A UN official in charge of relief efforts has said that ‘humanity is failing’ in regards to the violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“Civilians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory are suffering from a week of utter anguish and devastation,” Martin Griffiths, humanitarian affairs undersecretary general and emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement.
“I fear that the worst is yet to come”, he added.
1300 Israelis were killed in Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7. An estimated 150 people, including children, were captured by Hamas and taken as hostages into Gaza. Gaza is home to around 2 million people ― roughly half of which are children.
In response to the attack, Israel has carried out airstrikes on Gaza, saying it wants to crush Hamas. The Israeli Defence Forces said that it had already dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza.
Earlier today, Gaza’s Health Ministry said that at least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7.
…
Tag: Gaza
UN relief chief says ‘humanity is failing’ in response to conflict in Palestine and Israel
Amnesty International cricises Rishi Sunak for failing to mention Palestinian deaths
Rish! Sunak In response to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s latest comments on the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:
“It is right that Rishi Sunak has expressed horror at the cruel and brutal crimes against Israeli civilians committed by Hamas a week ago, which showed a chilling disregard for life and included war crimes.
“But for the Prime Minister not to mention the Palestinian civilians killed due to Israeli airstrikes or include any call for all parties to the conflict to uphold international humanitarian law, is deeply troubling.
“Israel’s massive bombing campaign in Gaza has already killed at least 1,900 people and injured more than 8,000. The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population through restricting water, fuel, food and electricity is a war crime, and the Israeli army’s order to people in northern Gaza to ‘evacuate’ amounts to forced displacement.
“Now more than ever, world leaders should urgently pressure all parties to uphold international humanitarian law consistently and without double standards. The protection of all civilians – Israeli and Palestinian – must be prioritised.”
‘We Must Halt This’: US Progressives, Humanitarians Decry Israel’s Evacuation Order
Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Palestinians walk through debris along a street in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment in al-Karama district in Gaza City on October 11, 2023. (Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images) “The mass expulsion of over 1 million people in a day is ethnic cleansing,” said U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. “We must use all diplomatic tools to stop this.”
Progressive members of the U.S. Congress joined humanitarian groups and the United Nations on Friday in condemning Israel’s 24-hour evacuation order for the entire population of the northern Gaza Strip, a directive that will be impossible for many in the region to meet—particularly the thousands wounded by Israeli airstrikes.
“Any person can see that ordering 1+ million people to move in under 24 hours is not possible. It is unacceptable,” U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on social media. “Humanity is at stake. Nearly half are children. We must halt this.”
More than 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel began its latest bombing campaign in Gaza following a deadly Hamas attack on October 7.
In the wake of Israel’s order—which came hours before the nation launched ground raids in Gaza—many panicked residents fled their homes in the northern part of the enclave, with some fearing another permanent displacement on the scale of the 1948 Nakba.
“As I am packing my things I am wondering, is this really another Nakba?” 56-year-old Arwa El-Rayes, an internal medicine doctor, told The New York Times shortly before fleeing her home in Gaza City. “I am taking my house key and thinking, will I ever return to my home, will I ever see my home again?”
Reuters reported that “several thousand residents could be seen on roads heading out of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but it was impossible to tell their numbers. Many others said they would not go.”
A 33-year-old woman in Gaza City toldThe Washington Post that she’s staying along with dozens of family members, including her elderly parents.
“There are no cars to take us anywhere,” she said. “There is no gas in cars. Cab companies don’t have cars anymore. The streets are so, so, so, so crowded, it’s like it’s the Day of Judgement.”
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) argued that “the mass expulsion of over 1 million people in a day is ethnic cleansing.”
“We have to stop ignoring the thousands of Palestinian lives lost and millions at stake!” Omar added. “We must use all diplomatic tools to stop this.”
Echoing aid groups, the Minnesota lawmaker emphasized that many in northern Gaza—including people with disabilities and those wounded by Israeli bombs—”can’t simply pick up and leave” in compliance with Israel’s evacuation directive, which the U.N. said is untenable and should be rescinded.
