” (Beirut, October 12, 2023) – Israel’s use of white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing a question and answer document on white phosphorus. Human Rights Watch verified videos taken in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023, respectively, showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border, and interviewed two people who described an attack in Gaza.”
Use in Populated Areas Poses Grave Risks to Civilians
(Beirut, October 12, 2023) – Israel’s use of white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing a question and answer document on white phosphorus. Human Rights Watch verified videos taken in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023, respectively, showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border, and interviewed two people who described an attack in Gaza.
White phosphorus, which can be used either for marking, signaling, and obscuring, or as a weapon to set fires that burn people and objects, has a significant incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The use of white phosphorus in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, magnifies the risk to civilians and violates the international humanitarian law prohibition on putting civilians at unnecessary risk.
“Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “White phosphorous is unlawfully indiscriminate when airburst in populated urban areas, where it can burn down houses and cause egregious harm to civilians.”
On October 11, Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone two people from the al-Mina area in Gaza City, who described observing strikes consistent with the use of white phosphorus. One was in the street at the time, while the other was in a nearby office building. Both described ongoing airstrikes before seeing explosions in the sky followed by what they described as white lines going earthward. They estimated that the attack took place sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Both said that the smell was stifling. The person who was in his office said that the smell was so strong that he went toward the window to see what was happening and then filmed the strike.
Human Rights Watch reviewed the video and verified that it was taken in Gaza City’s port and identified that the munitions used in the strike were airburst 155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles. Other videos posted to social media and verified by Human Rights Watch show the same location. Dense white smoke and a garlic smell are characteristics of white phosphorus.
Human Rights Watch also reviewedtwo videos from October 10 from two locations near the Israel-Lebanon border. Each shows 155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles being used, apparently as smokescreens, marking, or signaling.
White phosphorus ignites when exposed to atmospheric oxygen and continues to burn until it is deprived of oxygen or exhausted. Its chemical reaction can create intense heat (about 815°C/1,500°F), light, and smoke.
Upon contact, white phosphorus can burn people, thermally and chemically, down to the bone as it is highly soluble in fat and therefore in human flesh. White phosphorus fragments can exacerbate wounds even after treatment and can enter the bloodstream and cause multiple organ failure. Already dressed wounds can reignite when dressings are removed and the wounds are re-exposed to oxygen. Even relatively minor burns are often fatal. For survivors, extensive scarring tightens muscle tissue and creates physical disabilities. The trauma of the attack, the painful treatment that follows, and appearance-changing scars lead to psychological harm and social exclusion.
The use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life, Human Rights Watch said. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in videos of airbursting white phosphorus projectiles. Airbursting of white phosphorus projectiles spreads 116 burning felt wedges impregnated within the substance over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian structures to potential harm than a localized ground burst.
Israeli authorities have not commented on whether or not they used white phosphorus during the ongoing fighting.
Israel’s use of white phosphorus comes amid hostilities following Hamas’ deadly attacks on October 7 and subsequent rocket attacks that have killed, as of October 12, more than 1,300 Israelis, including hundreds of civilians, and taking of scores of Israelis as hostages in violation of international humanitarian law. Heavy Israeli bombardment of Gaza in this period has killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, including scores of civilians, and displaced more than 338,000 people. Many communities in southern Israel have also been displaced and more than 1,500 Palestinian militants reportedly died in Israel. Israeli authorities have cut electricity, water, fuel and food into Gaza, in violation of the international humanitarian law prohibition against collective punishment, exacerbating the dire humanitarian situation from over 16 years of Israeli closure.
Human Rights Watch has documented the Israeli military’s use of white phosphorus in previous conflicts in Gaza, including in 2009. Israel should ban all use of “airburst” white phosphorus munitions in populated areas without exception. There are readily available and non-lethal alternatives to white phosphorus smoke shells, including some produced by Israeli companies, which the Israeli army has used in the past as an obscurant for its forces. These alternatives have the same effect and dramatically reduce the harm to civilians.
In 2013, in response to a petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice regarding the use of white phosphorus in Gaza, the Israeli military stated that it would no longer use white phosphorus in populated areas except in two narrow situations that it revealed only to the justices. In the court’s ruling, Justice Edna Arbel said that the conditions would “render use of white phosphorous an extreme exception in highly particular circumstances.” Although this ruling did not represent an official change in policy, Justice Arbel called on the Israeli military to conduct a “thorough and comprehensive examination” and adopt a permanent military directive.
