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Oxfam Says Israel ‘Actively Hindering’ Aid to Gaza in Violation of ICJ Order

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

Palestinian children in Rafah, Gaza gather to receive food distributed by aid organizations on March 15, 2024.  (Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own,” said one campaigner.

The Israeli government is intentionally restricting the flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip by subjecting shipments to a prolonged and dysfunctional inspection process, arbitrarily rejecting items, attacking aid convoys, and limiting the number of crossings through which deliveries can pass, Oxfam International said in a report published late Sunday.

The report, titled Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction, argues that Israel’s continued obstruction of humanitarian aid is a direct violation of both international humanitarian law (IHL) and a January order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled the Israeli government is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza and must ensure that assistance reaches desperate Gazans.

Oxfam said Sunday that “humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip has effectively worsened” since the ICJ handed down its interim order nearly two months ago, and conditions on the ground in the Palestinian territory have deteriorated rapidly. New data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) shows that Gaza’s “entire population” is facing “high levels of acute food insecurity” and 1.1 million people are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger—a figure that one expert called “unprecedented.”

“The ICJ order should have shocked Israeli leaders to change course, but since then conditions in Gaza have actually worsened,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director. “The fact that other governments have not challenged Israel hard enough, but instead turned to less effective methods like airdrops and maritime corridors is a huge red flag, signaling that Israel continues to deny the full potential of better ways to deliver more aid.”

“Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it,” Abi Khalil added. “We believe that Israel is failing to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide.”

In its new report, Oxfam outlines seven ways in which the Israeli government is impeding humanitarian aid shipments and exacerbating one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history:

In February—the first full month after the ICJ’s order—Israel allowed just 2,874 aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip, a 44% decline compared to the previous month, according to Oxfam.

The group said Israeli authorities “have rejected a warehouse full of international aid including oxygen, incubators, and Oxfam water and sanitation gear, all of which is now stockpiled at Al Arish just 40 kilometers away from the border of 2.3 million desperate Palestinians in Gaza.”

Israel’s military, which is armed by the U.S. and other major countries that are legally obligated to prevent genocide, has also blocked humanitarian staff from entering Gaza, adding “pressure and workload” to already overwhelmed aid efforts, Oxfam said.

Celine Maayeh, advocacy and research officer at Juzoor for Health and Social Development—an Oxfam partner organization—said Sunday that “there’s been an alarming increase in cases of malnutrition among children in the last month, and yet the only food the team is able to find to feed people living in 45 shelters is some vegetables.”

“There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own,” said Maayeh.

“If a famine is declared, it will already be too late for too many people—children are famine’s first victims and are already dying in Gaza because of malnutrition.”

Oxfam’s findings are consistent with those of other aid organizations and lawmakers who have visited the region in recent weeks.

In January, U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told reporters that they witnessed “miles of backed-up trucks” stuck at border crossings as Gazans nearby struggled to survive, eating grass and drinking contaminated water.

The senators said they saw one warehouse full of items that Israeli authorities rejected in their inspection process, including oxygen cylinders and medical kits used for delivering babies.

Van Hollen said the warehouse was “a testament to the arbitrariness” of Israel’s inspections.

Oxfam argued Sunday that the “only meaningful solution” to Gaza’s intensifying humanitarian emergency is “an immediate, permanent, and unconditional cease-fire.”

“Even the trickle of aid that a humanitarian response could provide under the current circumstances is being further obstructed by Israel’s policies and practices, inflicting suffering on millions of Palestinians who are living under Israeli bombardment without access to food, clean water, and medical care,” the group said.

Xavier Joubert, country director for Save the Children in the occupied Palestinian territory, echoed Oxfam’s call for a cease-fire and warned in response to the new IPC figures that “we have a clear timeframe to stave off famine, and it demands urgency.”

“If a famine is declared, it will already be too late for too many people—children are famine’s first victims and are already dying in Gaza because of malnutrition,” said Joubert. “Every minute counts for them. It should be on the collective conscience of Israeli authorities and the international community that every day without an immediate, definitive cease-fire and unfettered access for and to humanitarian aid is another catastrophic day of starvation and suffering, another step towards famine, and another death knell for Gaza’s children.”

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

Continue ReadingOxfam Says Israel ‘Actively Hindering’ Aid to Gaza in Violation of ICJ Order

‘No Longer on the Brink’: Top EU Official Blames Israel for Famine in Gaza

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

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell attends a press conference on October 2, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine.  (Photo: Eduard Kryzhanivskyi/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

“This famine is not a natural disaster. It is not a flaw. It is not an earthquake. It is entirely man-made,” said Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s foreign affairs chief.

