Original artticle republished from MIMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris attends a press conference at Government Buildings in Dublin on April 12, 2024 [PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images]
Ireland’s Prime Minister, on Thursday, said that 40,000 dead in Gaza is a “milestone the world must be ashamed of”, Anadolu Agency reports.
“International diplomacy has failed to protect innocent children, some only days old,” Simon Harris said on X.
He called on Israel to stop the bombings in Gaza and asked Hamas to release the hostages.
In addition to his call for a ceasefire in Gaza, Harris urged the EU to reassess its association agreement with Israel.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since a 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas.
The Israeli onslaught has since killed over 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,400 others, according to local health authorities.
Over 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.
Israel damaged or destroyed five water and sanitation sites every three days since the start of this war
A new Oxfam report reveals how Israel has been systematically weaponizing water against Palestinians in Gaza, showing disregard for human life and international law.
The report, Water War Crimes, finds that Israel’s cutting of external water supply, systematic destruction of water facilities and deliberate aid obstruction have reduced the amount of water available in Gaza by 94% to 4.74 litres a day per person – just under a third of the recommended minimum in emergencies and less than a single toilet flush.
Oxfam analysis also found:
Israeli military attacks have damaged or destroyed five water and sanitation infrastructure sites every three days since the start of the war.
The destruction of water and electricity infrastructure and restrictions on entry of spare parts and fuel (on average a fifth of the required amount is allowed in) saw water production drop by 84% in Gaza. External supply from Israel’s national water company Mekorot fell by 78%.
Israel has destroyed 70% of all sewage pumps and 100% of all wastewater treatment plants, as well as the main water quality testing laboratories in Gaza, and restricted the entry of Oxfam water testing equipment.
Gaza City has lost nearly all its water production capacity, with 88% of its water wells and 100% of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed.
The report also highlighted the dire impact of this extreme lack of clean water and sanitation on Palestinians’ health, with more than a quarter (26%) of Gaza’s population falling severely ill from easily preventable diseases.
In January, the International Court of Justice demanded that Israel immediately improve humanitarian access in light of a plausible genocide in Gaza. Since then, Oxfam has witnessed firsthand Israel’s obstruction of a meaningful humanitarian response, which is killing Palestinian civilians.
“We’ve already seen Israel’s use of collective punishment and its use of starvation as a weapon of war. Now we are witnessing its weaponizing of water, which is already having deadly consequences.”
Oxfam Water and Sanitation Specialist Lama Abdul Samad said it was clear that Israel had created a devastating humanitarian emergency resulting in Palestinian civilian deaths.
“We’ve already seen Israel’s use of collective punishment and its use of starvation as a weapon of war. Now we are witnessing its weaponizing of water, which is already having deadly consequences.
“But the deliberate restriction of access to water is not a new tactic. The Israeli Government has been depriving Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza of safe and sufficient water for many years,” she said.
“The widespread destruction and significant restrictions on aid delivery in Gaza impacting access to water and other essentials for survival, underscores the urgent need for the international community to take decisive action to prevent further suffering by upholding justice and human rights, including those enshrined in the Geneva and Genocide Conventions.”
Monther Shoblak, General Manager of the Gaza Strip’s water utility CMWU, said:
“My colleagues and I have been living through a nightmare these past nine months, but we still feel it’s our responsibility and duty to ensure everybody in Gaza is getting their minimum right of clean drinking water. It’s been very difficult, but we are determined to keep trying – even when we witness our colleagues being targeted and killed by Israel while undertaking their work.”
Oxfam is calling for urgent action including an immediate and permanent ceasefire; for Israel to allow a full and unfettered humanitarian response; and for Israel to foot the reconstruction bill for water and sanitation infrastructure.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Reacting to a new report from the Office for Environmental Protection which says: “government will not meet its ambition that most water bodies will be on the road to good condition or else already in that state by 2027,” Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said:
“The Green Party wants to see much greater protection of nature in law, and that includes our rivers.
“We would set up an Independent Commission for Nature that would set targets for nature protection and restoration, enforced through the courts.
“This would be groundbreaking and make future governments act to protect our waterways from agricultural and industrial pollution.
“It would allow for the first time the possibility of individuals, communities and conservation groups taking legal action on behalf of nature. Currently, every time our rivers, seas or land is polluted, prosecution is left to hopelessly underfunded quangos.
“We also need water companies in public ownership and an end to leaking sewage.
“We need to give space for all of nature to thrive, and that includes protecting our rivers.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield raises her hand to abstain during a U.N. Security Council vote on a Gaza cease-fire resolution on March 25, 2024 in New York City. (Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This resolution must be implemented,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Failure would be unforgivable.”
The U.S. on Monday declined to veto but still abstained from a United Nations Security Council on Monday to adopt a resolution demanding an “immediate cease-fire for the month of Ramadan” in the embattled Gaza Strip, a move that came amid an ongoing Israeli genocide in which more than 114,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded and hundreds of thousands of others are starving.