Attacks using air-delivered incendiary weapons in civilian areas are prohibited under Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). While the protocol contains weaker restrictions for ground-launched incendiary weapons, all types of incendiary weapons produce horrific injuries. Protocol III applies only to weapons that are “primarily designed” to set fires or cause burns, and thus some countries believe it excludes certain multipurpose munitions with incendiary effects, notably those containing white phosphorus.
Human Rights Watch and many states have long called for closing these loopholes in Protocol III. These attacks should add impetus to the calls from at least two dozen countries for the CCW Meeting of States Parties to set aside time to discuss the adequacy of Protocol III. The next meeting is scheduled for November at the United Nations in Geneva.
Palestine joined Protocol III on January 5, 2015, and Lebanon on April 5, 2017, while Israel has not ratified it.
“To avoid civilian harm, Israel should stop using white phosphorus in populated areas,” Fakih said. “Parties to the conflict should be doing everything they can to spare civilians from further suffering.”
END
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noot 16/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
”Two key principles enable the achievement of this goal. First – the principle of distinction – determines what legitimate targets are: according to Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, only military objects are legitimate targets for attack. They are defined as objects that make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction would offer a definite military advantage to the attacking side. The second principle – the principle of proportionality – limits how attacks are to be carried out: according to Article 51(5)b of the Protocol, legitimate targets must not be attacked if the expected harm to civilians would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Whether or not an attack is proportionate is not determined by the actual harm inflicted but by the information those responsible for it had or should have had.
Israel’s airstrikes since the start of the war are an abject violation of these principles and constitute a war crime. The massive scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented.”
Since the start of the war, Israel has dropped thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip. Gaza is an enclave enclosed on all sides. There are no safe rooms, no shelters, no safe spaces. Residents have no way to protect themselves. They wait, in terror and fear, hoping to survive. Over a million people have already left their homes in an attempt to find a safe place; some have been killed while fleeing, others where they sought shelter.
Israel, like Hamas and like every country in the world, must follow international humanitarian law. These legal provisions were not enacted by human rights or pro-Palestinian organizations. They were accepted by all nations – including Israel – out of a shared understanding that even during war, there must be rules that minimize the suffering caused to civilians and ensure that they are kept outside the cycle of hostilities to the extent possible.
Two key principles enable the achievement of this goal. First – the principle of distinction – determines what legitimate targets are: according to Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, only military objects are legitimate targets for attack. They are defined as objects that make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction would offer a definite military advantage to the attacking side. The second principle – the principle of proportionality – limits how attacks are to be carried out: according to Article 51(5)b of the Protocol, legitimate targets must not be attacked if the expected harm to civilians would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Whether or not an attack is proportionate is not determined by the actual harm inflicted but by the information those responsible for it had or should have had.
Israel’s airstrikes since the start of the war are an abject violation of these principles and constitute a war crime. The massive scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented. Entire residential neighborhoods have been destroyed, and, according to Gaza authorities, at least 16,000 residential units have been completely destroyed, while an additional 11,000 have been rendered uninhabitable. The horrifying death toll, which rises every day, is unfathomable: according to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 7,000 people have been killed, including almost 3,000 minors, more than 1,700 women, and dozens of families who were killed together when their houses collapsed on them. More than 17,000 people have been injured, about 2,000 are still missing under the rubble.
These figures cannot be reconciled with the provisions of international law described above: neither with the requirement for each of the thousands of targets bombed to have made “an effective contribution” to Hamas’s activities and their destruction to have offered a “definite military advantage” to Israel; nor with the requirement that even if the targets did meet these conditions, the massive loss of life and damage to property was proportionate. Such an interpretation would be not only legally mistaken but also morally unacceptable.
Israel says Hamas is to blame for these figures because it uses civilians as human shields, conceals weapons in their homes, and fires at civilian targets in Israel from within a civilian population, allegedly leaving Israel with no choice but to harm civilians in its war against Hamas. According to this view, assigning full responsibility to Hamas means that every action taken by Israel, however horrific the outcome, would be considered legitimate. Such a claim is baseless. Respect for the law, international humanitarian law included, is not subject to reciprocity: failure by one side to comply does not give the other license to do the same.
Fighting Hamas poses difficult challenges to Israel: How to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilian ones, when Hamas does not distinguish itself from the rest of the population? How to avoid harming civilians who are not taking part in the hostilities when Hamas members continue to fire on Israeli communities from within population centers? B’Tselem does not pretend to advise the government or the military how to conduct the fighting in Gaza, nor is this the role of a human rights organization. But one thing is clear: The choice whether or not to obey the law is Israel’s. The government and the military must stay respect the law and maintain humanity as they search for the answers.
