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Tag: starvation

  • Israel’s siege now blocks 83% of food aid reaching Gaza, new data reveals

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    Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants' surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
    Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

    15 aid organisations demand international pressure for an immediate ceasefire, arms embargo, and end to Israel’s systematic aid obstruction

    New data has revealed the scale of aid obstruction, and the consequential drastic fall in aid entering Gaza. This is driving a humanitarian disaster, with the entire population of Gaza facing hunger and disease, and almost half a million at risk of starvation. 

    While Israeli military attacks on Gaza intensify, lifesaving food, medicine, medical supplies, fuel, and tents have been systematically blocked from entering for almost a year. 

    Data analysis by organisations working in Gaza has found that as a consequence of the Israeli government’s obstruction of aid: 

    • 83% of required food aid does not make it into Gaza, up from 34% in 2023.This reduction means people in Gaza have gone from having an average of two meals a day to just one meal every other day. An estimated 50,000 children aged between 6-59 months urgently require treatment for malnutrition by the end of the year.
    • 65% of the insulin required and half of the required blood supply are not available in Gaza. 
    • Availability of hygiene items has dropped to 15% of the amount available in September 2023. One million women are now going without the hygiene supplies they need. 
    • Only around 1,500 hospital beds in Gaza remain operational, compared to around 3,500 beds in 2023 which was already well below sufficient to meet the needs of a population of more than 2 million people. By comparison, cities of similar size, such as Chicago and Paris average 5 to 8 times more beds than in Gaza. 
    • 1.87 million people are in need of shelter with at least 60% of homes destroyed or damaged (January 2024). Yet tents for around just 25,000 people have entered Gaza since May 2024.

    A record low average of 69 aid trucks per day entered Gaza in August 2024, compared to 500 per working day last year; which was already not enough to meet people’s needs. In August more than 1 million people did not receive any food rations in southern and central Gaza. 

    Now, only 17 out of 36 hospitals remain partially functional. Critical infrastructure such as water networks, sanitation facilities and bread mills have been razed to the ground. 

    While humanitarian needs are ever increasing, agencies have detailed six main ways their life-saving aid is systematically obstructed on a daily basis.

    These include the denial of safety, with more than 40,000 Palestinians and nearly 300 aid workers killed since last October; the sharp tightening of a 17-year blockade to a full siege, which prevents aid from entering Gaza; delays and denials which restrict the movement of aid around Gaza; tightly restrictive and unpredictable control of imports; the destruction of public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals; and the displacement of civilians and humanitarian workers (witnessed again in recent displacement orders from the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Deir el-Balah.)

    Ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York this week, aid agencies are calling on governments to demand Israel end aid obstruction and to:

    • Secure an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza. 
    • Implement an arms embargo and end the export of weapons and military equipment that risk being used in violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. 
    • Demand compliance with the International Court of Justice’s findings and recommendations, an end to the Israeli government’s siege of Gaza, and heed the call of the ICJ in its advisory opinion to end the occupation of Palestinian territory. 

    Jolien Veldwijik, CARE Country Director in the West Bank and Gaza, said:

    “The situation was intolerable long before last October’s escalation and is beyond catastrophic now. Over 11 months, we have reached shocking levels of conflict, displacement, disease and hunger. Yet, aid is still not getting in, and humanitarian workers are risking their lives to do their jobs while attacks and violations of international law intensify. Aid, which is urgently required for 2.2 million people at risk of dying in the coming weeks and months, should never be politicised. We demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire, and the free flow of humanitarian aid into and throughout Gaza.” 

    Amjad Al Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), an umbrella organisation of 30 Palestinian NGOs and a partner of ActionAid, said:

     “There is a shortage of all humanitarian items. We are overwhelmed [with] these needs and [these] urgent requirements…People [are] starving due to the shortage of aid…100% of the population depend on humanitarian aid…It’s the worst situation that we [witnessed] during …. the Israel war in Gaza.”

    1. CARE International
    2. Save the Children
    3. ActionAid
    4. Christian Aid
    5. War Child
    6. Islamic Relief
    7. HelpAge International 
    8. American Friends Service Committee
    9. Oxfam
    10. DanChurchAid
    11. Norwegian Church Aid
    12. Mennonite Central Committee
    13. Danish Refugee Council
    14. Norwegian Refugee Council
    15. KinderUSA

  • UN Experts Warn Israel Risks ‘Pariah’ Status Over Gaza Genocide

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

    United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese addresses the European Parliament in Brussels on April 10, 2024.
     (Photo: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)

    One expert even asked if Israel’s United Nations membership should be reconsidered given the country “seems to have zero respect” for the world body.

    United Nations human rights experts warned Monday that Israel risks becoming an international “pariah” over its ongoing assault on Gaza—for which it is on trial for genocide at the world body’s International Court of Justice.

    The special rapporteurs—who are appointed by the U.N. but do not speak on its behalf—condemned Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians, as well as its blatant disregard for international law and multiple rulings from the ICJ.