The European Union’s top foreign affairs official on Monday said that after more than five months of Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid and bombardment of Gaza, the U.S.-backed government has pushed the enclave into famine.

Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, demanded that Western governments clearly state the reason that at least two of Gaza’s five governorates have now been identified by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative (IPC) as experiencing famine “with reasonable evidence.”

“In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine; we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people,” Borrell said in Brussels at a meeting on humanitarian aid for the besieged enclave. “This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war.”

“By whom? Let’s dare to say by whom. By the one that prevents humanitarian support entering into Gaza,” he said, adding that “Israel is provoking famine.”

Borrell’s remarks signify that the E.U. has now accepted that “that Israel is starving Gaza,” said journalist Owen Jones, with “straightforward genocidal intent.”

The IPC, which was established in 2004 by the United Nations and international humanitarian groups, said Monday that since the analysis it conducted in December—in which it warned of famine by May if a cessation of hostilities did not take place—the conditions needed to prevent such a catastrophe have not been met.

Famine in Gaza’s northern governorates is now projected to take hold between mid-March and May, the IPC said.

“According to the most likely scenario, both North Gaza and Gaza Governorates are classified in IPC Phase 5 (famine) with reasonable evidence, with 70% (around 210,000 people) of the population in IPC Phase 5 (catastrophe),” said the initiative.

The group uses the famine classification when at least one of three conditions has been observed:

  • At least 20% of households have an extreme lack of food;
  • At least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and
  • At least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die daily from starvation or from disease linked to malnutrition.

At least 27 children in Gaza have now died of malnutrition in recent weeks, according to local authorities, as Israel has attacked civilians seeking humanitarian aid numerous times and has blocked deliveries.

The E.U. said Monday that just 100 tonnes of aid per day are reaching Gaza, compared with 500 tonnes that entered the enclave daily before Israel’s current bombardment.

The entire population of 2.2 million people is now facing high levels of “acute food insecurity,” according to the IPC.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, head of the pediatric department at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, told Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) that the facility is seeing the daily effects of Israel’s blocking of aid.

“Amid the famine in the north, there are many cases of elderly people and especially children showing symptoms of dehydration and malnutrition,” said the doctor. “Twenty-five to 30 children are admitted to the hospital on a daily basis, with half of them suffering from dehydration and malnutrition. One child, two months old, died today because of dehydration and malnutrition. Other children are on the same trajectory unless the situation is addressed soon.”

Meanwhile, he said, medical workers themselves are “suffering from physical weakness and extreme exhaustion” as they try to treat people injured in relentless bombings and gunfire.

“As a medical team managing the hospital, we have not been able to secure even one meal,” said Abu Safiya. “Our staff are worn out working 24/7 without food.”

Borrell pointed to recent comments by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Scholz warned: “We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians starve.”

“This famine is not a natural disaster. It is not a flaw. It is not an earthquake. It is entirely man-made,” said Borrell. “Chancellor Scholz is saying Europeans cannot sit and watch Palestinian starving, when on the other side of the border there is food for months accumulated in stocks, while on the other side of the road there are people dying of hunger.”

Rose Caldwell, CEO of children’s rights group Plan International, added that the “entirely man-made catastrophe should be a source of shame for the international community.”

“After months of unimaginable trauma and indiscriminate bombing, the children of Gaza are now facing the horror of starvation and the threat of imminent famine,” said Caldwell. “There can be no excuses: preventing access for humanitarian aid is a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is illegal and immoral.”

The IPC has classified only two other humanitarian crises as famines: one in Somalia, which killed 490,000 people in 2011, and one in South Sudan, which killed 80,000 people in 2017.

At least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces since it began its bombardment.

“Before the war, Gaza was the greatest open air prison,” said Borrell. “Today it is the greatest open air graveyard.”

Melanie Ward, CEO of MAP, noted that the organization warned in January that its physicians were seeing evidence of severe malnutrition in children.

“World leaders have fiddled at the edges rather than take decisive action which addresses the cause of this starvation,” said Ward. “Now world leaders must insist that Israel immediately opens all land crossings into Gaza, particularly the Karni and Erez crossings, and allows safe and unfettered access for aid and aid workers.”

“Children in Gaza are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever known,” she added, “and their survival depends on more food, fuel, and water entering Gaza immediately, as well as a lasting cease-fire.”