On October 7, Hamas committed horrific war crimes. Hundreds of Hamas militants and other residents of Gaza entered Israeli territory, firing at anyone who passed by. They entered communities and homes, shot and killed entire families and party-goers, set homes on fire, and committed atrocities. More than 1,300 people were killed, thousands more were injured, and many are still missing. More than 200 people – including babies, children, women, and the elderly – were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip and are being held hostage.
There is no way, nor can there be a way, to justify these crimes, and any attempt to do so must be rejected and denounced. But these crimes cannot justify the death and destruction Israel is now inflicting on Gaza’s more than two million residents. Targeting civilians, their property and civilian infrastructure is always prohibited, and Israel must end this immediately.
Israel, like any other country, is obligated to protect its citizens. However, Israel, like any other country, is also obligated to comply with the restrictions set by international humanitarian law.
END
[18]
”Het conflict tussen Israël en Palestina, dat nu al bijna drie weken aan de gang is, laat een immens spoor van vernieling achter. Nieuwe satellietbeelden tonen de enorme verwoesting in de Gazastrook als gevolg van de Israëlische bombardementen. Volledige dorpen en steden zijn van de kaart geveegd.”
Het conflict tussen Israël en Palestina, dat nu al bijna drie weken aan de gang is, laat een immens spoor van vernieling achter. Nieuwe satellietbeelden tonen de enorme verwoesting in de Gazastrook als gevolg van de Israëlische bombardementen. Volledige dorpen en steden zijn van de kaart geveegd.”
Het conflict tussen Israël en Palestina, dat nu al bijna drie weken aan de gang is, laat een immens spoor van vernieling achter. Nieuwe satellietbeelden tonen de enorme verwoesting in de Gazastrook als gevolg van de Israëlische bombardementen. Volledige dorpen en steden zijn van de kaart geveegd.
Israël wil de Palestijnse terreurorganisatie Hamas, die de macht heeft in de Gazastrook, uitschakelen als wraak voor de verrassingsaanval van 7 oktober. Daarbij kwamen zeker 1400 Israëli’s om het leven en werden tweehonderd anderen gegijzeld. Israël voerde al talloze bombardementen uit op Gaza, met de dood van meer dan zevenduizend mensen – onder wie vooral burgers – als gevolg.
Materiële tol
Niet alleen de menselijke, maar ook de materiële tol is groot. Dat tonen nieuwe satellietbeelden van de Amerikaanse bedrijven Maxar Technologies en Planet Labs. Op de foto’s is te zien hoe verschillende dorpen en steden in Gaza volledig platgebombardeerd zijn.
In de stad Beit Hanoun, dicht bij de noordelijke grens met Israël, zijn de meeste gebouwen met de grond gelijk gemaakt. Enkele dagen na het begin van het conflict meldden de Israëlische autoriteiten dat ze de stad, zogezegd ‘het centrum van Hamas’, maar liefst 120 keer hadden aangevallen.
De Gazastrook is een van de dichtstbevolkte gebieden ter wereld, met een oppervlakte van 365 vierkante kilometer en ongeveer twee miljoen inwoners. Het Israëlische leger raadt alle Gazanen aan om het gebied te verlaten. Volgens de Verenigde Naties zijn sinds het begin van het conflict al zeker 1,4 miljoen Palestijnen gevlucht.
EINDE BERICHT
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 17 en 18/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
‘De Amerikaanse president Biden heeft Israël gewaarschuwd dat het de steun van zijn bondgenoten aan het kwijtraken is door “het lukraak bombarderen” van de Gazastrook. Volgens cijfers van de gezondheidsautoriteiten in Gaza zijn zeker 18.000 mensen gedood en meer dan 50.000 mensen gewond geraakt.”
De Amerikaanse president Biden heeft Israël gewaarschuwd dat het de steun van zijn bondgenoten aan het kwijtraken is door “het lukraak bombarderen” van de Gazastrook. Volgens cijfers van de gezondheidsautoriteiten in Gaza zijn zeker 18.000 mensen gedood en meer dan 50.000 mensen gewond geraakt.
Biden sprak op een fondsenwerfbijeenkomst voor zijn herverkiezingscampagne. Niet eerder sinds het uitbreken van de oorlog uitte hij zulke zware kritiek op het handelen van Israël. De VS is de belangrijkste bondgenoot voor de Israëliërs.
De president vertelde aan zijn gehoor van voornamelijk Joodse donateurs dat hij Netanyahu heeft gewaarschuwd niet dezelfde fouten te maken als de VS na de aanslagen van 11 september 2001. “We hadden niet in Afghanistan hoeven zijn. We hadden zo veel dingen niet hoeven doen.”
