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‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

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

A wounded person receives treatment at a local hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on March 24, 2024.
 (Photo: Khaled Omar/Xinhua via Getty Images

U.N. member states must “use their influence” to push Israel to halt its bombardment of Gaza and blocking of humanitarian aid, said the group’s secretary general.

“The time to act to prevent genocide is now,” Amnesty International’s secretary general said Tuesday, a day after the United Nations Human Rights Council released a draft report detailing how the panel found that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is already committing genocidal violence in Gaza.

Amnesty’s Agnes Callamard called the 25-page report a “crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action to states,” many of which have called for a cease-fire in Gaza for several months.

After the U.N. report found that “the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza… reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” Callamard said “states must now focus their efforts on making these calls a reality.”

“Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted yesterday demanding an immediate cease-fire, use their influence to insist that Israel abides by the resolution, including by stopping the shelling and lifting restrictions on humanitarian aid,” said Callamard. “They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages.”

The U.N. report was released the same day that the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, temporary cease-fire for the remainder of the month of Ramadan—the first cease-fire resolution to pass at the council following three that failed due to the U.S. vetoing the measures.

The U.S., which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and has continued to provide support throughout the bombardment, abstained from voting on Monday’s resolution and infuriated human rights experts by baselessly claiming the vote was “nonbinding.”

The U.N. report, titled Anatomy of a Genocide, detailed actions Israel has taken since beginning its bombardment of Gaza in October that could violate Article II of the Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Along with killing at least 32,414 Palestinians in Gaza—73% of whom have been women and children, and the remaining 27% were not proven to have been Hamas members—Israel has also imposed mass starvation on the population, killing “10 children daily,” according to the report. Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys in undisclosed locations; injured 70,000 people; forced medical personnel to perform “hazardous health procedures, such as amputations without anesthetics, including on children”; and “destroyed or severely damaged most life-sustaining infrastructure.”

Callamard noted on Tuesday that the report came two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced an interim ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing a genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to take action to prevent genocidal violence by its forces.

“In that time, the situation in Gaza has grown exponentially worse, with thousands more Palestinians killed and Israel continuing to refuse to comply with the ICJ ruling to ensure provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to Palestinians as human-made famine edges closer each day and more people starve to death,” said Callamard.

The secretary general echoed a call in the report, which was compiled by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the full funding of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel said Sunday it will no longer permit UNRWA aid trucks to deliver humanitarian relief in northern Gaza, where one-third of children under age 2 are now suffering from acute malnutrition. The U.S. officially suspended UNRWA funding through March 2025 on Monday after President Joe Biden signed a new spending package into law.

The U.S. led several countries in cutting funding to the agency in January after Israel claimed 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October. Countries including Finland, Canada, and Australia have since reinstated funding.

Callamard also called on all states, particularly powerful Western countries that are allied with Israel, including the U.S., to support international authorities as they try to hold Israeli officials to account for the mass killing and starving of civilians in Gaza. Israel has refused to allow U.N. experts and other independent human rights monitors access to Gaza.

“Helping to prevent genocide also means supporting accountability efforts including the ongoing investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and exercising universal jurisdiction to bring those suspected of crimes under international law to justice,” said Callamard.

The secretary general noted that momentum has grown in recent days around international calls for a cease-fire, but said a desperately needed halt in fighting requires a concerted push by influential states to become a reality.

“An enduring cease-fire,” said Callamard, “remains the best way to enforce the ICJ’s provisional measures to prevent genocide and further crimes and civilian suffering.”

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

Continue Reading‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

Sanders: ‘The Netanyahu Gov’t Should Not Receive Another Penny from US’

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Original article by COMMON DREAMS STAFF republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) walks toward the Senate Chambers early on Saturday March 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Senate passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September and avert a partial shutdown. President Biden signed the bill into law later in the day.  (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images

The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM

Following the passing of the U.S. government appropriations bill early Saturday morning, Senator Bernie Sanders said:

I voted NO on the appropriations bill that the Senate passed last night. While hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children face starvation in Gaza, this bill actually prohibits funding to UNWRA, the key United Nations aid agency delivering life-saving humanitarian support. This will only intensify the already horrific situation in Gaza. This bill also provides another $3.3 billion in U.S. military aid for Netanyahu’s right-wing government to continue this barbaric war. The Netanyahu government should not receive another penny from U.S. taxpayers.

The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM Saturday morning following hours of intense negotiations.

Later on Saturday, President Biden signed the $1.2 trillion government funding bill to stave off a government shutdown.

