mass atrocities

‘Totally Insufficient’: Groups Say Trickle of Gaza Aid No Match for Ongoing ‘Mass Atrocities’

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

Injured child is taken to Suheda al-Aqsa Hospital (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital) in Deir al-Balah, Gaza as Israeli attacks on Gaza continue on the 15th day on October 21, 2023. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Collective punishment of two million people is a war crime and a moral outrage,” said one head of a medical relief group. “The siege must end, a ceasefire must be secured, and aid must be allowed to reach any who need it.”

Emergency aid groups and relief experts denounced the tiny “trickle” of humanitarian supplies that were finally allowed to pass through the Rafah crossing into Gaza on Saturday, especially as what was described by human rights watchdogs as a “loss of civilian life at a scale we have not seen in the modern history of Israel and Palestine” continues inside the besieged territory.

The 20 trucks authorized to deliver aid into Gaza through border with Egypt, said Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF in a statement, is “totally insufficient compared to the desperate needs of the people, who have been under complete siege and relentless bombing for two weeks.”

“Prior to the siege,” the group said, “hundreds of trucks with supplies entered Gaza every day as the Strip is crucially reliant on external aid. Food, water, and medicine are still desperately needed.”

“Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities. It is now catastrophic. The world must do more.” —UN Agencies

Guillemette Thomas, MSF’s medical coordinator for Gaza, said Saturday that inside Gaza “we have an extremely high number of injured people arriving in hospitals, very serious patients requiring complex care. According to our colleagues who still work at Shifa hospital, the hospital will soon run out of fuel and therefore electricity. This means that all the patients currently in intensive care units connected to ventilators and babies in incubators will die because of the lack of electricity. Operating theaters will no longer be able to function, patients will no longer be able to be operated on and the number of victims will increase significantly in the coming hours.”

Thomas warned that those in the intensive care were “just the tip of the iceberg,” warning that all injured and sick people Gaza remain at severe risk.

Human Rights Watch was among those who suggested that the refusal to allow fuel into Gaza—and the absence of efforts to restore or repair devastated the electricity grid or water systems—makes the paltry level stand out as intentionally inadequate.

“While aid agencies struggle to squeeze a few trucks of humanitarian aid into southern Gaza via Egypt, the Israeli authorities are keeping their crossings with Gaza closed and refusing to flick the switch for the water and electricity supply,” said Tirana Hassan, HRW’s executive director. “There is no excuse for denying water, food, and medicine to Gaza’s civilian population. It is cruel and contrary to international law.”

Melanie Ward, chief Eexecutive of the U.K.-based group Medical Aid for Palestinians said 20 trucks of supplies “does not even scratch the surface” of what’s needed in Gaza.

“It is appalling that fuel will not be allowed in, making the distribution of aid to the people who need it across Gaza impossible,” Ward said. “Without electricity, the lights will go out in hospitals, desalination and sewage plants will not function, and many more people will die.”

“Political leaders should remember that collective punishment of two million people is a war crime and a moral outrage,” she added. “The siege must end, a ceasefire must be secured, and aid must be allowed to reach any who need it.”

Ward’s group was also part of a Saturday effort to bring attention to 130 premature babies currently in hospitals throughout Gaza at risk of death if those facilities run out of power:

In a joint Saturday statement, UN agencies—namely the UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO—said while the “limited, shipment of life-saving humanitarian supplies” provided by the United Nations and Egyptian Red Crescent would “provide an urgently needed lifeline to some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, who have been cut off from water, food, medicine, and other essentials,” it was “only a small beginning and far from enough” to address the depth of the crisis.

Citing the overwhelmed hospitals and acute shortages of power, food, and water, the agencies’ statement included a slate of demands, including a pause of Israel’s bombing campaign:

We call for a humanitarian ceasefire, along with immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access throughout Gaza to allow humanitarian actors to reach civilians in need, save lives and prevent further human suffering. Flows of humanitarian aid must be at scale and sustained, and allow all Gazans to preserve their dignity.

We call for safe and sustained access to water, food, health – including sexual and reproductive health, and fuel, which is necessary to enable essential services. “We call for the protection of all civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including healthcare facilities.

We call for the protection of humanitarian workers in Gaza who are risking their lives for the service of others.
And we call for the utmost respect of international humanitarian law by all parties.

Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities. It is now catastrophic. The world must do more.

In a joint statement on Friday, top Human Rights Watch program directors—Omar Shakir, Yasmine Ahmed, and Akshaya Kumar—said that the world is “witnessing loss of civilian life at a scale we have not seen in the modern history of Israel and Palestine. With deadlock paralyzing international institutions, leaders should rise to the moment and act to prevent further mass atrocities before it’s far too late.”