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

Continue Reading‘No Longer on the Brink’: Top EU Official Blames Israel for Famine in Gaza

ANDREW MITCHELL: APOLOGIST FOR GENOCIDE

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/andrew-mitchell-apologist-for-genocide/

Andrew mitchell with prime minister Rishi Sunak (Flickr)

Britain’s foreign minister has played the lead government role in defending the indefensible – the UK’s support of Israel as it engages in the mass killing of Palestinians.

Andrew Mitchell has consistently defended and apologised for Israel’s war on Gaza since it launched its brutal campaign following the Hamas attacks of 7 October last year.

His support, delivered in numerous parliamentary debates and questioning, is part of the UK government’s extraordinary backing of Israel. 

This includes substantial military activities not reported by Britain’s mainstream media, defence of Israel at the United Nations and ongoing negotiations to increase trade between the two countries – all taking place as Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians.

Mitchell’s tireless assistance to Israel while it accused by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of “plausibly” conducting a genocide, has covered numerous aspects of Israel’s war.

‘Wrong and provocative’

In particular, the foreign minister has led the vociferous UK government rejection of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. 

Mitchell has said that “South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative”. Indeed, he has dismissed the charge of genocide against Israel as “hideous”.

In parliament, Mitchell has repeatedly said the case is “unhelpful and we do not support it”. He has added: “We do not believe that calling this genocide is the right approach. It is wrong to say that Israeli leadership, and Israel as a country, have the intention to commit genocide”. 

…

https://www.declassifieduk.org/andrew-mitchell-apologist-for-genocide/

Continue ReadingANDREW MITCHELL: APOLOGIST FOR GENOCIDE

Unicef reports that acute malnutrition has doubled in one month in the north of Gaza strip

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1 in 3 children under 2 years of age are today acutely malnourished in the north, according to nutrition screenings conducted by UNICEF and partners

NEW YORK, 15 MARCH 2024 –31 per cent – or 1 in 3 children under 2 years of age – in the Northern Gaza Strip suffer from acute malnutrition, a staggering escalation from 15.6 per cent in January.

Malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels in the Gaza Strip due to the wide-reaching impacts of the war and ongoing restrictions on aid delivery.

At least 23 children in Northern Gaza Strip have reportedly died from malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks, adding to the mounting toll of children killed in the Strip in this current conflict – about 13,450 reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Nutrition screenings conducted by UNICEF and partners in the north in February found that 4.5 per cent of the children in shelters and health centers suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, which puts children at highest risk of medical complications and death unless they receive urgent therapeutic feeding and treatment, which is not available. The prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under 5 years of age in the north has increased from 13 per cent to as high as 25 per cent.

“The speed at which this catastrophic child malnutrition crisis in Gaza has unfolded is shocking, especially when desperately needed assistance has been at the ready just a few miles away,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director. “We have repeatedly attempted to deliver additional aid and we have repeatedly called for the access challenges we have faced for months to be addressed. Instead, the situation for children is getting worse by each passing day. Our efforts in providing life-saving aid are being hampered by unnecessary restrictions, and those are costing children their lives.”

Screenings conducted for the first time in Khan Younis, in the middle area of the Gaza Strip, found 28 per cent of children under 2 years have acute malnutrition, more than 10 per cent of which have severe wasting.

Even in Rafah, the southern enclave with the most access to aid, the results from screenings among children under 2 years doubled from 5 per cent who were acutely malnourished in January to about 10 per cent by the end of February, with severe wasting rising fourfold from 1 per cent to more than 4 per cent over the month.

UN agencies have been warning of the risk of a famine in the Gaza Strip since December. In January, the emergency thresholds for acute malnutrition in children were exceeded. Acute malnutrition among children has continued to rise rapidly and at scale and there is a high risk it will continue to increase across the Gaza Strip, costing more lives, in the absence of more humanitarian assistance and the restoration of essential services.

UNICEF has reached children with treatment for acute malnutrition, including the use of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), Ready to Use Infant Formula and preventative micronutrients supplements containing iron and other essential nutrients for pregnant women. More supplies are due to arrive this week, but this is still not enough to address the needs.

“We are doing everything we can to avert a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it is not enough,” said Russell. “An immediate humanitarian ceasefire continues to provide the only chance to save children’s lives and end their suffering. We also need multiple land border crossings that allow aid to be reliably delivered at scale, including to northern Gaza, along with the security assurances and unimpeded passage needed to distribute that aid, without delays or access impediments.”

Continue ReadingUnicef reports that acute malnutrition has doubled in one month in the north of Gaza strip

Will abandoning left-wing voters backfire for Keir Starmer?

