Palestinian children queue for donated food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, November 22, 2024
Fifty days of siege in northern Gaza sees young children deprived of food and medicine
AN ESTIMATED 130,000 children under 10 have been trapped for 50 days without access to food or medical aid in northern Gaza, a charity warned today.
According to Save the Children, the area is almost entirely inaccessible to aid workers, cutting Palestinians off from supplies despite warnings of famine.
Those in northern Gaza have been cut off from food, water and medical aid since October 6, when Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) declared the area a closed military zone.
Israel ignored pleas from the UN to halt its “blatant disregard for basic humanity” later that month.
The UN warned that the whole of North Gaza governorate was at risk of dying, but the IDF has repeatedly denied or impeded attempts by aid groups to access the area.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant attend a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 28, 2023
ACTIVISTS and experts welcomed the arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant issued by the International Criminal Court today.
Leading Hamas official Mohammed Deif also had a warrant issued against him.
The warrants accused each of them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
The three-judge panel was unanimous in its decision to issue warrants for Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant, saying that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
…
The court’s action turns Mr Netanyahu and the others into internationally wanted suspects.
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.Genocide denying 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.
New details have emerged in the case of the Palestinian surgeon who was tortured to death and sexually abused by Israeli forces. Meanwhile, the health situation in Gaza remains dire.
New reports have surfaced regarding the death of Palestinian surgeon Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, who was abducted by Israeli armed forces in December 2023 during an attack on Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza. His case sheds further light on the abuse endured by health workers in Israeli prisons and detention camps. Palestinian prisoner associations had previously reported that Dr. Al-Bursh died as a result of torture. Now, testimonies from other detainees reveal that his abuse included sexual abuse.
These reports indicate that Israeli soldiers subjected Al-Bursh to exceptionally harsh treatment as soon as they identified him at Al-Awda Hospital. Dr. Khalid Hamouda, another physician detained by Israeli forces, recounted the severe injuries Dr. Al-Bursh sustained during his imprisonment in Sde Teiman concentration camp. At one point, Dr. Al-Bursh had difficulty walking or using the toilet without help, and feared his ribs had been broken in the beatings. Dr. Hamouda described meeting him in this state before Dr. Al-Bursh was transferred to Ofer prison.
When Dr. Al-Bursh was transferred to the new facility, fellow prisoners described his state as “deplorable.” They recounted visible injuries across his body, evidence of severe assault, and reported that he had been left naked “in the lower part of his body.” Soon after, he died.
“A doctor. A stellar surgeon. The embodiment of Palestinian ethics. Likely raped to death,” UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese wrote on X following the release of the new reports. She condemned the lack of reaction to the atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers, stating, “The racism of Western media who are not covering this, and Western politicians who are not denouncing this, together with the thousand other testimonies and allegations of rape and other forms of mistreatment and torture that Palestinians have suffered in Israeli jails, is absolutely sickening.”
Accounts of torture and abuse similar to what Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh endured have been shared by other health workers recently released from Israeli detention. Many have highlighted that health workers represent a significant proportion—up to one quarter in some camps—of the total number of detainees held by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). This supports reports that the IOF systematically targets health workers in an effort to undermine Palestinian resistance and destroy any prospects for rebuilding.
Among those who described their imprisonment is Dr. Khaled Al Serr, a doctor originally employed at the Nasser Medical Complex, who spent six months in detention. He described following a similar path to Dr. Al-Bursh, being transferred from Sde Teiman to Ofer prison, where he endured regular beatings, including to intimate areas. “It was humiliating, but worse than that, they treated us like criminals,” he said in recent interviews. “We were just doctors trying to save lives.”
Despite targeted attacks and the acute shortage of medical supplies, nurses, doctors, and other health workers in Gaza continue to provide care under dire circumstances. Recent efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other UN agencies finally succeeded in reaching the few remaining hospitals in northern Gaza to facilitate medical evacuations and deliver some essential supplies, including fuel, food, and medicine. However, these missions were obstructed by Israeli soldiers, who blocked parts of the deliveries. This has led to even more uncertainty about how much longer these facilities can remain operational.
The consequences of shortages and ongoing attacks in Gaza are escalating by the day. Hunger is spreading rapidly, with health and nutrition experts warning that signs of famine in the northern regions are becoming increasingly alarming. They are urgently calling for the immediate delivery of food across the Strip and an end to Israeli obstructions of humanitarian aid, emphasizing that delays will have fatal outcomes. People will die of hunger even before a famine is officially declared, and this would have “irreversible consequences that can last generations,” warned Rein Pulsen of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
The number of people hospitalized due to hunger, including many children, is rising, with their health further deteriorated by critical living conditions. Infectious diseases are spreading, compounded by the destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure. Most forcibly displaced people are living in makeshift tents and are forced to rely on improvised absorption trenches for sanitation. These trenches, mostly dug by the displaced themselves, pose severe risks: children have fallen into them, collapses caused by oversaturation are not uncommon, and they have become breeding grounds for diseases like cholera. “We relieve ourselves in a pit that smells and certainly causes us disease, but we have no choice but to use it,” Abdul Salam Al-Aswad, one of the displaced, told The Electronic Intifada.
The impact on chronic diseases in Gaza is equally worrying. Cancer patients are being denied access to lifesaving care, while Israeli bombardments have exposed thousands of pregnant women to toxic materials found in explosives. Doctors have noted a troubling increase in infants born with congenital conditions, such as underdeveloped lungs, limbs, and other severe abnormalities, warning of correlations with the use of white phosphorus. Without adequate medical care in Gaza and with medical evacuations systematically denied, many of these children die.
As an immediate ceasefire is the only true solution to the destruction of healthcare in Gaza, health workers and activists are urging more international pressure on Israel. This pressure is essential not only to stop the attacks, but also to ensure the entry of medical supplies and, critically, food into the besieged Strip, offering at least some immediate relief.
People’s Health Dispatchis a fortnightly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health Movementand Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
A Palestinian child who was wounded in an Israeli attack on Jabalia, Gaza receives treatment on October 9, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The latest move to forcefully and violently push thousands of people from northern Gaza to the south is turning the north into a lifeless desert,” warned one aid worker.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that at least 400,000 people are trapped in northern Gaza as Israeli forces ramp up their bombardment of the area, killing dozens and intensifying an already nightmarish humanitarian emergency.
“Northern Gaza: no end to hell,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), wrote on social media. “Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli authorities are forcing people to flee again and again, especially from Jabalia Camp. Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in Gaza is safe.”
Lazzarini said some UNRWA shelters and services in northern Gaza have been forced to shut down amid the Israeli assault “for the first time since the war began” over a year ago.
“With almost no basic supplies available, hunger is spreading and deepening again,” said Lazzarini. “This recent military operation also threatens the implementation of the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign for children. Children are as ever, the first and most to suffer. They deserve so much better, they deserve a cease-fire now, they deserve a future.”
Zero humanitarian aid has entered besieged northern Gaza in over a week, according to aid groups and the U.N., and incessant Israeli attacks have rendered the area’s hospitals largely inaccessible. Israeli forces have ordered the area’s hospitals to evacuate, endangering patients and healthcare workers.
URGENT: The Israeli Army has ordered the evacuation of ActionAid partner Al-Awda, Indonesian, and Kamal Adwan hospitals in Gaza, putting critically ill patients, including those in ICUs, pregnant women and newborns in incubators, at grave risk.
The director of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital told Drop Site on Wednesday that he is refusing to comply with Israel’s evacuation order.
“As long as there are patients, I won’t leave,” said Dr. Hossam Abu Safia. “I’ve been here since the genocide started, and I am determined to continue helping my people.”
At least dozens of people have reportedly been killed in the Israeli military’s latest assault on northern Gaza, but emergency workers on the ground have said it’s impossible to determine the true toll given Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign, which has targeted the Jabalia refugee camp and other areas in the region.
Citing Gaza’s Civil Defense, The Associated Press reported Wednesday that an Israeli airstrike “hit a family home” in the Jabalia camp, “killing at least nine people”—including two women and two children.
“Footage shared by the Civil Defense showed first responders recovering dead bodies and body parts from under the rubble,” the outlet noted.
On Monday—the one-year anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attack and the beginning of Israel’s devastating response—Israeli forces ordered swaths of famine-stricken northern Gaza to evacuate, instructing residents to move south to Deir Al-Balah and Al-Mawasi, badly overcrowded so-called “humanitarian zones” that the Israeli military has repeatedly bombed.
The situation now at Northern Gaza Strip a very large number of missile attacks, shooting everywhere in every street, anyone who moves is killed, thousands of families are besieged, death is chasing us everywhere here in the northern Gaza Strip.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Tuesday that Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians is “turning the north of Gaza into an unlivable wasteland, effectively emptying out the whole north of the strip of Palestinian life.”
“The latest move to forcefully and violently push thousands of people from northern Gaza to the south is turning the north into a lifeless desert, while aggravating the situation in the south, where more than one million people have already been squeezed into a small portion of the Gaza Strip and live in deplorable conditions,” said Sarah Vuylsteke, an MSF project coordinator in Gaza.
“Access to water, healthcare, and safety is already almost nonexistent, and the thought of more people fitting into this space is impossible to imagine,” Vuylsteke added. “People have been subjected to endless displacement and relentless bombing for the past 12 months. Enough is enough, this must stop now.”
In a joint statement on Wednesday, a coalition of 18 aid groups warned that the ongoing Israeli assault “will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in the north” and has already “prevented international and national humanitarian organizations from carrying out already very limited lifesaving aid operations.”
“The new orders have obstructed humanitarian actors from providing necessities such as health services, clean water, food, and nutrition services, taking away the remaining lifelines for the civilian population,” reads the statement signed by Oxfam, ActionAid, Islamic Relief, and more than a dozen other groups.
“Nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians,” the coalition said. “Given the severity of the needs, humanitarian actors must be able to distribute aid and continue their work, without threat of displacement or military operations. The undersigned aid organizations urge all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations to protect civilians and facilitate unhindered humanitarian access at all times.”
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.
Mass-murdering cnuts. If they collaborate and facilitate genocide aren’t they just as bad as the soldiers actually doing it? Would it happen without them facilitating it? If they’re collaborating with Fascists, aren’t they Fascists themselves?
