war crimes

UN Experts Say ‘Targeted Starvation Campaign’ by Israel Has Led to Famine Across Gaza

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

Fatma Hijazi, the mother of 10-year-old Palestinian boy Mustafa Hijazi, who died due to malnutrition and lack of medication, holds the lifeless body of her child in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on June 14, 2024. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The starvation of Palestinians in Gaza “is a form of genocidal violence,” said 10 rights experts.

While the United Nations still has not formally declared a famine in Gaza after nine months of Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid, 10 top U.N. experts on Tuesday said they have seen enough.

“We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” said the experts.

Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food, was joined in the statement by other experts including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, and Paula Gaviria Betancur, special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons.

They said the recent deaths of three children in various parts of the enclave led the experts, who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations as a whole, to declare a famine has taken hold.

“Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on May 30, 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah,” said the experts. “Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3, 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare.”

“With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they continued.

At least 34 Palestinians in Gaza—the majority being children—have now died from malnutrition since October, when Israel began its bombardment of the enclave in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced there would “be no electricity, no food, no fuel” allowed in to Gaza.

Israeli officials said in response to Tuesday’s statement that it has increased the aid allowed into Gaza recently, but hundreds of delivery trucks remain stranded in Egypt and a floating pier built by the U.S. has not significantly improved the humanitarian crisis.

The U.N. experts said that with the first death of a child from malnutrition and dehydration, it should have been considered “irrefutable that famine has taken hold.”

“When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4, respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said. “The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths… Inaction is complicity.”

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which is backed by the U.N., said last month that Gaza is at high risk for famine and that nearly half a million people were facing “catastrophic” food insecurity, with an extreme lack of food.

In May, Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier, who had previously hesitated to say Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, said Israel’s “sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory” ultimately convinced him that Israeli officials are “engaged in genocide.”

In March, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to ensure its military refrain from violating the Genocide Convention by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people in Gaza, saying that “the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further” and that “famine is setting in.”

A woman named Ghaneyma Joma told Reuters on Monday at a hospital in Khan Younis that she feared her son would soon die of starvation.

“It’s distressing to see my child… lying there dying from malnutrition because I cannot provide him with anything due to the war, the closing of crossings, and the contaminated water,” she told the outlet.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S. government, the biggest international funder of Israel’s military and a persistent defender of its actions in Gaza, to ensure that a cease-fire agreement is reached and that Palestinians receive necessary humanitarian aid.

“The intentional starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza can only occur with the active complicity of the Biden administration in Israel’s campaign of genocide,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the group. “This complicity must end, and the Palestinian people must be offered a future in which they are free of occupation and can live in dignity.”

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

Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Continue ReadingUN Experts Say ‘Targeted Starvation Campaign’ by Israel Has Led to Famine Across Gaza

Israeli Bombings, Evacuation Order in Gaza City Forces Hospitals to Shut Down

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

Injured Palestinians lay on the floor at Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza on July 8, 2024, following Israeli attacks on Gaza City.  (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Patients were forced to move to other facilities in northern Gaza, where one hospital was at “triple capacity” and providers were struggling to provide care amid fuel and medical supply shortages.

Healthcare officials were joined by human rights experts on Tuesday in condemning Israel’s latest evacuation orders for Gaza City, which the World Health Organization director said would “further impede delivery of very limited lifesaving care” as hospitals in the area struggled to treat sick and wounded Palestinians.

The Israel Defense Forces claimed on Tuesday morning that there was “no need to evacuate the hospitals and medical facilities in the area,” after it had issued an evacuation order for 70% of Gaza City on Monday. The IDF has ordered civilians to evacuate parts of the city three times since June 27 as it has intensified its military operations, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

Despite the IDF’s claims, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which partially operates al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, said it had closed and evacuated all patients and workers after a series of drone strikes in the facility’s “immediate vicinity.”

“To our great dismay, our hospital is now out of operation at a time when its services are in very significant demand and where injured and sick people have few other options for places to receive urgent medical care,” said the diocese in a statement.