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Original article by Paul Rogers republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Labour leader’s reluctance to differ from Tories on policy or Gaza sets stage for progressive independent candidates

Keir Starmer has moved Labour to the right – leaving left-wing voters without a political home  | Belinda Jiao/Getty Images

Almost all of Britain’s pollsters agree: the Labour Party is heading for a massive victory in this year’s general election, while Rishi Sunak’s Tories are set for a historic defeat. But there is another, far less talked about shift underway, which could see a wave of independent left-wing MPs elected.

Most polling firms expect Labour to win a majority of more than a hundred seats. A ‘poll of polls’ by political forecasting website Electoral Calculus suggests the party is on course for a 200+ majority.

These polls could all be wrong, but little seems to shake them. There is some evidence, though, of another trend that is yet to be reflected in the polls: Keir Starmer’s unwillingness to set out any clear policy differences from the Conservatives may be backfiring.

One area likely to cause the Labour leader trouble is his position – or lack thereof – on Israel’s war on Gaza.

Several polls in recent months have indicated that around 70% of people in the UK want an immediate ceasefire, and there are weekly demonstrations in towns and cities across the country in support of Palestinians. Organisers of a march in London last week estimated that up to 400,000 people had gathered to demand an end to the violence.

These protests receive minimal coverage in the mainstream media, bar senior Conservatives labelling the peaceful crowds as ‘hate mobs’. The government maintains strong support for Israel, continuing to sell arms and share intelligence with the country, as well as allowing it to use RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a support base – a position Labour has largely agreed with.

This leaves a huge gap in political representation, at least from the biggest two parties, for swathes of people nationwide.

It was in this opening that former Labour MP George Galloway – who was kicked out of the party in the 2000s after objecting to the UK entering the Iraq war – was elected as an independent MP for Rochdale last month, following a campaign that centred the need for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Another gap in political representation has been created by Starmer’s remodelling of the Labour Party, which has been sanitised to ensure it poses little or no threat to the political establishment. The majority of his policies so far appear to be a continuation of the status quo, suggesting little will change if the party wins the forthcoming election.

In contrast, so bold and progressive were the policies of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, that the higher echelons of the Labour Party and the wider political and media establishment were determined to get rid of him from the offset.

A leadership challenge was mounted against him in the summer of 2016, little over a year after he was elected the party’s leader. Corbyn won comfortably – a fact I found unsurprising, having seen first-hand how he could pull a crowd of more than a thousand people to a hurriedly arranged event half a mile from a city centre.

Internal party opposition to Corbyn surged following his re-election, again backed by the mainstream media. When then Tory prime minister Theresa May called an election in 2017, many anticipated she would win a landslide victory that would consign ‘Corbynism’ to the outer margins.

Instead, Corbyn and his Labour manifesto struck a chord with many voters. Labour gains resulted in a hung parliament, to the horror of the political establishment, which worked to eliminate this threat from the left over the following two years.

After Labour lost the 2019 general election, Corbyn resigned and Starmer moved the party rightwards – prompting tens of thousands of its members to desert it as a result. Their votes are now up for grabs, and left-wing independents are hoping to win them.

Take a meeting in London just last weekend, scarcely reported on except by socialist paper The Morning Star. Two hundred of Labour’s former parliamentary candidates, councillors and supporters gathered to develop an alternative to its current stance on Gaza and other issues.

A sense of the mood at the event was best summed up by Tyneside’s independent socialist mayor Jamie Driscoll, who quit Labour after the party decided not to select him to run again for the north-east mayoral election in May.

In a video message played at the meeting, Driscoll said: “In the next election, both parties will have the same manifesto and the same rich donors pulling the strings.”

A similar event is planned in Blackburn next month – just one part of a much wider movement that will likely see independent left-wing candidates standing against Labour candidates in many seats in the general election.

This is already being seen in England’s upcoming local council elections, where clusters of non-party, progressive candidates are working together in many parts of the country. In Blackburn, for example, every ward will have an independent left-wing candidate standing, as will all six wards in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Early indications suggest similar trends in Merseyside and parts of London.

The accepted political wisdom in the UK is that once a general election is called, voters tend to revert to the usual pattern of voting. But if independent candidates were to pick up substantial numbers of votes in the local elections, even taking some council seats, it could indicate a political shift that means this wisdom will not apply this year.

This may seem unlikely but there is undeniably a political vacuum waiting to be filled – and a sense that something is afoot in British politics that is simply not being recognised.

Original article by Paul Rogers republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Status Quo, again and again and again and again
Continue ReadingWill abandoning left-wing voters backfire for Keir Starmer?