Original article by COMMON DREAMS STAFF republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingSanders: ‘The Netanyahu Gov’t Should Not Receive Another Penny from US’

‘Death Sentence for Thousands’: Israel Bars UNRWA Food Aid to Northern Gaza

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

United Nations workers and volunteers unload aid from a truck at a school housing displaced Palestinians on the 29th day of fighting between Israel and the armed Palestinian factions in Khan Yunis on November 8, 2023.  (Photo: Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“By preventing UNRWA to fulfill its mandate in Gaza, the clock will tick faster toward famine and many more will die of hunger, dehydration, and lack of shelter,” UNRWA’s commissioner-general said.

Israel will no longer permit the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to drive convoys bearing food aid into northern Gaza, even as the area is on the brink of famine.

Israeli officials informed the U.N. of the new restrictions on Sunday, prompting outrage and dire warnings from U.N. officials and other human rights advocates.

“By preventing UNRWA to fulfill its mandate in Gaza, the clock will tick faster toward famine and many more will die of hunger, dehydration, and lack of shelter,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini posted on social media. “This cannot happen, it would only stain our collective humanity.”

“I have urged Israel to lift all impediments on aid to Gaza. Now this—MORE impediments.”

In his response, Lazzarini said that UNRWA was the largest organization operating in Gaza with the greatest capability to distribute aid.

“This is outrageous and makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine,” Lazzarini said. “These restrictions must be lifted.”

The news comes as medical workers and international aid organizations have sounded the alarm about famine in Gaza. At least 23 children in northern Gaza have already died from starvation or dehydration, and one-third of children under two years old suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations’ International Children’s Emergency Fund. A new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report published on March 18 found that famine was “imminent” in Gaza’s northern governorates and likely to begin “anytime” between the report’s publication and May. In the northern governorates, where around 300,000 live, almost two-thirds of households endured at least 10 days and nights when they did not eat at all in the last 30 days.

“Blocking UNRWA from delivering food is in fact denying starving people the ability to survive,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media. “This decision must be urgently reversed. The levels of hunger are acute. All efforts to deliver food should not only be permitted but there should be an immediate acceleration of food deliveries.”

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths also called for Israel’s decision to be “revoked.”

“I have urged Israel to lift all impediments on aid to Gaza. Now this—MORE impediments,” Griffiths posted on social media, calling UNRWA the “beating heart of the humanitarian response in Gaza.”

UNRWA Communications Director Juliette Touma told BBC World on Monday that a quarter of a million people in the north rely on UNRWA food aid, yet the agency has not been able to deliver to them in two months. An attempt on February 5 had to turn back after the Israeli Navy fired on an aid convoy even as it traveled along a pre-approved route.

Touma told BBC World that more than 1 million people in Gaza now live in UNRWA shelters.

“They lost everything, and they need everything,” Touma said.

Touma added that the most important commodity people in Gaza need is food, but they also need “safety, and they need protection, above all, and a cease-fire, which is very, very much overdue.”

The U.N. Security Council finally succeeded in passing a resolution on Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the release of all hostages as the U.S. abstained from the vote.

Outside the U.N., former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said on social media that the food aid decision showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “starvation strategy at work,” as well as his “vendetta against Palestinian refugees.”

CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians Melanie Ward also decried Israel’s decision to permanently block UNRWA convoys from the north.

“This would be a death sentence for thousands,” Ward said on social media. “They cannot be allowed to do this.”

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

Continue Reading‘Death Sentence for Thousands’: Israel Bars UNRWA Food Aid to Northern Gaza

Australia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans

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

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks in Canberra on August 8, 2023. (Photo: Penny Wong/Facebook)

“Restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum,” said one Australian Green senator. “The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza.”

Australia said Friday that it would reinstate funding for the United Nations United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in international financing due to unsubstantiated Israeli claims that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

“The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Adelaide while announcing a new funding package for the agency, which works to aid Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba, or “catastrophe” through which the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, as well as their descendants.

In addition to restoring $6 million in UNRWA funding, Wong said Australia would contribute another $2 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund and would deploy a C-17 Globemaster transport plane to assist humanitarian airdrops over Gaza.

Sen. Mehreen Faruqi of New South Wales and the Australian Greens welcomed the shift, asserting that “restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum” Australia should do.

“The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza,” Faruqi stressed. “Starvation is a weapon of war, and Israel is blocking aid to reach the people of Gaza in brazen contravention of the [International Court of Justice’s] ruling” ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts.

“I hope this is the start of the Labor government breaking away from their unquestioning and immoral support for Israel,” the senator added.

Simon Birmingham, leader of the center-right Liberal opposition in the Senate, said his party does not support the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “acting without and ahead of the United States in terms of decisions around this funding.”

Following Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that 12 of the more than 13,000 UNRWA workers in Gaza were involved in the October 7 attack, Australia and nine other nations including the United States cut off funding to the largest humanitarian aid organization operating in the besieged coastal enclave.

UNRWA subsequently terminated nine employees in response to the unfounded Israeli claims, without any evidence to support their firing. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini later called the move an act of “reverse due process.”