    These include an advisory opinion that the 57-year Israeli occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must immediately end, and orders for Israeli forces to avoid genocidal actions in Gaza and to immediately halt the Rafah offensive.

    George Katrougalos, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion of democratic and equitable international order and a former Greek foreign minister, said during a press conference that the “first obligation” for harmonious relations between nations “is for everybody to respect the United Nations rules.”

    “This is not happening in the case of Israel,” Katrougalos noted.

    The United Nations agency for Palestinian relief says that around 200 of its staff members have been killed in more than 450 Israeli attacks on agency facilities since October. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking shelter under the U.N. flag.

    Overall, more than 146,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, and Israel’s “complete siege” has caused widespread starvation—sometimes deadly—and sickness throughout the coastal enclave.

    Comparing the international community’s reaction to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war on Gaza, Katrougalos stressed that “we cannot anymore stand this kind of double standards and hypocrisy.”

    “I trust that the progressive and democratic citizens of Israel would not let their country become a pariah like South Africa [had] become during the times of apartheid,” he added. South Africa is leading the genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.

    Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, said that “I think it’s unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah in the face of its continuous, relentless, vilifying assault of the United Nations, on top of millions of Palestinians.”

    “Shockingly, in the face of the abyss reached in the OPT… most member states remained inactive at best, or [are] actively aiding and assisting Israel’s criminal conduct,” she continued.

    “Should there be a consideration of its membership as part of this organization, which Israel seems to have zero respect for?” Albanese added.

    Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, warned that “we are blowing up the United Nations if we don’t react” to Israel’s human rights violations.

    Arrojo-Agudo added that, as with starvation, Israel is using deprivation of water as a “weapon” and disavowed Israel’s claim that Hamas—which led the October 7 attack on Israel—has “completely mismanaged water in Gaza.”

    The special rapporteurs’ remarks came as representatives of U.N. member states gathered in New York for this year’s annual General Assembly. General debate sessions are set for next week.

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

  • Top EU Diplomat Warns Israeli Impunity Will Lead to West Bank Becoming ‘a New Gaza’

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

    Josep Borrell speaks during a press conference at the end of an Informal Foreign Affairs Council (Development Ministers) in Brussels, on February 12, 2023.
     (Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

    “Against this backdrop, it is clear that the prospect of a two-state solution—which we have been ritually repeating—is receding ever further while the international community deplores, feels, and condemns, but finds it hard to act.”

    European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday urged the international community to stop “radical members of the Israeli government” from thwarting Palestinian statehood and prevent Israel from turning the illegally occupied West Bank into “a new Gaza.”

    Speaking to attendees of an Arab League conference in Cairo, Borrell lamented that a Gaza cease-fire agreement “has still not been signed and does not seem likely to be signed in the near future.”

    “Why? Quite simply, because those who are waging the war have no interest in putting an end to it,” he continued. “So, they are just pretending… Because, as it turns out, their intransigence is accompanied by total impunity.”

    “If acts have no consequences, if blatant violation of international law remains disregarded, if institutions such as the International Criminal Court are threatened, if the International Court of Justice rulings are totally ignored by those who promote a rules-based order, who can be trusted?” Borrell asked.

    “Not only is there no pause in the war in Gaza,” he noted. “But what looms on the horizon is the extension of the conflict to the West Bank, where radical members of the Israeli government—Netanyahu’s government—try to make it impossible to create a future Palestinian state.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his far-right government have openly boasted about their efforts to derail the so-called “two-state solution,” and Israeli lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in July to oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.

    Borrell asserted that “a new front is being opened with a clear objective: to turn the West Bank into a new Gaza—in rising violence, delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority, stimulating provocations to react forcefully, and not shying away from saying to the face of the world that the only way to reach a peaceful settlement is to annex the West Bank and Gaza.”

    Since last October, Israeli soldiers and settler-colonists have killed more than 600 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, including more than 140 children. Settlers have carried out more than 1,000 attacks including multiple deadly pogroms, during which Israel Defense Forces soldiers stood by, protected, and even joined the attackers.

    “Without action, the West Bank will become a new Gaza,” Borrell stressed. “And Gaza will become a new West Bank, as settlers’ movements are preparing new settlements.”

    “Against this backdrop, it is clear that the prospect of a two-state solution—which we have been ritually repeating—is receding ever further while the international community deplores, feels, and condemns, but finds it hard to act,” Borrell added.

    “What can we do?” he asked, continuing:

    We need to raise our voice at the next [United Nations General Assembly] and prevent a sort of “Gaza fatigue,” which will embolden the extremists and postpone once again the idea of a political settlement. We have to launch a process where all parties who want to work on an agenda—a concrete and practical agenda to implement the two-state solution—can work together.

    Second, we need to revitalize the Palestinian Authority to support their reform process, but also to support [them] financially.

    Third, [we have] to facilitate all attempts at dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.

    Fourth, [we must] not give up on engaging with Israeli civil society, even in this context—and especially in this context. Everyone, not just the Europeans—Palestinians, and Arab civil society, must do it. I know how difficult it is to reconcile both narratives, but it is the only way to move forward…

    Fifth, the Palestinians have to reach a common vision, to overcome their divisions, because the more these divisions exist, the more they undermine the legitimacy and representativeness of the Palestinians.

