Globally, there have been resounding calls for a long-term ceasefire to bring an end to more than two months of bloodshed and a spiralling humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 19,000 people have now been killed by Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion, according to the health ministry in the enclave, and over 80% of the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza have been displaced from their homes. While the United States has continued to support Israel’s war effort (including through weapons sales), cracks have emerged as Israel has apparently paid little heed to US calls to try to limit civilian casualties and allow more access for humanitarian aid. Israel has said its fighting against Hamas could last months. With aid agencies already struggling to operate, the impact of a prolonged war on a population squeezed into a sliver of southern Gaza—and suffering from food shortages and outbreaks of disease—is hard to imagine.
From The New Humanitarian, Dec. 15 (condensed)
Accusations of war crimes and even genocide continue to mount against Israel.
Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/TNH
Israeli air-strikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp
At least 90 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in the latest Israeli attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. The enclave’s Health Ministry said the Dec. 17 strikes hit a residential block belonging to the al-Barsh and Alwan families. Women and children were among the dead, with dozens still missing. (Al Jazeera)
Atrocity reports mount in Israeli ground operation
Israel is implementing a forced displacement approach against civilians in the Gaza Strip by “committing massacres, field executions, and random and arbitrary arrests,” Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement issued Dec. 11.
Euro-Med Monitor has documented horrific violations by the Israeli army in Gaza, including the arrest of hundreds of civilians over the past several days. Detainees were stripped of their clothes, handcuffed, beaten and forced to sit on their knees in open areas despite very cold weather.
Some detainees were used by the Israeli army as human shields to storm residential homes and ground tunnels. Several residential homes were bown up in al-Zaytoun, al-Tuffah and al-Shuja’iya neighborhoods in Gaza City.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also reported Dec. 14 that the Israeli army has repeatedly targeted several cemeteries in the Gaza Strip, leaving widespread destruction, vandalizing graves, and stealing dead bodies.
The group reported claims Dec. 16 that the Israeli army buried wounded Palestinian civilians alive outside of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Strip’s northern town of Beit Lahia.
Israel Defense Forces ‘mistakenly’ kill three Israeli hostages
The IDF announced that it “mistakenly” killed three Israeli hostages who were holding up a white flag in the Shijaiyah district of Gaza City on Dec. 15. Protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv after the news broke, outraged at Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. They were joined by released hostages and families of those still captive in Gaza. Raz Ben Ami, who was released as part of a deal with Hamas, told the crowd that military operations in Gaza put hostages at risk and that she had “warned” the government of this. (Jurist, NBC)
Israeli sniper kills two women at Gaza church: report
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Roman Catholic diocese for the region, accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of killing two women and injuring seven other church members at the Holy Family Parish in Gaza City on Dec. 16.
The statement said the church, where the “majority of Christian families [have] taken refuge since the start of the war,” came under sniper fire. The statement asserts that the IDF gave no warning and that the victims were “shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish.” The two dead are a mother and her daughter. Catholic officials also said that IDF rockets also targeted and hit the Covenant of the Sisters of Mother Theresa, which displaced 54 disabled people without access to respirators.
Pope Francis condemned the incident at Holy Family Parish in his weekly Sunday blessing the following day. (Jurist, NCR)
Security Council passes ‘diluted’ Gaza resolution
The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution Dec. 22 demanding steps “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, to facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid. It stops short of demanding an immediate, permanent ceasefire, which both the US and Israel oppose. The UAE-sponsored resolution passed with 13 votes in favor and zero against. The US and Russia abstained, with the former protesting that the text failed to condemn Hamas, the latter citing its failure to call for an immediate ceasefire. (Al Jazeera, ToI)
UN Human Rights Office: unlawful killings in Gaza City
UN Human Rights Office has received disturbing information alleging that Israeli Defence Forces summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members in Al Remal neighbourhood, Gaza City, which raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime. This comes in the wake of earlier allegations concerning the deliberate targeting and killing of civilians at the hands of Israeli forces. (OHCHR)
WHO: no hospitals remain functional in north Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Dec. 21 that the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza has now become minimally operational due to lack of fuel, staff, and supplies. The WHO reported that all injured patients who are unable to be relocated are now “waiting to die.” Al-Ahli hospital was the last hospital in the north of Gaza that was able to provide surgery for the injured. (Jurist)
Israel denies visas to UN personnel
Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen announced Dec. 25 that the government will not renew the visa of one employee and will not issue a new visa to a second employee of the UN working on the ground in Israel and Gaza. Cohen did not specify who the UN officials were.
Cohen claimed that the move was necessary due to the UN’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, writing:
The announcement comes as tensions between the UN and Israel are sharply escalating. (Jurist)