Mercy Corps

Lifesaving Gaza Aid ‘Has Fallen to an All-Time Low’ Under Israeli Siege

Spread the love

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

A driver prepares a truck full of humanitarian aid from the European Union for entry into Gaza at the Erez West crossing in Israel on November 11, 2024.  (Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)

“There is a strong likelihood that famine is already occurring in northern Gaza, and that immediate action is required within days, not weeks, to address the crisis,” a new analysis warns.

More than two dozen international relief groups operating in Gaza warned Thursday that humanitarian assistance entering the embattled Palestinian enclave “has fallen to an all-time low” as Israel continues to block lifesaving aid, fueling nascent famine in the north.

“An average of only 37 humanitarian trucks per day entered Gaza in October, and an average of 69 per day during the first week of November. This is still well below the average of 500 per day which entered Gaza… before October 7, 2023, and was insufficient to meet the needs of the population,” the seventh Gaza Humanitarian Aid Snapshot notes.

“For almost a month, Israel has blocked attempts by aid organizations to deliver aid in areas of northern Gaza, effectively severing the population from access to vital lifelines, including food, medical supplies, and all other humanitarian aid,” the report continues, adding that “there is a strong likelihood that famine is already occurring in northern Gaza, and that immediate action is required within days, not weeks, to address the crisis.”

https://twitter.com/CAREGlobal/status/1857111536960954755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1857111536960954755%7Ctwgr%5Ec0b05b693821f21edd9410900b46974c237994fc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fisrael-blocking-gaza-aid

Sorry, this content could not be embedded.

X

“Tragically, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 20 aid workers from both Palestinian and international organizations,” the analysis laments. “Staff were killed in their homes, in displacement camps, and while delivering lifesaving aid. Many aid workers lost close family members and relatives.”

One forcibly displaced resident of northern Gaza told the report’s authors:

Everyone has received this call before: One of your friends or colleagues or relatives or cousins is under the siege or bombs. And they ask for help. And you can’t do anything. You can’t do anything for them. And they die. They die while they are asking us to help them. This is the worst thing.

The report also notes widespread looting by desperate Gaza residents—a consequence not only of the bombing, invasion, and siege but also of Israel’s targeted killing of Palestinian police officers—and criminal gangs extorting aid groups for “protection” money.

The new analysis came on the same day that a United Nations committee published a report concluding that Israel’s policies and practices in Gaza “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide” and two days after the Biden administration—which backs Israel with arms and diplomatic support—sparked worldwide anger by asserting that Israel is not violating humanitarian law during the war.

A scorecard published earlier this week by some of the same groups that compiled the Humanitarian Aid Snapshot detailed how Israel has failed to fully comply with any of the Biden administration’s 19 demands indicating compliance with humanitarian law.

As children in Gaza began starving to death earlier this year, the International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—ordered the Israeli government to stop blocking aid from entering the enclave. Israel has been accused of ignoring the order.

As the Humanitarian Aid Snapshot notes, Israeli forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 103,000 others as of November 12. Approximately 80% of Gazans are under forced displacement orders—a policy denounced by many as ethnic cleansing—and around 90% of Gaza residents have been forcibly displaced, most of them multiple times.

“The population in northern Gaza faces starvation, severe shortages of clean water, critical supply scarcity, and ever-increasing desperation,” Mercy Corps, one of the groups that contributed to the analysis, said in a statement. “We call on all those with influence and power to take urgent action to de-escalate and halt the unrelenting violence in Gaza, to protect civilians and aid workers, and to do everything possible to achieve an immediate and lasting cease-fire.”

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

Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK's air force has been essential in Israel's mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide and the UK government and military's active participation in genocide.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Continue ReadingLifesaving Gaza Aid ‘Has Fallen to an All-Time Low’ Under Israeli Siege

UN to Warn Half a Million Gazans Facing ‘Catastrophic’ Food Insecurity

Spread the love

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

Children receive malnourishment treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024, amid Israel’s ongoing assault on the besieged enclave. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

“The international community must apply relentless pressure to achieve a cease-fire and ensure sustained humanitarian access now,” said one advocate.

More than 1 in 5 people in the Gaza Strip are “facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity” amid Israel’s relentless assault and siege against the Palestinian territory, according to a draft report set to be published Tuesday by the United Nations’ hunger monitoring system.

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity Special Snapshot—which was previewed by various news agencies—says that more than 495,000 Gazans—who already face “an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion”—are expected to suffer the highest level of starvation over the coming months.

The draft report states that while a sharp increase in food aid in northern Gaza in March and April can be credited with “likely averting a famine,” the situation is “deteriorating again following renewed hostilities.”

“A high risk of famine persists across the whole of the Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues and humanitarian access is restricted,” IPC noted.

The IPC draft report also says more than half of all Gaza households had to sell or swap clothing in order to obtain food, and that the majority of Gazan families often “do not have any food to eat in the house, and over 20% go entire days and nights without eating.”

“The population cannot endure these hardships any longer.”

Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, an Oregon-based humanitarian NGO, told The Guardian that “people are enduring subhuman conditions resorting to desperate measures like boiling weeds, eating animal feed, and exchanging clothes for money to stave off hunger and keep their children alive.”

“The humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly, and the specter of famine continues to hang over Gaza,” she added. “The international community must apply relentless pressure to achieve a cease-fire and ensure sustained humanitarian access now. The population cannot endure these hardships any longer.”