Kabinet aanpassen
Hij vindt ook dat premier Netanyahu zijn ministersploeg moet veranderen. De Amerikaanse president pikte Netanyahu’s minister van Veiligheid eruit: de ultranationalistische Itamar Ben-Gvir. De leider van de uiterst rechtse partij Joodse Kracht werd meermaals veroordeeld, onder meer voor het aanzetten tot racisme. Ben-Gvir is een tegenstander van een eigen staat voor de Palestijnen.
Biden noemde het huidige Israëlische kabinet de conservatiefste regering in de geschiedenis van het land. Netanyahu “moet zijn regering aanpassen. Dit kabinet maakt het erg moeilijk”, zei hij.
Biden herhaalde dat hij voorstander is van een tweestatenoplossing, waarbij ook de Palestijnen een eigen staat krijgen. Datzelfde benadrukte hij nadat Netanyahu eind december was geïnstalleerd.
“We hebben een mogelijkheid om de regio te verenigen”, zei hij vandaag. “Maar we moeten zeker zijn dat Netanyahu begrijpt dat hij wat moet bewegen. Je kan geen ‘nee’ zeggen tegen een Palestijnse staat. Dat wordt het moeilijke deel.”
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 19 en 20/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
”Volgens Dekkers zou Israël helpen met de evacuatie van de baby’s, maar is dat niet gebeurd. Het Israëlische leger (IDF) zegt gisteren brandstof te hebben achtergelaten bij het ziekenhuis, maar ook dat die door Hamas is ingenomen. Volgens Dekkers was die brandstof sowieso onvoldoende.”
De twee grootste ziekenhuizen van Gaza-stad functioneren niet meer, zegt correspondent Ralph Dekkers. Het Al-Shifa zit al drie dagen zonder water en ook de brandstof is op. Toch zitten er nog tussen de vijf- á zeshonderd patiënten, zegt Dekkers, waaronder baby’s waarvan de couveuses niet meer werken.
Volgens Dekkers zou Israël helpen met de evacuatie van de baby’s, maar is dat niet gebeurd. Het Israëlische leger (IDF) zegt gisteren brandstof te hebben achtergelaten bij het ziekenhuis, maar ook dat die door Hamas is ingenomen. Volgens Dekkers was die brandstof sowieso onvoldoende.
Er wordt flink gevochten rond de ziekenhuizen in Gaza-stad‘, aldus Dekkers die erop wijst dat de VS weliswaar heeft gewaarschuwd dat die gevechten zich niet naar het ziekenhuiscomplex mogen verplaatsen, maar dat het er wel ‘naar uitziet dat het die kant opgaat’. Volgens Dekkers doet het verhaal al jaren de ronde dat zich onder het ziekenhuis een Hamas-commandopost bevindt, maar dat zodra de IDF het ziekenhuis inneemt, die post zich ongetwijfeld via de verbonden tunnels zal verplaatsen.
Escalatie Libanon
De strijd tussen Israël en de Hezbollah-milities in Libanon is het stadium van de schermutselingen inmiddels ruim voorbij en escaleert intussen verder. Beide partijen vuren volgens Dekkers raketten op elkaar af met een diepte van veertig kilometer. Israël heeft gewaarschuwd met een krachtig antwoord te zullen komen. ‘Dat kan heftiger worden’, zegt Dekkers.
Ook in Syrië nemen de gevechten in intensiteit toe: de VS heeft vannacht opnieuw Iraanse posities in het land onder vuur genomen nadat Amerikaanse bases in de regio het doelwit waren.
De Israëlische president Netanyahu heeft ten slotte een opmerkelijke speech gehouden waarin hij zegt dat de Palestijnse Autoriteit onder leiding van Mahmoud Abbas geen rol zal spelen in de toekomst van Gaza. Daarmee gaat hij lijnrecht in tegen bondgenoot Verenigde Staten die juist wel inzetten op een bestuurlijke hoofdrol voor de Palestijnse Autoriteit.
EINDE BERICHT
[22]
The Israeli military’s repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport are further destroying Gaza’s healthcare system and should be investigated as war crimes.”
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCHGAZA: UNLAWFUL ISRAELI HOSPITAL STRIKESWORSEN HEALTH CRISIS
Israel’s Blockade, Bombardment Decimate Healthcare System; Investigate as War Crimes
The Israeli military’s repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport are further destroying Gaza’s healthcare system and should be investigated as war crimes.
