The International Court of Justice (ICJ) held hearings this week on Israel’s ban on cooperation with UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees. It could take some time for a (non-binding) ruling on Israel’s move to cut ties with UNRWA, and it has already been two months since Israel reinstated its full siege on Gaza, blocking the entry of aid and commercial goods while bombarding the territory. In a graphic illustration of the extent of the siege, organizers of a vessel carrying aid and activists to Gaza said it was bombed by Israeli drones, leaving the ship disabled off the coast of Malta.
Meanwhile, on the ground in the Gaza Strip, the situation is becoming more dire by the day. UNICEF says vaccines are quickly running out, disease is spreading, and malnutrition is on the rise; more than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the start of the year. People are looting food shops, community kitchens and aid warehouses in what Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO network in Gaza, called “a grave signal of how serious things have become in the Gaza Stripâthe spread of hunger, the loss of hope…among residents, as well as the absence of the authority of the law.”
Amnesty International says the past two months of renewed siege constitute a “genocidal act, a blatant form of unlawful collective punishment, and the war crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”
From The New Humanitarian, May 2
See our last reports on the UNRWA ban and genocide accusations against Israel.
Photo: Maan News Agency
Condemn renewed Israel attacks on UNRWA schoolâs
UN human rights experts on May 20 strongly condemned the repeated attacks on UNRWAschools by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, calling attacks on schools an “assault on children.”
In a statement, they warned that the targeting of such educational facilities may amount to a war crime under international law. Additionally, the UN experts reiterated their calls for accountability, pointing to the repeated violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Gaza.
Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, more than 180 UNRWA installations have reportedly been damaged, with several having been directly hit despite coordinates shared with Israeli authorities.
The statement also said that on May 8, heavily armed Israeli forces stormed three UNRWA schools at Shuâfat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, while classes were in session, violently evicting over 550 Palestinian children, some as young as six, from their classrooms. One UNRWA staff member was detained, and by the end of the day all six UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem had been evacuated.
The experts stated: “As the schools stormed were UN premises, the harassment of staff and forcible removal of children from schools by Israeli soldiers also constitute a breach of the inviolability of UN facilities and violate the right to education.” The right to education is protected under Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Israel and the State of Palestine are state parties. (Jurist)