The European Union and nations including Canada and Sweden have also reinstated funding for UNRWA, which Lazzarini said “is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations.” The agency has been struggling to provide shelter, aid, and other lifesaving services to Gazans facing not only Israeli bombs and bullets but also a genocidal siege and blockade that are starving Palestinians to death.

Australia’s decision came as Israeli attacks on aid convoys, food distribution centers, and desperate, starving Palestinians in Gaza continued. On Thursday, Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 150 others as they awaited delivery of humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City. The previous day, a UNRWA staffer was among five people killed and more than 20 wounded in an attack on a food distribution center in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Israeli officials claimed the slain man was a Hamas commander.

According to UNRWA, at least 165 of the agency’s staff members have been killed since October 7. Over 150 UNRWA facilities have been attacked by Israeli forces, while more than 400 Palestinians have been slain while seeking shelter under the United Nations flag.

UNRWA also says its workers have been tortured by Israeli troops trying to force them to falsely confess to participating in the October 7 attacks.

Gaza officials said earlier this week that at least 400 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid have been killed by Israeli forces since the February 29 “Flour Massacre,” in which at least 118 people were killed and more than 760 others wounded while waiting for an aid convoy in Gaza City.

More than 112,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza since October 7, including people missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the strip’s hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. The majority of the dead are women and children. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Disease and starvation are rampant, and a growing number of Palestinians—mostly children but also elders and other vulnerable people—are starving to death.

After 161 days of near-constant slaughter, there is still no cease-fire in sight.

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

Continue ReadingAustralia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans

UNRWA Chief Accuses Netanyahu of ‘Concerted Campaign’ to Destroy Aid Agency

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

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East delivers a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, United States on March 4, 2024. (Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general.

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are intentionally trying to decimate the critical aid body as mass starvation looms in the Gaza Strip.

“UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general. “Part of this campaign involves inundating donors with misinformation designed to foster distrust and tarnish the reputation of the agency. More blatant, is the Israeli prime minister openly stating that UNRWA will not be part of post-war Gaza.”

“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” he continued. “Attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem, and from a nearby vocational training center for Palestine refugee youth, are underway. Draft legislation in the Israeli Knesset seeks to prohibit outright any activity by UNRWA on Israeli territory.”

The UNRWA, the most important aid agency operating in Gaza, has long been a target of the Israeli government. But attacks on UNRWA have escalated since October 7, with Israeli forces killing more than 150 of the agency’s employees during its war on Gaza and accusing a small number of the body’s staffers of taking part in the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.

The Israeli government has not provided any evidence to support its claims, but the allegations alone led more than a dozen countries—including the United States—to suspend aid to UNRWA, putting its operations in Gaza and across the Middle East at risk of total collapse.

Last month, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would prohibit any U.S. funding for UNRWA.

On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed—again, without providing evidence—that 450 of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees are “military operatives in terror groups in Gaza.”

Lazzarini noted Monday that he swiftly terminated agency staffers accused of playing a role in the October 7 attack and that an independent probe into Israel’s accusations was launched by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.

“Despite these prompt and decisive actions, and the unsubstantiated nature of the allegations, 16 countries have paused their funding, totaling $450 million,” said Lazzarini, thanking the countries that maintained or boosted their funding as the agency faced a potentially existential threat. The European Union has also agreed to partially restore funding.

“Thanks to them, the agency, which is the backbone of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, can continue operating and remains a lifeline for Palestine refugees across the region,” he said. “But for how long? It is hard to say. We are functioning hand-to-mouth. Without additional funding, we will be in uncharted territory—with serious implications for global peace and security.”

“I shudder to think of what will still be revealed about the horrors that have taken place in this narrow strip of land.”

Lazzarini said conditions on the ground in Gaza are “impossible to adequately describe” as Israel continues its bombing campaign and blockade, which have prevented badly needed aid from reaching large swaths of the territory.

“Doctors are amputating the limbs of injured children without anesthetic. Hunger is everywhere. A man-made famine is looming,” said Lazzarini. “Babies—just a few months old—are dying of malnutrition and dehydration. I shudder to think of what will still be revealed about the horrors that have taken place in this narrow strip of land.”

Ahead of Lazzarini’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly, a coalition of aid organizations issued a joint statement warning that if “funding suspensions are not reversed, the risk of a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response resulting in preventable loss of lives in Gaza becomes even more likely.”

“Over 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA facilities across Gaza,” the groups said. “UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza far outstrip the collective capacity of the rest of the humanitarian sector in the territory. Their role in the facilitation and delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid at scale in this crisis has been heroic. UNRWA’s supply of vital shelter, food, and basic services like sanitation, as well as the use of infrastructure by other aid organizations, is irreplaceable.”

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

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Continue ReadingUNRWA Chief Accuses Netanyahu of ‘Concerted Campaign’ to Destroy Aid Agency