    Sixth, the Europeans need to adopt a common approach. That is what I am working tirelessly on, even if the success is limited, because I have never seen such a dividing issue among the Europeans as the Israel-Palestine conflict.

    Seventh, the Arab States need also to adopt a truly common approach [to] coordinating and showing solidarity.

    “All in all, it means building a balance of power on realistic foundations for the two-state solution—before it becomes, definitely, too late,” Borrell concluded. “I know, it is extremely difficult. However, we must never give up.”

    Last month, Borrell called for sanctioning Israeli leaders for hate speech and inciting war crimes in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank. He has also called for an arms embargo on Israel.

    Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking to arrest Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom has been assassinated—for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Since October 7, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel left more than 1,100 people dead—some of them killed by so-called ” friendly fire“—and over 240 others kidnapped, Israeli forces have killed at least 40,988 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children. At least 94,825 other Palestinians have been wounded. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, while Israel’s “complete siege” has starved and sickened people across the enclave, with dozens dying of malnutrition.

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

  • Thousands march for Palestine as Israel intensifies war on Gaza and West Bank

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/thousands-march-for-palestine-as-israel-intensifies-war-on-gaza-and-west-bank

    People march through Manchester demanding Britain impose an arms embargo on Israel, August 31, 2024 Photo: John Nicholson

    THOUSANDS of protesters across Britain again marched for Palestine on Saturday as Israel intensified its war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

    In major towns and cities calls were made to step up the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel following news that international coffee shop chain Starbucks saw its market share fall by billions of dollars as customers rebel against the company’s involvement with Israel.

    Protests also took place in Israel demanding a ceasefire after Hamas said that six Israeli hostages found dead in Gaza had been killed in Israeli bombing and shelling. Israel said the hostages had been murdered by Hamas as its troops approached.

    Calling for more action against organisations investing in firms involved in Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said its research has revealed that local government pension scheme funds in Britain collectively invest over £4.4 billion in companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

    The PSC said: “Councils must take immediate action to end ties with companies that are complicit in abuses of Palestinian rights, including by divesting pension funds they administer from companies enabling Israel’s genocide. The deferred wages of local government workers must not be used to fund injustice.”

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/thousands-march-for-palestine-as-israel-intensifies-war-on-gaza-and-west-bank

  • ‘Israel’s Starvation Strategy’: IDF Fires on World Food Program Team

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    Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

    A photo shows a World Food Program vehicle damaged by Israeli gunfire. (Photo: World Food Program)

    “This is totally unacceptable and the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that have endangered the lives of WFP’s team in Gaza.”

    The World Food Program said Wednesday that it was forced to suspend the movement of its employees in Gaza after the Israeli military fired on one of the United Nations agency’s teams as its clearly marked vehicle advanced toward an Israeli checkpoint in the Palestinian enclave.

    The agency said in a statement that the WFP team was returning from a mission with two armored vehicles “after escorting a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian cargo routed to Gaza’s central area.”

    “Despite being clearly marked and receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach, the vehicle was directly struck by gunfire as it was moving towards an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) checkpoint,” WFP said. “It sustained at least ten bullets: five on the driver’s side, two on the passenger side, and three on other parts of the vehicle. None of the employees onboard were physically harmed.”

    While the WFP’s statement doesn’t explicitly attribute the gunfire to Israeli forces, U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday that the food agency’s vehicle was “struck 10 times by IDF gunfire, including with bullets targeting front windows.”

    Cindy McCain, WFP’s executive director, said the attack was “totally unacceptable and the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that have endangered the lives of WFP’s team in Gaza.”

    “As last night’s events show, the current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer,” said McCain. “I call on the Israeli authorities and all parties to the conflict to act immediately to ensure the safety and security of all aid workers in Gaza.”

    The Israeli military’s latest attack on aid workers in Gaza came as famine continued to spread across the strip, which Israel has strangled with a blockade that has restricted the flow of food and other necessities.

    Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, characterized the WFP attack as part of “Israel’s starvation strategy.” Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted humanitarian workers in Gaza, making the enclave the most dangerous place in the world for aid agency employees.

    Chef José Andrés, the founder of a nonprofit whose Gaza team came under deadly attack by Israeli forces earlier this year, expressed solidarity with the WFP in a social media post late Wednesday.


    WFP did not say how long its pause on employee movement would stay in place, but any disruption to the agency’s humanitarian operations could be disastrous for starving Palestinians.

    In its statement Wednesday, the U.N. food agency said that Israel’s “frequent and ongoing evacuation orders continue to uproot both families and food relief operations intended to support them.”

    “Last week, WFP lost access to its third and last operational warehouse in Gaza’s middle area, while five of WFP’s operated community kitchens had to be evacuated,” the agency said. “This week, on Sunday 25 August, the evacuation orders impacted the main WFP operating hub in Deir al-Balah, forcing our team to relocate for the third time since the war started.”

    Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.