“Key hospitals and medical facilities could quickly become nonfunctional due to hostilities in their vicinity or obstruction to access.”

Healthcare authorities have been forced to transport patients to other hospitals that are also struggling to provide care, as Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid since October has caused dire shortages of fuel and medical supplies.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization, said Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza City was also out of service due to the evacuation order, putting more strain on other facilities in the northern city of Beit Lahia, including Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals.

Those medical centers are “suffering shortage of fuel, beds, and trauma medical supplies,” said Tedros on social media. “Indonesian Hospital is triple over its capacity. Al-Helou Hospital is within the blocks of the evacuation order but continues to be partially functional. As-Sahaba and al-Shifa hospitals are in close proximity to the areas under evacuation order but remain functional so far. Six medical points and two primary healthcare centers are also within the evacuation zones.”

“These key hospitals and medical facilities could quickly become nonfunctional due to hostilities in their vicinity or obstruction to access,” he added before repeating a demand: “Cease-fire!”

Israel’s claim that the hospitals in Gaza City remain safe despite the evacuation orders comes after several Israeli bombings of medical facilities and other so-called “humanitarian areas” since October.

Hospitals including al-Shifa in Gaza City have become major targets of Israel’s assault on the enclave, prompting outcry from human rights advocates who have demanded that the IDF follow international humanitarian law.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday said it was “appalled” by the IDF’s latest evacuation order, noting that Palestinians have been killed after fleeing to supposedly “safe” zones since Israel’s bombardment began.

Many of the people fleeing Gaza City this week “have been forcibly displaced multiple times, to evacuate to areas where IDF military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured,” said the OHCHR.

Deir al-Balah, where Gaza City residents have been told to move in the latest order, “is already seriously overcrowded with Palestinians displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip,” the office added.

The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 38,243 people have been killed in the enclave since Israel began its attacks in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7.

As Israel forced hospitals in Gaza City out of operation and occupied the southern part of the city, including around the headquarters of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, another Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp killed nine people on Tuesday, including five children.

The IDF also said its warplanes had attacked “a school complex” in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

“There’s really no safe corner in Gaza,” said Tedros.

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

Continue ReadingIsraeli Bombings, Evacuation Order in Gaza City Forces Hospitals to Shut Down

Four arrests at Gaza protest in London

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/06/pro-palestinian-protest-march-london-arrests

Met police confirm protesters held on suspicion of public order offences, including one related to placard

Four people were arrested on Saturday on suspicion of public order offences while attending a pro-Palestinian march in central London, including one relating to a placard.

The Metropolitan police confirmed on X that three people were held on suspicion of breaching Public Order Act conditions imposed on the march, with a fourth man detained on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence relating to a placard.

Organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on the first day of a new Labour government to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

…

This latest protest comes after the health ministry in Gaza confirmed that at least 38,098 Palestinians have been killed and 87,705 others injured since Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began on 7 October.

Jeremy Corbyn, the independent MP for Islington North, joined pro-Palestine march in London. Photograph: Yann Tessier/Reuters [Jeremy Corbyn 2nd from right is joined by Andrew Feinstein, far right, former ANC Member of the National Assembly of South Africa who stood as an independent candidate against Starmer because of Starmer’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.]

In attendance was the re-elected independent MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, who told protesters that “a change in government doesn’t change the facts that the people of Gaza are still being murdered in their sleep”.

“We said it to the Tories, and now we will say it to Labour: a government that sells arms to Israel is a government that is complicit in crimes against humanity.”

…

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/06/pro-palestinian-protest-march-london-arrests

Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

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Continue ReadingFour arrests at Gaza protest in London

Israel Is Using Starvation as a Weapon of War in Gaza and the World Has Failed to Stop It

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

Relief workers distribute food in Gaza City, Gaza on March 14, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Providing aid to Gaza and ensuring the reconstruction of the strip must not be a political item for negotiations. It is a basic human right that must be honored under any circumstance.

Humanitarian aid should never be politicized though, quite often, the very survival of nations is used as political bargaining chips.