“With communications and electricity shut down by Israel, the order cannot be communicated,” Omar wrote. “Roads are bombed and many cars are out of fuel, making fleeing impossible for many. Plus there has been no announcement of a pause in hostilities to allow for safe civilian evacuation, so people are afraid to leave and risk bombardment. Even if it were successful, there is no infrastructure in southern Gaza to receive an additional 1.1 million people.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society underscored those warnings in a statement Friday, saying it doesn’t have “the means to evacuate the sick and the wounded in our hospitals, or the elderly and the disabled.”
“There are no safe areas in the whole of the Gaza Strip,” the group said. “The world must intervene to stop this catastrophe.”
Israeli forces have already been accused of targeting Gazans attempting to flee to the south with airstrikes.
Despite urgent appeals from lawmakers and aid organizations, officials in the U.S.—Israel’s top ally and leading supplier of weaponry—have provided no public indication that they will pressure Israel to reverse course.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told people in Gaza City on Friday to “evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families” as it amasses tanks and troops for an apparently imminent full-scale ground invasion. Hamas has reportedly told Gazans to defy the IDF’s instructions.
Asked about Israel’s evacuation order during a CNN appearance on Friday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said he doesn’t want to get involved in “armchair quarterbacking” the situation, adding, “We understand what they’re trying to do.”
“Now it’s a tall order,” Kirby admitted. “It’s a million people, and it’s a very urban, dense environment. It’s already a combat zone. So I don’t think anybody’s underestimating the challenge here of effecting that evacuation.”
The White House’s soft-pedaling of Israel’s directive contrasts sharply with the assessments of human rights organizations, which argued the order amounts to a war crime that will worsen an already calamitous situation.
“The instructions issued by the Israeli authorities for the population of Gaza City to immediately leave their homes, coupled with the complete siege explicitly denying them food, water, and electricity, are not compatible with international humanitarian law,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Friday. “When military powers order people to leave their homes, all possible measures must be taken to ensure the population has access to basic necessities like food and water and that members of the same family are not separated.”
“Gaza is a closed area of limited size and resources,” the ICRC added. “People have nowhere safe to go and many, including the disabled, elderly, and sick, will not be able to leave their homes. International humanitarian law protects all civilians, including those who remain. Today, it is impossible for Gazans to know which areas will next face attack.”
“There are no extra beds in any hospitals anywhere for people to move to. Most of the wounded are unstable, they’ll die en route.
Gaza’s health ministry toldThe Independent that it would be “impossible” to move the wounded in its care to southern Gaza, given that the entire territory’s healthcare system is overwhelmed and teetering on the brink of total collapse due to the rapid influx of airstrike victims and Israel’s blockade, which has cut off the enclave’s supply of electricity, fuel, and critical supplies.
More than 6,600 people in Gaza have been injured by Israel’s relentless aerial campaign, which dropped roughly 6,000 bombs on the occupied enclave over just a six-day period, leveling entire neighborhoods and damaging medical facilities, schools, and other civilian infrastructure.
“There are no extra beds in any hospitals anywhere for people to move to,” Gaza’s health ministry said. “Most of the wounded are unstable, they’ll die en route. All hospitals in Gaza, even after they’ve been expanded, are full.”
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, noted that “there are severely ill people whose injuries mean their only chances of survival is being on life support, such as mechanical ventilators.”
“So moving those people is a death sentence,” said Jasarevic. “Asking health workers to do so is beyond cruel.”
Meinie Nicolai, general director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement Friday that the Israeli military’s evacuation order is “outrageous.” The group said Israel has given Al Awda Hospital—where Doctors Without Borders staff are treating patients—just two hours to evacuate.