Although the IPC stopped short of the rare step of declaring a famine in Gaza, it warned that “the recent trajectory is negative and highly unstable.”

“Should this continue, the improvements seen in April could be rapidly reversed,” the agency added.

The IPC’s famine review panel previously said there is not enough data to make a determination on whether there is a famine in Gaza since research was being blocked by “conflict and humanitarian access constraints.”

The Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Monday that “the Famine Review Committee’s inability to declare the current food situation in the Gaza Strip to be a famine does not negate the existence of famine in the strip, as pockets of famine are forming and spreading among different age groups, particularly children, and there is a noticeable increase in deaths from hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases.”

“The committee’s failure to declare the existence of a famine is solely related to its inability to provide certain technical information because of illegal Israeli restrictions and policies that aim to conceal evidence related to the crimes it commits and prevent criminal investigations into them by independent U.N. and international committees, particularly by preventing these committees from entering the strip,” the group added.

U.N. World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said last month that “full-blown famine” had taken hold in Gaza and was spreading south. According to Gaza officials, at least 40 people—mostly children—have died from malnutrition and dehydration during the 262-day Israeli onslaught. Almost all of the victims are from northern Gaza.

Israel began bombing, and later invaded, Gaza after Hamas-led attacks left more than 1,100 Israelis and others dead and over 240 others kidnapped on October 7. At least some of the victims were killed by Israeli forces in so-called “friendly fire” incidents, according to Israeli and international media reports.

Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 37,626 Palestinians—most of them women and children—in Gaza, while wounding over 86,000 others, according to Palestinian and international agencies. At least 11,000 people, including over 4,000 children, are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.

Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food and a law professor at the University of Oregon, said in late February that Israel is committing genocide by intentionally starving Gazans. Israel’s siege—and Israeli attacks on humanitarian aid shipments, workers, and recipients—are being reviewed by the International Court of Justice as part of a South Africa-led genocide case backed by over 30 countries and regional blocs.

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

Over 20,000 Children Missing in Gaza, With ‘Unknown Number’ in Mass Graves: Report

‘Visible Signs of Wasting’: Heat, Forced Malnutrition Strangle People of Gaza

Biden Continues to Cement a Bloody and Immoral Legacy in Gaza

Continue ReadingUN to Warn Half a Million Gazans Facing ‘Catastrophic’ Food Insecurity

‘Most Thorough Legal Analysis’ Yet Concludes Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza

Spread the love

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

A Palestinian boy observes the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the central Gaza Strip on May 14, 2024.
 (Photo” Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The University Network for Human Rights report also stresses that other nations are legally obligated to “refrain from recognizing Israel’s breaches as legal or taking any actions that may amount to complicity.”

The University Network for Human Rights on Wednesday released and sent to United Nations offices a 105-page report that it called “the most thorough legal analysis” yet to find “Israel is committing genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The network partnered with the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School, the Center for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School for the analysis, which draws from “a diverse range of credible sources” and the territory’s history.

“After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention,” the report states. “Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people.”

As of May 1, Israel’s assault had killed “more than 5% of Gaza’s population, with over 2% of Gaza’s children killed or injured,” the analysis notes. In recent days, Israeli forces have ramped up their attack on Rafah—where over a million people from other parts of the besieged enclave sought refuge—and the total death toll has risen to 35,233, according to Gaza health officials, with another 79,141 Palestinians injured.

“Israel’s military operation has destroyed up to 70% of homes in Gaza, and has decimated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, universities, U.N. facilities, and cultural and religious heritage sites,” the document says, noting the “staggering” number of forced displacements. “Civilians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger and deprivation due to Israel’s restriction on, and failure to ensure adequate access to, basic essentials of life, including food, water, medicine, and fuel.”

“Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza have been motivated by the requisite genocidal intent, as evidenced in this report by the statements of Israeli leaders, the character of the state and its military forces’ conduct against and relating to Palestinians in Gaza, and the direct nexus between them,” the publication continues, pointing to comments from “officials at all levels of Israeli government, up to and including” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel has faced mounting allegations of genocide since launching its retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—including an ongoing South Africa-led case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found in January that the country is “plausibly” committing genocide.

Bolstering the ICJ’s conclusion, the Wednesday report declares that “Israel’s violations of the international legal prohibition of genocide amount to grave breaches of peremptory norms of international law that must cease immediately.”

“These violations give rise to obligations by all other states: to refrain from recognizing Israel’s breaches as legal or taking any actions that may amount to complicity in these breaches; and to take positive steps to suppress, prevent, and punish the commission by Israel of further genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” the document adds.

The United States has long provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic support—which have soared since October 7, despite growing pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to cut off such assistance. The Democrat has incrementally increased his criticism of the Israeli assault in recent weeks, angering far-right leaders in both countries.

The new legal analysis—which was sent to the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel—came on the same day that 20 human rights groups issued a joint statement.

The rights organizations—including Amnesty International, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam—called on world leaders “to urgently act in bringing to an end, and pursue accountability for,” Israel’s grave breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Both documents were released on Nakba Day, which commemorates the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Some experts and campaigners contend that the Nakba—Arabic for catastrophe—continues today.

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

Continue Reading‘Most Thorough Legal Analysis’ Yet Concludes Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza