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Tag: water

  • Israel Committing ‘Extermination and Acts of Genocide’ by Depriving Gaza of Water: HRW

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

    A Palestinian girl carries an empty jerry can amid the ruins of Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 4, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease,” said the rights group’s director.

    A Human Rights Watch report published Thursday accuses Israel of “extermination and acts of genocide” in Gaza “by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.”

    Mirroring language used in Article II of the Genocide Convention to define the crime of genocide, HRW said that Israeli officials “have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza” by deliberately denying Palestinians “access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival.”

    “Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies,” the report states.

    “In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide,” HRW continued. “The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.”

    NEW: For over a year, the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the minimum water needed for survival, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.A calculated policy.An act of genocide. 🧵⤵️www.hrw.org/news/2024/12…

    — Human Rights Watch (@hrw.org) 2024-12-19T14:11:44.377Z

    HRW “also found that some statements from senior Israeli officials calling for cutting water, fuel, and aid, in tandem with their actions, have amounted to direct and public incitement to genocide.”

    According to the report:

    Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups in Gaza on October 7, 2023, which Human Rights Watch has found amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities cut all electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip. On October 9, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”

    That same day, and for weeks thereafter, Israeli authorities cut off all water and blocked fuel, food, and humanitarian aid from entering the strip. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of water, fuel, food, and aid into Gaza and to cut Gaza’s electricity, which is required to operate life-sustaining infrastructure. This continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024 ordering Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide and, in so doing, provide humanitarian aid, specifying in March that this includes water, food, electricity, and fuel.

    HRW detailed how Israel “also barred nearly all water-related aid from entering Gaza, including water filtration systems, water tanks, and materials needed to repair water infrastructure,” and how Israeli forces “have deliberately attacked and damaged or destroyed several major water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities.”

    “Based on interviews with healthcare professionals and epidemiologists, it is likely that thousands of people have died as a result of the Israeli authorities’ actions,” the report states, adding that deaths are in addition to the more than 45,000 Palestinians directly killed by Israeli bombs and bullets.

    HRW added that hundreds of thousands of Gazans have contracted diseases and ailments attributable to a lack of access to safe and sufficient water, including diarrhea, hepatitis A, skin diseases, and upper respiratory infections.

    “Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” HRW executive director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide.”

    Without naming any specific nations, the report notes that “several governments have undermined accountability efforts and continue to provide the Israeli government with arms despite the clear risk of complicity in serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

    The United States is Israel’s main arms supplier and diplomatic ally, approving tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons transfers, vetoing several United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions, and threatening international officials seeking to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.

    “Governments should not contribute to the grave crimes that Israeli officials are committing in Gaza, including crimes against humanity and genocidal acts, and should take all steps possible to prevent further harm,” Hassan said. “Governments arming Israel should end their risk of complicity in atrocity crimes in Gaza and take immediate action to protect civilians with an arms embargo, targeted sanctions, and support for justice.”

    The HRW report follows the publication earlier this month of an Amnesty International report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, an assessment shared by United Nations experts, national leaders, jurists, academics, and activist groups. Israeli and U.S. leaders deny that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

    Original article by Brett Wilkins 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.

  • Lawsuit Claims State Department Illegally Arming Israel via Leahy Law ‘Loophole’

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

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on October 12, 2023. (Photo: Eyepress Media Limited/Reuters via Getty Images)

    “This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” said one advocate.

    Palestinians and Palestinian Americans on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. State Department of creating a “loophole” allowing Israel to skirt federal legislation barring American military aid to foreign militaries that violate human rights law.

    The lawsuit, which was filed by five individuals and supported by the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), accuses the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken of violating the Leahy Law, legislation passed in two parts in the late 1990s that built on the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961‘s proscription of U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.

    According to DAWN, the suit “documents how the State Department has created unique, insurmountable processes to evade the Leahy Law requirement to sanction abusive Israeli units, despite overwhelming evidence of their human rights violations” including “torture, prolonged detention without charge, forced disappearance, and flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, and security, such as genocide, indiscriminate and deliberate killings, and deprivation of items essential to survival, including food, water, fuel, and medicine.”

    https://twitter.com/DAWNmenaorg/status/1869116126929604998?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1869116126929604998%7Ctwgr%5E722c9214c88bdca37da3a994b4adabb07dca3986%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fstate-department-leahy-law

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    Case plaintiff Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American from the southern Gazan city of Rafah who has lost numerous relatives in Israeli attacks, toldZeteo‘s Prem Thakker, “I’m hoping, through this action, through this lawsuit, that we can just call out the federal government to begin to enforce American laws.”

    The State Department has sparked international outrage by repeatedly finding that Israel is using U.S.-supplied arms in compliance with domestic human rights law, citing the key ally’s right to defend itself and the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. However, Israel’s 438-day retaliation has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Thousands more have been killed or maimed in the West Bank.

    South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Both men have been warmly welcomed in Washington, D.C.. Congress and the Biden administration have approved tens of billions of dollars in arms transfers to Israel. U.S.-supplied bombs have been used in some of Israel’s most notorious airstrikes. The U.S. has also vetoed numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a Gaza cease-fire.

    Today, the White House welcomed Yoav Gallant, charged by the ICC with the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. What a disgrace.

    — Adil Haque (@adhaque.bsky.social) 2024-12-10T20:21:30.596Z

    “This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement on Tuesday. “For too long, the State Department has acted as if there’s an ‘Israel exemption’ from the Leahy Law, despite the fact that Congress required it to apply the law to every country in the world. As a result, millions of Palestinians have suffered unimaginable, horrific abuses by Israeli forces using U.S. weapons.”

    Stephen Rickard, a former U.S. official who helped pass the landmark legislation, said that “long-standing concerns that the State Department was not cutting off aid to specific Israel units as required by the Leahy Law… have been given dramatic urgency by the tragic ongoing crisis in Gaza.”

    “If the State Department will not comply with the law, then it is time for the courts to vindicate the rule of law and order it to do so,” Rickard added.

    https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1868764026018447375?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1868764026018447375%7Ctwgr%5E722c9214c88bdca37da3a994b4adabb07dca3986%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fstate-department-leahy-law

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    The new lawsuit came a day after relatives of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi—the Turkish American woman who, according to witnesses, was deliberately shot in the head while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in September—met with Blinken in search of justice and accountability for the activist’s killing.

    Referring to another American activist killed by Israeli forces while defending Palestinian homes, Hamid Ali, Eygi’s widower, said that Blinken “was attentive in listening to us, but unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing.”

    Ali called Blinken “very deferential to the Israelis,” adding that “it felt like he was saying his hands were tied and they weren’t able to really do much.”

    A journalist asked State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a Tuesday press conference why the U.S. has not suspended arms transfers to Israel by invoking the Leahy Law and citing the cases of victims like Eygi or Shireen Abu Akleh—the Palestinian American Al Jazeera correspondent who, according to witnesses and several independent probes, was deliberately shot dead by an Israeli sniper in the West Bank in May 2022.

    https://twitter.com/AnnelleSheline/status/1869107213631189063?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1869107213631189063%7Ctwgr%5E722c9214c88bdca37da3a994b4adabb07dca3986%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fstate-department-leahy-law

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    “We have taken those cases extremely seriously,” Miller claimed. Referring to Eygi, he added that he made it clear to Israel that “her death was unacceptable, that it should have been avoided, it should have never happened in the first place, that we want to see the results of their investigation, and we want to see them change their rules of engagement.”

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

  • ‘A Critical Situation’: Gaza Doctor Warns of Catastrophe as Israel Assails Hospital

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

    A victim of an Israeli attack receives treatment inside Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on December 6, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

    “We have called on the world to protect both the healthcare system and its workers, yet we have not received any response from anyone globally,” said the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.

    The director of one of the few partially functioning hospitals in northern Gaza said Sunday that Israeli attacks have put the facility’s remaining patients—including more than a dozen children—in grave danger and pleaded with the international community to intervene.