Concerns about disproportionate attacks are magnified for hospitals. Even the threat of an attack or minor damage can have massive life-or-death implications for patients and caregivers.
The Israeli government should end attacks on hospitals. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the ICC should investigate.
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli military’s repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport are further destroying the Gaza Strip’s healthcare system and should be investigated as war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Despite the Israeli military’s claims on November 5, 2023, of “Hamas’s cynical use of hospitals,” no evidence put forward would justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that at least 521 people, including 16 medical workers, have been killed in 137 “attacks on health care” in Gaza as of November 12. These attacks, alongside Israel’s decisions to cut off electricity and water and block humanitarian aid to Gaza, have severely impeded health care access. The United Nations found as of November 10 that two-thirds of primary care facilities and half of all hospitals in Gaza are not functioning at a time when medical personnel are dealing with unprecedented numbers of severely injured patients. Hospitals have run out of medicine and basic equipment, and doctors told Human Rights Watch that they were forced to operate without anesthesia and to use vinegar as an antiseptic.
“Israel’s repeated attacks damaging hospitals and harming healthcare workers, already hard hit by an unlawful blockade, have devastated Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure,” said A. Kayum Ahmed, special adviser on the right to health at Human Rights Watch. “The strikes on hospitals have killed hundreds of people and put many patients at grave risk because they’re unable to receive proper medical care.”
Human Rights Watch investigated attacks on or near the Indonesian Hospital, al-Ahli Hospital, the International Eye Care Center, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, and the al-Quds Hospital between October 7 and November 7. Human Rights Watch spoke by phone with two displaced people sheltering in hospitals and 16 healthcare workers and hospital officials in Gaza and analyzed and verified open-source data, including videos posted to social media and satellite imagery, as well as WHO databases.
Israeli forces struck the Indonesian Hospital multiple times between October 7 and October 28, killing at least two civilians. The International Eye Care Center was struck repeatedly and completely destroyed after a strike on October 10 or 11. Strikes hit the compound and vicinity of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital on October 30 and 31. Damage to the hospital as well as a lack of fuel for hospital generators resulted in its closure on November 1. Repeated Israeli strikes damaged the al-Quds Hospital and injured a man and child out front. Israeli forces on several occasions struck well-marked ambulances, killing and wounding at least a dozen people in one incident on November 3, including children, outside al-Shifa hospital.
These ongoing attacks are not isolated. Israeli forces have also carried out scores of strikes damaging several other hospitals across Gaza. WHO reported that as of November 10, 18 out of 36 hospitals and 46 out of 72 primary care clinics were forced to shut down. The forced closure of these facilities stems from damage caused by attacks as well as the lack of electricity and fuel.
Health workers at Gaza’s hospitals told Human Rights Watch they are dealing with unprecedented numbers of injured patients. Additionally, thousands of internally displaced people sheltering at hospitals have been put at risk, facing shortages of food and medicine. Gaza’s hospitals have been forced to address these issues with shortages of medical staff, some of whom have been killed or injured outside their work.
A doctor at Nasser Medical Center said: “At 3 a.m. I dealt with a 60-year-old woman with a cut wound in her head. I can’t make a suture to heal her wound—no gloves, no equipment—so we have to use unsterile techniques.”
Hospitals and other medical facilities are civilian objects that have special protections under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war. Hospitals only lose their protection from attack if they are being used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy,” and after a required warning. Even if military forces unlawfully use a hospital to store weapons or encamp able-bodied combatants, the attacking force must issue a warning to cease this misuse, set a reasonable time limit for it to end, and lawfully attack only after such a warning has gone unheeded. Ordering patients, medical staff, and others to evacuate a hospital should only be used as a last resort. Medical personnel need to be protected and permitted to do their work.
All warring parties must take constant care to minimize harm to civilians. Attacks on hospitals being used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy” are still unlawful if indiscriminate or disproportionate. The use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas heightens the risk of indiscriminate attacks. Attacks in which the anticipated loss of civilian life and property are excessive compared with the concrete and direct military gain are disproportionate. Concerns about disproportionate attacks are magnified with respect to hospitals, since even the threat of an attack or minor damage can have massive life-or-death implications for patients and their caregivers.
The Israeli military on October 27 claimed that “Hamas uses hospitals as terror infrastructures,” publishing footage alleging that Hamas was operating from Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa. Israel also alleged that Hamas was using the Indonesian Hospital to hide an underground command and control center and that they had deployed a rocket launchpad 75 meters from the hospital.
These claims are contested. Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals. When a journalist at a news conference showing video footage of damage to the Qatar Hospital sought additional information to verify voice recordings and images presented, the Israeli spokesperson said, “our strikes are based on intelligence.” Even if accurate, Israel has not demonstrated that the ensuing hospital attacks were proportionate.
Israel’s general evacuation order on October 13 to 22 hospitals in northern Gaza was not an effective warning because it did not take into account the specific requirements for hospitals, including providing for the safety of patients and medical personnel. The sweeping nature of the order and the impossibility of safe compliance, given that there is no reliably secure way to flee or safe place to go in Gaza, also raised concerns that the purpose was not to protect civilians, but to terrify them into leaving. The WHO director general has said that “it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.”
The Israeli government should immediately end unlawful attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and other civilian objects, as well as its total blockade of the Gaza Strip, which amounts to the war crime of collective punishment, Human Rights Watch said. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups need to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control from the effects of attacks and not use civilians as “human shields.”
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel should investigate apparently unlawful Israeli attacks on healthcare infrastructure in Gaza.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor has jurisdiction over the current hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups that covers unlawful conduct by all parties. The ICC’s Rome Statute prohibits as a war crime “[i]ntentionally directing attacks against … medical units and transport.” Israeli and Palestinian officials should cooperate with the commission and the ICC in their work, Human Rights Watch said.
The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and other countries should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel as long as its forces continue to commit widespread, serious abuses amounting to war crimes against Palestinian civilians with impunity. All governments should demand that Israel restore the flow of electricity and water to Gaza and allow in fuel and humanitarian aid, ensuring that water, food, and medication reach Gaza’s civilian population.
“Israel’s broad-based attack on Gaza’s healthcare system is an attack on the sick and the injured, on babies in incubators, on pregnant people, on cancer patients,” Ahmed said. “These actions need to be investigated as war crimes.”
Blockade’s Effect on Hospitals
Israel’s blockade has severely constrained hospitals, which have run out of essential medicines and basic equipment. While Israeli authorities have allowed minimal humanitarian aid into Gaza, they have continued to block the entry of fuel, which hospitals need for their generators. WHO reported that “hospitals are on the brink of collapse due to the shortage of electricity, medicine, equipment and specialized personnel.”
On October 22, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) expressed grave concern about the impact of the blockade. They noted that 120 newborn children were in incubators, 70 of whom required mechanical ventilation. The incubators and ventilators cannot operate without a stable electricity supply. “The death toll will increase exponentially if incubators start to fail, if hospitals go dark, if children continue to drink unsafe water and have no access to medicine when they get sick,” UNICEF said. Between November 11 and 13, three premature babies and 29 other patients reportedly died at al-Shifa hospital amid the power outage and lack of medical supplies, according to UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Emerging reports show that unsanitary conditions at hospitals are further affecting access to health care. Tanya Haj Hassan, a doctor who runs a support network for Gaza healthcare workers, told The Guardian that “hundreds of people are sharing one toilet and living in the hospital corridors, and that obviously has significant concerns for hygiene, sanitation and the functioning of the hospitals.” Doctors are also reporting that more and more patients are showing signs of disease associated with overcrowding and a lack of sanitation.
A doctor at al-Aqsa Hospital told Human Rights Watch on October 23: “There is a huge shortage of medicines, no electricity, no diesel, no solar, no water to drink or to use. And the electricity company shut electricity to all civilians. … There is a chronic triage and restrictions on medication; we have had to make referrals to Egypt, but there is no way to get there.”
Israeli Evacuation Orders
Israeli authorities have ordered the evacuation of all 22 hospitals in Gaza city and northern Gaza. “These [evacuation orders] are impossible to carry out, risking the lives of inpatients and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and particularly the most vulnerable requiring life support,” WHO said, adding that there is “insufficient ambulance capacity for transfer and insufficient bed capacity to care for these patients in the south.” WHO described the order as “a death sentence for the sick and injured.”
OCHA expressed concern that “thousands of patients and medical staff, as well as about 117,000 IDPs, are staying in these facilities.” Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) general director Meinie Nicolai said: “Israel’s 24-hour notice that people in Northern Gaza must leave their land, homes and hospitals is outrageous—this represents an attack on medical care and on humanity.”
As of November 13, all but one of the hospitals in Gaza city and northern Gaza are reportedly out of service, according to OCHA.
Human Rights Watch interviewed two people with disabilities sheltering in hospitals who said they could not evacuate. “If they bomb the hospital, I will be dead. I know I cannot move,” said Samih al-Masri, a 50-year-old man who said he lost both legs in an Israeli drone strike in 2008 and was sheltering at al-Quds hospital.’
Indonesian Hospital The Israeli military repeatedly struck the compound and vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of two major hospitals in northern Gaza.
On October 7, an airstrike hit an area behind the Indonesian Hospital, which OCHA reported killed two men, including a staff member, and injured five others. Hosni Salha, a security guard, was killed while sitting in one of the hospital’s vehicles along with the driver and a paramedic, a doctor from the hospital said. After the attack, the doctor took a photo at the scene that shows a destroyed vehicle. The second civilian was a man passing by the hospital when the attack occurred, the doctor said.
The doctor said that the hospital was treating patients injured in the hostilities, including families wounded in airstrikes that hit their homes. He said that following airstrikes that hit his apartment building, he searched for his daughter, a second-year engineering student. The strikes killed her and four other civilians, including a child: “I started digging with my hands with all my strength; civil defense members haven’t arrived yet. I kept digging with my hands until I saw part of her t-shirt, I kept digging, when I saw her, she was already martyred.”
The doctor said the Israeli military provided no order to evacuate or advance warning before the first attack on the hospital. He said that on October 13, a week after the first strike, the hospital received an Israeli evacuation order.
Even those who finish their treatment can’t leave. They have no place to go after losing their houses and families and there is no safe place. We have a girl at the hospital who lost her entire family. She currently has no one to stay with, no place to go to. There’s also a boy staying at the hospital. We are waiting for him to be identified by a family member or relative.
On October 16, another airstrike hit five meters away from the hospital, partially damaging the building, which the doctor said terrified patients and staff.
He said that on the night of October 27, after the Israeli government apparently deliberately disrupted telecommunications in Gaza, the hospital was struck again, causing additional damage to the building. Human Rights Watch geolocated a video and three photographs released on October 28 showing a crater inside the hospital’s courtyard.
On October 30, OCHA reported that this attack came after a renewed order by the Israeli military to immediately evacuate the hospital.
CCTV footage published by Al Jazeera on October 29 shows the moments the hospital ceiling collapsed due to strikes near the hospital. The hospital published photos of the collapsed ceiling to its Facebook page, which it said were the result of strikes in the vicinity of the hospital. Another strike on October 30 targeted an area near the hospital, causing dust and smoke to spread to its entrance. Footage from November 4 and November 6 show additional strikes in the hospital’s vicinity.
In a November 5 news conference, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson alleged that “the Indonesian Hospital is being used by Hamas to hide an underground command and control center,” that Hamas had a rocket launchpad 75 meters from the hospital, and that it was stealing fuel from the hospital.
In a news conference the next day, the Indonesia-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), a volunteer group that funds the hospital, disputed the allegations, stating that the only tunnel connected to the hospital was used to send fuel to the hospital’s fuel tank to power its generators. Human Rights Watch is not in a position to corroborate the claims by Israel or the committee.
A MER-C volunteer told the media on October 30 that 2,530 people had been treated at the hospital for injuries and that 164 patients remained hospitalized. He said that more than 1,500 displaced residents were also sheltering in empty hospital rooms and in courtyards. On October 31, an influx of patients were sent to the hospital following an Israeli airstrike on Jabalia refugee camp that Gaza’s Health Ministry reported killed more than 50 people and injured 150. On November 2, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that the hospital’s main generator stopped operating due to a lack of fuel.
International Eye Hospital Human Rights Watch reviewed and verified photos and video footage of the International Eye Hospital in theTal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City showing large structural damage to the main building. In the published material and in satellite imagery from October 10 and 11, damage signatures are consistent with an airstrike using a large air-dropped munition. Two strikes appear to have taken place: one on October 8 and another on October 10 or 11, which destroyed the facility. On October 21, the hospital wrote in a post on its Facebook page that the “hospital no longer exists” with a photo showing its complete destruction.
Human Rights Watch was unable to find any published information from Israeli authorities in English, Arabic, or Hebrew reflecting that any advance warning was given or providing any legal basis for the attacks on the medical facility.
Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital Beginning the night of October 30-31, the Israeli military repeatedly struck the compound and vicinity of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, south of Gaza City on the campus of the Islamic University of Gaza’s Faculty of Medicine. The hospital served as the only specialized cancer treatment center in the Gaza Strip.
In satellite imagery collected on the morning of October 30, three impact craters are visible, one measuring 10 meters in diameter, less than 100 meters from the main hospital complex. On the morning after, an additional crater is visible within the hospital complex in the courtyard, measuring at least 15 meters in diameter.
OCHA reported on October 31 that the hospital had been “hit for the second night in a row,” that there was damage to the third floor, and that staff and people sheltering in the hospital were exposed to smoke, causing suffocation and panic.
