-Dahdouh who was targeted and killed by a missile attack on the car in which he was traveling with another freelance journalist Mustafa Thuraya.

Hamza was the son of prominent journalist Wael Dahdouh, most of whose family members were killed in Israeli strikes earlier. Wael himself was injured in one of the attacks carried out by the Israelis while on duty.

According to estimates by other organizations, the number of Palestinian journalists killed is higher. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) claimed at least 95 journalists or around 8% of all registered journalists in Palestine have been killed by Israel between October 7 and December 19.

According to Palestinian Authority’s media office, the total number of media workers killed in Palestine since October 7 is 126.

PJS claims that most of the journalists killed in Gaza were deliberately targeted by Israeli forces with the intention of “assassination and murder.” Some of the journalists were also threatened by Israeli forces before they were actually killed for covering the Israeli genocide, PJS alleged.

In addition to killing Palestinian journalists, Israel has also resorted to other means of shutting down the spread of information, including media gags, denial of visas to foreign journalists, and repeated shutdowns of the internet and telecommunication services, sometimes for weeks.

“The war [Israeli war in Gaza] is unprecedented in terms of threats to journalists” Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive Officer of the CPJ, told Al-Jazeera.

Israel has a long history of targeting and killing journalists. In 2022, Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed when she was reporting the Israeli military raid on Jenin. CPJ claims there were at least 20 such cases before the current war in Gaza but no one has ever been charged or held responsible for these killings.

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

Continue Reading75% of all journalists killed across the world in 2023 were killed in Israeli war on Gaza, says CPJ

‘We will not rest until we put an end to this monstrosity’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-will-not-rest-until-we-put-an-end-to-this-monstrosity

People during a pro-Palestine protest in Whitehall, central London, to call for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, February 12, 2024

Palestine supporters to mobilise worldwide in call for a ceasefire as Israel mounts attack on Gaza’s last refuge

PALESTINE supporters in Britain and worldwide are expected to mobilise in huge numbers in a Global Day of Action on Saturday as Israel mounts its attack on the Gazan people’s last refuge, Rafah.

With 1.4 million people, mainly refugees, crammed into a city which is customarily home to less than 200,000, the feared effects of the Israeli onslaught have provoked mounting anger and increased calls for a ceasefire.

In Parliament next week, a Commons motion from the Scottish National Party calling for a ceasefire is expected to polarise MPs’ opinions and test Sir Keir Starmer’s authority over his own backbenchers.

Israel’s embassy in London will be among the targets for protests on Saturday for the first time since the weekly demonstrations began in October.

Thousands of people are expected to lobby Scottish Labour’s annual conference in Glasgow to demand that the party call for a ceasefire.

The SNP’s Commons motion calling for a ceasefire is expected to be heard on Wednesday, a week before the Rochdale by-election which has seen Labour dump its own candidate over his comments on Israel’s war on Gaza.

The motion “recognises that the only way to stop the slaughter of innocent civilians is to press for a ceasefire now.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-will-not-rest-until-we-put-an-end-to-this-monstrosity

Continue Reading‘We will not rest until we put an end to this monstrosity’