Sadly, Gaza remains a prime example. Even before the current war, the Gaza Strip suffered under a 17-year hermetic blockade, which has rendered the impoverished area virtually “unlivable.”

That very term, “unlivable” was used by the then-United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Situation of Palestine, Michael Lynk, in 2018.

Scenes and images of thousands of starving Palestinians chasing after boxes of aid parachuted into Gaza will remain etched in the collective memory of humanity as an example of our failed morality.

As of mid-December of last year, “nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing experts who conducted a thorough analysis of satellite data.

As tragic as the situation was in December, now it is far worse.

Sixty-seven percent of Gaza’s water, sanitation facilities, and infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged, according to a statement by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, on June 19, leading to the spreading of infectious diseases, which has ravaged the beleaguered population for months.

The spread of disease is also linked to the accumulation of garbage everywhere in Gaza. Earlier, the refugees agency reported that “as of June 9, over 330,000 tons of waste have accumulated in or near populated areas across Gaza, posing catastrophic environmental (and) health risks.”

The situation was already disastrous. Indeed, three years before the war, the Global Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (GIWEH) said, in a joint statement with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, that 97% of Gaza water was undrinkable and unfit for human consumption.

Yet, so far, any conversation on allowing aid to Gaza, or the rebuilding of Gaza after the war, has been placed largely within political contexts.

By shutting down all border crossings, including the Egypt-Gaza Rafah Crossing—which, on June 17, was set ablaze—Israel has politicized food, fuel, and medicine as tools in its war in the strip.

This is not a mere inference, but the actual statement made by Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, who on October 9 declared that he had ordered a “complete siege” and that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water” entering Gaza.

The timing of the statement, which has indeed been put into action from the first day of the war, suggests that Israel did not apply the strategy as a last resort. It was one of the most important pieces in the war stratagem, which remains in effect to this day.

Instead of pressuring Israel, Washington tried to obtain its own political leverage, also by politicizing aid. On March 2, the U.S. Air Force started airdropping aid into northern Gaza. A far more conducive and less humiliating option for Palestinians, however, would have been direct U.S. pressure on Israel to allow access to aid trucks arriving through Rafah, Karem Abu Salem Crossing, or any other.

Scenes and images of thousands of starving Palestinians chasing after boxes of aid parachuted into Gaza will remain etched in the collective memory of humanity as an example of our failed morality.

News reports spoke of people who were killed under the weight of the dropped “aid,” much of which had fallen in the Mediterranean, never to be retrieved.

Even the Gaza pier, constructed by the U.S. military on the Gaza shore in May, did little to alleviate the situation. It merely transported 137 aid trucks, according to the U.S.’ own estimation, enough to cover Gaza’s need for food for a few hours only.

During the years of siege, an average of 500 trucks arriving daily in Gaza has kept the 2.3 million population of the strip alive, though malnourished.

To deal with the outcome of the war, and to stave off current starvation, especially in the north, the number of aid trucks would have to be much higher. Yet, whole days would pass without a single truck making its way to the suffering population. This is unacceptable.

Not only did the international community fail at ending the war, it has also failed in delinking humanitarian aid from political and military objectives.

The problem with politicizing aid is that innocent civilians become a bargaining chip for politicians and military men. This goes against the very foundation of international humanitarian law.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, citing the Hague Regulations, “international humanitarian law is the branch of international law that seeks to impose limits on the destruction and suffering caused by armed conflict.” In Gaza, no such “limits” have been “imposed” by anyone.

Providing aid to Gaza and ensuring the reconstruction of the strip must not be a political item for negotiations. It is a basic human right that must be honored under any circumstance.

Meaningful pressure must be placed on Israel to end the Gaza siege, and urgent plans must be drafted, starting today, by representatives of U.N. humanitarian institutions, the Arab League, and Palestinian and Gaza authorities to be the entities responsible for delivering aid to Gaza.

Humanitarian aid to Gaza must not be used as political leverage, or a tool in a cruel war, whose primary victims are millions of Palestinian civilians.

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

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Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Continue ReadingIsrael Is Using Starvation as a Weapon of War in Gaza and the World Has Failed to Stop It

Israeli Bombings Kill More Palestinians as 250,000 Ordered to Evacuate Khan Younis

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

Displaced Palestinians from areas in east Khan Younis, Gaza flee after the Israel Defense Forces issued a new evacuation order for parts of the city on July 2, 2024.  (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)

“It means yet another day, week, chapter of misery for these hundreds of thousands of people,” said one United Nations worker.

Hearing once again from the Israel Defense Forces that they must evacuate to a so-called “humanitarian zone,” hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Tuesday were forced to search for safety ahead of a likely ground offensive in the city.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that roughly 250,000 people are living and seeking shelter in the evacuation zone—more than 10% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.

The evacuation order, which was posted on social media on Monday, also includes nearby localities including al-Qarara and Bani Suhaila.

The IDF said after the order was announced that patients and healthcare providers at European Hospital, the largest operating medical facility in Gaza, were not required to evacuate, but the hospital director told the Associated Press that most had already been relocated.

“The hospital staff and the patients decided to already evacuate themselves,” said Rik Peeperkorn, World Health Organization representative for the occupied Palestinian territories, in a press briefing. “We plea the European Gaza hospital will be spared, will be non-damaged.”

Peeperkorn said three patients remained at the hospital.

Since Israel began its assault on Gaza and its near-total blockade on humanitarian aid in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack in October, the IDF has attacked hospitals across the enclave, even as they have served as shelters for forcibly displaced people.

The IDF has ordered evacuations from places including northern Gaza and the southern city of Rafah—only to bomb so-called “safe” zones after displacing people.

In late May, at least 46 people were killed when Israel bombed a tent encampment in a “humanitarian area” in Rafah after beginning a full-scale ground invasion of the city, where more than a million people had been displaced. At least 25 people were killed in another attack on an encampment in the area last month.

Sam Rose, a planning director for UNRWA, told Al Jazeera that the latest evacuation order put a quarter of a million people in a “harrowing, horrific, and incredibly difficult” situation.

“It means yet another day, week, chapter of misery for these hundreds of thousands of people,” said Rose. “Most of them have been displaced several times. Some had just returned from Rafah where they were displaced a few weeks ago… They go without knowing precisely where they will end up because this evacuation order told people to go urgently—they know that if they don’t go out within 24 hours the worst is to come.”

Soon after the evacuation order, at least nine people were killed in an Israeli strike on a home near European Hospital in Khan Younis.

Rose noted that the coastal area of al-Mawasi, where many people will likely go, is “already so overcrowded. There is no room to pitch a tent, there is no water, no infrastructure, no sanitary services. Many spend the night in vehicles or they sleep on their donkey carts.”

Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, told The Washington Post that the forced displacement is taking place amid temperatures over 86°F “every day.”

“Even the healthiest people will struggle to make a move in this heat with lack of food, with lack of water,” she said. “And then where do they go? That’s the next question.”

Ahmed al-Najjar, a 26-year-old resident of the Bani Suhaila neighborhood, told Agence France Presse that with nowhere to flee, his family has been forced to stay in the area after first attempting to leave.

“We did not know where we would go and we do not have enough money to buy a new tent,” he said. “We had to spend the night on the street and that has increased our stress. This morning we decided to go home again. There is nowhere else… Whatever happens, happens. We have nothing to lose now.”

The IDF’s apparent plan to expand its assault on Khan Younis came as The New York Times reported that security leaders in Israel are pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza, objecting to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to continue the assault until Hamas is eliminated—an objective even some top Israeli military officials believe is impossible—and all Israeli hostages are released.

The Times reported that senior military officials believe a cease-fire is the “swiftest way” to free captives remaining in Gaza.

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

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UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party's support for and complicity in Israel's genocide of Gaza.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Continue ReadingIsraeli Bombings Kill More Palestinians as 250,000 Ordered to Evacuate Khan Younis