HRW said Saturday that as the occupying power in Gaza it has the legal duty under international humanitarian law to “ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for” and that it is obligated to facilitate, not prevent, the flow of humanitarian aid.

“Israeli authorities need to act immediately,” said Hassan in her statement. “Lives are hanging in the balance.”

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

Continue Reading‘Totally Insufficient’: Groups Say Trickle of Gaza Aid No Match for Ongoing ‘Mass Atrocities’

‘This Is Not What Fighting Hamas Looks Like’: Israel Orders All of Northern Gaza to Evacuate

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“That’s obviously impossible. Israel is preparing for mass atrocities.”

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

People in Gaza City begin moving to the south following an Israeli military evacuation order on October 13, 2023. 
(Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Israeli military on Friday ordered the entire population of northern Gaza—roughly 1.1 million people—to evacuate to the southern half of the occupied territory within 24 hours, prompting fears of an even worse humanitarian catastrophe as Israel readies a ground invasion and continues its disastrous bombing campaign.

The order, initially issued to the United Nations, impacts nearly half of Gaza’s population and comes after hundreds of thousands of the enclave’s residents were already displaced by Israeli airstrikes, which have killed more than 1,500 people.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement that the organization “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.”

Dujarric added that the order must be “rescinded” to avert “a calamitous situation.”

News of Israel’s directive sparked alarm and confusion on the ground in northern Gaza, which includes densely populated Gaza City—home to the territory’s primary hospital.

Al Jazeera reported that one of its journalists in Gaza City “saw residents packing up whatever belongings they could as they began evacuating towards the south in cars, vans, and any other vehicle that was available.”

“In northern Gaza, residents early in the morning of Friday said the streets were empty as people stayed inside their homes trying to decide what to do next following Israel’s evacuation orders,” the outlet noted. “There were no cars on the road except for ambulances. Because of the internet outages and collapse of phone networks, Palestinians said information was scant and most still had not heard direct orders from the army to evacuate.”

“We fear that Israel may claim that Palestinians who could not flee northern Gaza can be erroneously held as directly participating in hostilities, and targeted.”

Aid groups and human rights organizations expressed horror in response to the Israeli military’s evacuation order, which observers warned is a prelude to “mass atrocities.”

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said that without “any guarantees of safety or return,” the order “would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.”

“The collective punishment of countless civilians, among them children, women, and the elderly, in retaliation for acts of horrible terror undertaken by armed men is illegal under international law,” said Egeland. “My colleagues inside Gaza confirm that there are countless people in the northern parts who have no means to safely relocate under the constant barrage of fire.”

“We fear that Israel may claim that Palestinians who could not flee northern Gaza can be erroneously held as directly participating in hostilities, and targeted,” Egeland continued. “The United States, the U.K., the European Union, and other Western and Arab nations who have influence over the Israeli political and military leadership must demand that the illegal and impossible order to relocate is immediately rescinded.”

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said in response to the order that “a million people in northern Gaza are not guilty.”

“They have nowhere else to go,” the group added. “This is not what fighting Hamas looks like. This is revenge. And innocent people are being hurt.”

The order was delivered amid warnings that Gaza’s healthcare system is on the verge of total collapse, overwhelmed by the influx of thousands of airstrike victims and hampered by Israel’s total blockade, which has cut off the enclave’s supply of electricity, food, fuel, and other necessary supplies.

Gaza’s lone power plant has stopped operating due to a lack of fuel, forcing already-strained hospitals to operate on generators. The International Planned Parenthood Federation said Friday that “over 37,000 pregnant women will be forced to give birth with no electricity or medical supplies in Gaza in the coming months, risking life-threatening complications without access to delivery and emergency obstetric care services.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that “time is running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe if fuel and lifesaving health and humanitarian supplies cannot be urgently delivered to the Gaza Strip amidst the complete blockade.”

“Hospitals have only a few hours of electricity each day as they are forced to ration depleting fuel reserves and rely on generators to sustain the most critical functions,” the WHO said. “Even these functions will have to cease in a few days, when fuel stocks are due to run out. The impact would be devastating for the most vulnerable patients, including the injured who need lifesaving surgery, patients in intensive care units, and newborns depending on care in incubators.”

Despite such dire warnings, the U.S.—Israel’s largest supplier of weaponry and military aid—has thus far not called for a cease-fire or an end to the siege.

As The Associated Press reported Friday, “A visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with shipments of U.S. weapons, offered a powerful green light to Israel to drive ahead with its retaliation in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on civilians and soldiers, even as international aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis.”

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

Continue Reading‘This Is Not What Fighting Hamas Looks Like’: Israel Orders All of Northern Gaza to Evacuate