After more than 100 days of war and Israeli siege, every single person in Gaza is hungry, and a quarter of the population—or around 500,000 people—is starving, UN experts warned on Jan. 16. The aid response is falling short of what is needed to prevent a deadly combination of hunger, malnutrition, and disease, four UN agencies said, calling for a “fundamental step change in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.” Without it, deaths from starvation and disease could soon surpass the already staggering toll from bombardment and combat, which has reached nearly 25,000 people, according to health authorities in Gaza.
UN aid officials said there is still time to keep famine at bay, but that would require Israel to: allow more aid trucks to enter Gaza; provide humanitarian workers more freedom of movement; give safety guarantees to people seeking and distributing aid; and lift its total siege to allow commercial goods into the enclave. “This isn’t just a question whereby setting up some soup kitchens and some mobile clinics will stop this humanitarian emergency,” famine expert Alex de Waal told The New Humanitarian in an interview. “No matter how much aid is provided, if the destruction of objects indispensable to survival continues, the risk of famine will continue.”
The deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime, and the allegation that Israel is creating the risk of death from starvation in Gaza is central to the case being brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.
From The New Humanitarian, Jan. 19.
See our last report on genocide accusations against Israel.
Photo: Maan News Agency
‘Transfer’ solution for Gaza gains currency in Israel
A Jan. 3 report in Times of Israel said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is conducting secret talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo on mass resettlement of Gazans in the Central African country. The report was denied by Congolese officials.
In another eruption of genocidal rhetoric, hardine Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Dec. 31 that Israel must significantly reduce the number of Palestinian residents in the Gaza Strip. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million, the whole discourse about the day after will be different,” he said in an interview with Army Radio. He asserted that their removal would make way for Israeli settlers who could “make the desert bloom.” (Haaretz, Al Jazeera)
MK Nissim Vaturi has doubled down on his November tweet demanding “Burn Gaza now!” He told Hakol Baramah Radio Jan. 10: “I stand behind my words. It is better to burn down buildings rather than have soldiers harmed. There are no innocents there.” Saying that most Gazans ave been evacated from te northern Strip, he added: “One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them.” (ToI)
Evidence grows of an imminent “transfer” of Palestnians from the Gaza Strip, and this may also extend to the West Bank. Netanyahu, insisting he rejects US pressure for implementation of a two-state solution after the conflict ends, said that Israel must have “security control” over all land west of the River Jordan. He told reporters Jan. 19: “This is a necessary condition, and it conflicts with the idea of [Palestinian] sovereignty. What to do? I tell this truth to our American friends, and I also stopped the attempt to impose a reality on us that would harm Israel’s security.” (BBC News, AP, NYT)
On Dec. 21, Netanyahu rejected a Hamas proposal to end the war and release the more than 100 captives held by the group, in exchange for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip, the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and recognition of Hamas rule over Gaza. (Al Jazeera)
War of perceptions over October 7
United Nations experts called Jan. 8 for thorough accountability in the hostage-taking, unlawful killings and alleged use of sexual torture in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. (Jurist)
The Hamas Media Office has meanwhile issued a document entitled “Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” (PDF), asserting that only military targets were struck in the incursion. “If there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidentally and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces,” the document states. (Palestine Chronicle)
International pressure mounts on Israel… and Washington
The Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office confirmed Jan. 19 that a criminal complaint against Israeli President Isaac Herzog has been filed. The complaint was brought by a group calling itself Legal Action Against Crimes Against Humanity. Announcement of the indictment came during the week long annual World Economic Forum 2024 (WEF) held in Davos, Switzerland, which President Herzog attended. (Jurist)
The governments of Mexico and Chile released a joint statement Thursday calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to look into possible crimes occurring in Gaza. (Jurist) The ICC already has an ongoing investigation into Gaza and Palestine, but Israel refuses to recognize its jurisdiction.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution Jan. 18 urging a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza conflict. (Jurist)
UN Secretary-General António Guterres harshly condemned the Israeli government Jan. 21 “Israel’s military operations have spread massive destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary-general,” Guterres said at a UN summit in Uganda. He reiterated calls for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire to relieve the suffering in Gaza, allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in need, and facilitate the release of hostages, which should be immediate and unconditional.” (The Hill)
The Biden White House, already facing a lawsuit accusing it of complicity with genocide, US Senate rejected a resolution Jan. 16 that would have required the US State Department to prepare a report on Israel’s human rights practices amid the Gaza war. (Jurist)
Gaza hospitals under siege
Health services in Gaza are decimated, with medical staff exhausted after three months of war that has left more than 60,000 Palestinians wounded. Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza only 15 remain open, and only three are undamaged. (The Guardian, PBS NewsHour)
Last week, one the still-functioning ones, Nasser Medical Center in Khan Younis, came under fire amid fighting in the surrounding areas. Scores of displaced Palestinians fled the grounds of the hospital where they ad taken refuge. About 7,000 people were believed to have been sheltering on the hospital’s grounds. (NYT)
Israelis march for ceasefire
On Jan. 18 there was a thousands-strong rally in Tel Aviv, calling for a Gaza ceasefire as the only means of securing the release alive of the surviving hostages, which is obvious, It was organized by pro-coexistence groups including the Standing Together Movement and Women Wage Peace. Heli Mishael of the Standing Together organization, said: “After 100 days of war, the hostages have not returned, innocent Palestinians are being killed, and we still don’t have security… There is another way’ (JP, Haaretz,
A similar march, attended by some 300, was held in Haifa on Jan. 20. It was organized by groups including Breaking the Silence, Yesh Gvul, Machsom Watch, Rabbis for Human Rights and Zochrot. (ToI)
A new group calling for a ceasefire is The Mothers’ Cry, made up of mothers whose sons are soldiers serving in Gaza. More than 190 soldiers have been killed and more than 1,170 have been wounded since troops invaded Gaza in late October. (NPR)
Israelis march for ceasefire… again
Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv on Feb. 3 under the banner of “120 Days Underground,” led by the Hostages & Missing Families Forum. Speeches at what is now a weekly Tel Aviv rally demanding the return of the hostages took a more strongly political tone than ever before, with speakers accusing the government of Benjamin Netanyahu of being indifferent to the hostages’ fate.
Ronen Manelis, a reserve brigadier general and former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, was one of the prominent speakers. “The Israeli leadership, the war cabinet, its head, are afraid to make the decision” to agree to a prisoner swap, said Manelis, “because they fear a temporary ceasefire would lead to criticism, to investigations, and would trigger the very necessary process of going back to the voters to renew their confidence in their leaders.” (Haaretz, ToI)
Hamas ‘stands ready to appear before ICC’
In a statement issued Jan. 27, senior member of te Hamas leadership Mousa Abu Marzouk writes: ” Hamas stands ready to appear before the ICC with witnesses and live testimony and bear the burden of any judicial finding against it or its members after a full and fair trial with rules of evidence; with examination and cross examination into we have done or not over the many years of our leadership as a national liberation movement. Is Israel?” (Media Review Network)
‘Clear and convincing’ evidence of Hamas sexual violence
Following a 17-day visit to Israel, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict reported on March 4 that she and a team of experts had found “clear and convincing information” of rape and sexualized torture being committed against hostages seized during the Oct. 7 attacks.
Pramila Patten added in a press release issued along with the report that there are also reasonable grounds to believe that such violence, which includes other “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” may be continuing against those still being held by Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip. (UN News)