“This represents an attack on medical care and on humanity. We are talking about more than a million human beings,” said Nicolai. “‘Unprecedented’ doesn’t even cover the medical humanitarian impact of this. Gaza is being flattened, thousands of people are dying. This must stop now. We condemn Israel’s demand in the strongest possible terms.”
Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Israel Accused of ‘Blatant War Crime’ as HRW Confirms White Phosphorus Used in Gaza
An Israeli white phosphorus round (right) airbursts over densely populated Gaza City, Palestine on October 11, 2023.
(Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering,” said one Human Rights Watch official.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday said it has confirmed reports that Israeli military forces unleashed white phosphorus munitions during artillery attacks on targets in Lebanon and Gaza this week, including over a heavily populated civilian area of the besieged Palestinian strip—an apparent war crime.
HRW said it has interviewed witnesses and verified video footage shot in Lebanon and Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday “showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border.”
The HRW announcement came as Israeli forces continue to bombard Gaza from air, land, and sea in an assault that has killed more than 1,500 Palestinians, including at least 500 children, in retaliation for Hamas’ surprise infiltration of Israel and killing of over 1,300 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
As HRW explained Thursday:
Upon contact, white phosphorus can burn people, thermally and chemically, down to the bone as it is highly soluble in fat and therefore in human flesh. White phosphorus fragments can exacerbate wounds even after treatment and can enter the bloodstream and cause multiple organ failure. Already dressed wounds can reignite when dressings are removed and the wounds are reexposed to oxygen. Even relatively minor burns are often fatal. For survivors, extensive scarring tightens muscle tissue and creates physical disabilities.
WP burns as hot as 1,500°F. Water does not extinguish it.
“Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering,” HRW Middle East and North Africa director Lama Fakih said in a statement. “White phosphorous is unlawfully indiscriminate when airburst in populated urban areas, where it can burn down houses and cause egregious harm to civilians.”
“To avoid civilian harm, Israel should stop using white phosphorus in populated areas,” Fakih added. “Parties to the conflict should be doing everything they can to spare civilians from further suffering.”
HRW previously accused Israel of war crimes for using WP munitions in densely populated areas—including over a United Nations school—during the 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead invasion of Gaza. In response to a 2013 petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice filed by human rights groups including HRW, the Israel Defense Forces said it would no longer use WP in populated areas, with “very narrow exceptions” that it would not disclose.
Other countries’ militaries also use WP, most notably the United States, which fired the incendiary rounds during the 2004 battle for Fallujah and elsewhere in the so-called War on Terror.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia was condemned for allegedly firing U.S.-supplied WP munitions against Houthi rebels in Yemen. WP and other incendiary weapons have also been used by Syrian government and Russian forces fighting Islamic State and other militants during the Syrian civil war. Turkey has also been accused of firing WP rounds at Kurdish civilians in Syria.
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Morning Star: Israel at war: the West’s uncritical support has fuelled this explosion
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/israel-war-wests-uncritical-support-has-fuelled-explosion
HAMAS has shocked the world with both the scale and success of its attack on Israeli territory over the weekend — and British politicians have been quick to offer Israel their full support.
Hundreds of Israelis have been killed or kidnapped and, while hundreds of Palestinians have already been killed in vengeful air raids on Gaza, the Israeli military was still struggling to reassert control within its borders last night.
Benjamin Netanyahu does not downplay the disaster, warning the country is on the brink of “a long war.” If that is the case, as demonstrators marching on the Labour conference in Liverpool today warned, it will entail many thousands of deaths.
But for millions of Palestinians that “long war” didn’t begin on Saturday. Keir Starmer portrays Hamas’s action as an unjustifiable act of terror, and talks of it undermining “any chance for future peace in the region.”
His rhetoric is familiar: political leaders across western Europe and the United States respond in this way every time Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and blockade of Gaza flare into open conflict. But this default alignment with Israel is partly responsible for the scenes now unfolding.
…
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/israel-war-wests-uncritical-support-has-fuelled-explosion