The Security Council voted 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining, to approve a resolution for the cessation of hostilities during the Muslim holy month after member states overcame a sticking point over the removal of the word “permanent” from an earlier draft version. Instead, the resolution calls for an “immediate” cease-fire.
The U.S. had vetoed three of the previous four cease-fire resolutions.
“This resolution must be implemented,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said following Monday’s vote. “Failure would be unforgivable.”
NEW—The United Nations Security Council has voted 14-0 to demand: –immediate ceasefire for Ramadan leading to "lasting" sustainable ceasefire –immediate unconditional release of all hostages
US abstained, even after successfully pushing to replace word "permanent" with "lasting" pic.twitter.com/zAjvI5nqgE
The resolution is a bare-bones call for a cease-fire during the month of Ramadan, which began on March 11. It also demands the return of about 130 hostages seized in Israel and held in Gaza and emphasizes the urgent need to allow ample lifesaving aid to reach a starving population in the besieged enclave.
The demand to end hostilities has so far eluded the council following the Israeli forces’ invasion of Gaza in October after Hamas attacks left almost 1,200 dead and 240 taken hostage.
Since then, Israel’s daily bombardment alongside its near-total blockade of water, electricity, and lifesaving aid has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health ministry there, where a recent U.N.-backed report showed an imminent famine unfolding.
Palestinians—especially children—are starving to death in Gaza. Hospitals are under attack, with Israeli forces reportedly executing large numbers of people inside al-Shifa Hospital.
Meanwhile, the approximately 1.5 milllion Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah—most of them refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza—are bracing for an anticipated ground invasion, which Israeli leaders say will proceed despite a warning from U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris that such an operation would have “consequences.”
Monday’s vote followed intense negotiations over the measure introduced by 10 non-permanent Security Council members—Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, and Switzerland.
The United States—which, despite growing frustration over genocidal atrocities, still arms Israel—brushed off a threat from far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a planned visit to Washigton by a high-level Israeli delegation if the U.S. did not veto the resolution.
The Associated Press reported Netanyahu followed through with his threat and canceled the trip.
Human rights defenders welcomed Monday’s vote.
“Israel needs to immediately respond to the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted today by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid, ending its starvation of Gaza’s population, and halting unlawful attacks,” Louis Charbonneau, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.N. program, said in a statement.
“Palestinian armed groups should immediately release all civilians held hostage,” he added. “The U.S. and other countries should use their leverage to end atrocities by suspending arms transfers to Israel.”
A baby, hospitalized due to malnutrition and dehydration, lie in an incubator at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza on March 2, 2024. Palestinians are not able to obtain basic food supplies since the embargo, imposed by the Israeli forces, continues. (Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The independent Senator said arming a nation that is actively “prohibiting aid convoys from delivering desperately needed food and water” represents a clear violation of U.S. law.
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday accused Israel of standing in clear violation of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act by creating the conditions for mass starvation within the Gaza Strip as he called on the Biden administration to halt all military aid to the country until Palestinians are granted the life-saving humanitarian relief they urgently need.
“Starvation is taking place in Gaza,” Sanders said in a statement. “Israel is prohibiting aid convoys from delivering desperately needed food and water.”
While the U.S. government initiated airdrops over the weekend with the aim of providing tens of thousands of meals for those starving and suffering malnutrition in the besieged territory of Gaza, relief agencies said the effort was only a drop in the bucket of what is needed to stem what the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Sunday called a “hell on earth” situation.
Sanders on Friday was supportive of airdrops—an effort he said would “buy time and save lives”—but added that “there is no substitute for sustained ground deliveries of what is needed to sustain life in Gaza.”
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Sanders, “must open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The United States should make clear that failure to do so immediately will lead to a fundamental break in the U.S.-Israeli relationship and the immediate halt of all military aid.”
On Sunday, as Common Dreams reported, UNICEF issued a warning to the world that ten child deaths from starvation had already been documented, that others had likely occurred, and many more should be expected if conditions on the ground were not immediately addressed.
“Horrific reports confirmed that, over the last few days only, at least 10 children died of malnutrition in Gaza,” the agency said. “These deaths are man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable.”
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, called the situation in Gaza an “engineered famine” created by Israel and its international allies who have stood aside or provided backing to Netanyahu.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunda all pressed the Israelis to increase military aid as she pressed by both Netanyahu and Hamas leaders to accept a cease-fire deal. [sic]
“People in Gaza are starving,” Harris said during an event in Alabama. “The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act.”
“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses,” she added, but notably did not say what, if any, consequences the Israelis would face from the White House if they refused.
As Sanders’ office noted in its Sunday statement, Israel’s ongoing blockade of food, water, medical supplies, and fuel as the civilian population suffers at such levels is a clear violation of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which states:
No assistance shall be furnished … to any country when it is made known to the President that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.
“Today,” said Sanders, “I urge President Biden to implement this law and make it clear to Israel that, if aid access is not immediately opened up, he will impose consequences under the Foreign Assistance Act and stop military assistance to Israel.”