    “Following the recent attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which involved over 100 shells and bombs indiscriminately targeting the facility, the damage has been severe,” Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital’s director, said in a statement. “As of now, one of the hospital buildings remains without electricity, oxygen, or water. The shelling continues to occur randomly in the vicinity, preventing us from conducting repairs on the oxygen, electricity, and water networks.”

    Abu Safiya said the overwhelmed and under-resourced hospital is currently treating 112 wounded patients, including six people in intensive care and 14 children.

    “This is a critical situation,” he said Sunday morning. “The bombardment and gunfire have not ceased; planes are dropping bombs around the clock. We are uncertain of what lies ahead and what the army wants from the hospital.”

    “We have called on the world to protect both the healthcare system and its workers, yet we have not received any response from anyone globally,” Abu Safiya added. “This represents a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding against the healthcare workers and patients. Unfortunately, there seems to be no effort to halt this relentless assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital and the broader health system.”

    The hospital director’s statement came after Israeli attacks near the facility killed scores of people on Friday. Photos taken from the scene showed bodies on the ground amid building ruins.

    (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

    A day earlier, an Israeli airstrike on the Kamal Adwan Hospital compound killed a 16-year-old boy in a wheelchair and wounded a dozen others, The Associated Press reported.

    According to Drop Site, the boy “was struck as he entered the X-ray department.”

    https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1865299454271889830?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1865299454271889830%7Ctwgr%5E08ef4081f5d259b4ddb713ce7acb5b6ac05e2b0b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fkamal-adwan-hospital

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    Northern Gaza has been under intense Israeli assault for two months, and the humanitarian situation there and across the Palestinian enclave is worse than ever, according to U.N. agencies and aid organizations.

    “The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “The nightmare must stop. We cannot continue to look away.”

    Abu Safiya said Sunday that his hospital is facing outages of electricity and water amid Israel’s incessant attacks.

    “We urgently appeal to the international community for assistance,” he said. “The situation is extremely dangerous.”

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

  • Israel’s ‘repeated evacuation orders’ affect 80% of Gaza, leaving civilians at risk: UN

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    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241203-israels-repeated-evacuation-orders-affect-80-of-gaza-leaving-civilians-at-risk-un

    Palestinian residents, carrying their belongings, are on their way to migrate for safer areas following the Israeli army’s orders evacuation of the Bani Suheila town in Khan Yunis, Gaza on October 07, 2024 [Ashraf Amra – Anadolu Agency]

    The UN, on Tuesday, reported that Israel’s recurring evacuation orders affecting approximately 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip have exposed civilians to risk, Anadolu Agency reports.

    “Israel’s repeated evacuation orders, which are now in effect for about 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip, leaves civilians exposed to the danger of hostilities and deprived of access to essential services,” spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said at a news conference.

    Saying that northern Gaza has been under a tightening siege for nearly two months, Dujarric said around 65,000 to 500,000 people are unable to access regular food, water, electricity or reliable health care.

    Dujarric stated that “the entire population of Gaza needs humanitarian assistance,” and stressed the plight of more than 58,000 people with disabilities who are facing additional challenges in accessing food.

    In the southern areas of Gaza, he said that “some people are skipping meals and searching through trash to find food.”

    Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Dujarric warned that humanitarian access continues to be obstructed.

    “In November, out of 578 planned aid movements across Gaza that require coordination with Israeli authorities, only 41 per cent were facilitated. More than a third were denied outright, and the rest were either impeded or cancelled due to security and logistical challenges,” he said.

    Dujarric reported that aid missions to northern Gaza have been especially disrupted, with efforts to reach besieged areas such as Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun encountering severe obstacles.

    READ: UK’s Gaza genocide denial shows ‘contempt for Palestinian lives’: British-Jewish activist

    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241203-israels-repeated-evacuation-orders-affect-80-of-gaza-leaving-civilians-at-risk-un

    This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

  • 130,000 kids in Gaza ‘cut off’

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/130000-kids-in-gaza-cut-off

    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.

    …

    article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/130000-kids-in-gaza-cut-off