The hospital director, Sobhi Skaik, told Human Rights Watch on November 3 that the October 31 attack struck the third floor of the hospital, affecting both the east and west wings, as well as the approximately 100 to 150 cancer patients there, their families, and hospital staff.
Human Rights Watch verified several videos posted on social media that show the effects of the attacks. A video posted to social media early on October 30 shows damage to the hospital’s interior. A video taken from inside the hospital and published on social media early in the evening on October 30 shows a strike near the hospital complex. A loud blast is heard in the video followed by billowing smoke.
Photos and video published by the media and on social media on October 31 show damage inside the hospital’s east wing, where there is a large circular hole in the southeastern-facing exterior wall, blown out windows, and a destroyed interior wall.
Human Rights Watch determined that the damage was most likely caused by a shell from a direct fire weapon, such as a tank’s main gun. A video posted on social media on October 30 shows an Israeli tank along Salah al-Din Road, 1.7 kilometers east of the hospital. Multiple clusters of armored military vehicles, including tanks and bulldozers, are also visible on satellite imagery from October 31 southeast of the hospital following the Israeli offensive inside the Gaza Strip. On that day, the closest armored vehicles were less than 500 meters from the hospital.
The hospital shut down on November 1 because of the airstrikes and lack of fuel. Skaik said hospital staff were forced to evacuate patients to the Dar al-Salam hospital in Khan Younis in unsafe conditions. “We evacuated under fire,” he said. “We had no protection.” He said an international agency told him that all they could do was “convey the message” to the Israelis.
According to Skaik and the Gaza Health Ministry, on November 2, four cancer patients died following the hospital evacuation. Skaik said that Dar al-Salam hospital was trying to provide services but that it was unable to provide the cancer patients the treatment they needed without the medical devices at the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which cannot be transferred, and that medications were running out. The Health Ministry warned that the condition of 70 of the hospital’s cancer patients was critical.
Human Rights Watch was unable to find any published information from Israeli authorities in English, Arabic, or Hebrew providing any advance warning to the hospital or a legal basis for the attacks on the medical facility. Turkish officials have condemned the Israeli military’s attack on the hospital as a violation of international law.
Al-Quds Hospital Multiple Israeli strikes had hit the vicinity of the al-Quds hospital in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City by October 16, as shown in videos and photos posted to social media that Human Rights Watch collected and reviewed. The strikes followed Israeli evacuation orders, despite visual evidence that the hospital was being used to treat patients and shelter displaced families. Several high-rise buildings were completely destroyed in the streets adjacent to the hospital, as is evident in November 6 satellite imagery.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) issued a statement that the hospital, which is under its auspices, had received an Israeli order to evacuate by 4 p.m. (initially 6 a.m.) on October 14. By October 16, strikes had hit the vicinity of the hospital five times, the PRCS said. A video it published on October 18 shows a strike hitting less than 200 meters from the hospital’s entrance.
On October 20, the PRCS reported that the Israeli authorities warned about a strike on the hospital by phone and ordered an evacuation. On October 22, Israeli authorities reportedly ordered the hospital to evacuate twice within the span of half an hour. The PRCS posted a video from inside the hospital showing people standing at its entrance following what the hospital said were intense Israeli strikes 20 meters away. The hospital said the strikes occurred during a meeting of hospital staff with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
On October 29, the PRCS said that Israeli authorities warned it about a strike on the hospital and ordered an immediate evacuation, which was preceded by strikes that destroyed buildings as close as 50 meters from the hospital. Footage published on October 29 shows a strike next to the hospital building, just in front of another PRCS site, and damages to the hospital. Videos published on October 30 show the aftermath of the strike and damage to the PRCS site.
Strikes hitting the vicinity of the hospital continued on October 31, according to posts by the PRCS. Footage published on November 2 by the PRCS and other social media accounts show additionalstrikes in the vicinity the hospital. The PRCS announced on November 2 that fire from Israeli vehicles one kilometer south injured a man and child in front of the hospital and hit the sixth floor of the hospital where many displaced women and children were sheltering, damaging the hospital’s central air conditioning units and a water tank.
Video footage shows shattered windows, smoke, and dust as a result of what appears to be an explosion roughly 35 meters northwest of the main hospital entrance on November 3. The PRCS reported that the attack, whose effects are shown in video footage posted on social media, shattered internal glass panels and collapsed parts of the hospital’s plaster ceiling. There were 21 injuries reported, mostly to women and children. Further strikes were reported near the hospital throughouttheday.
On November 5, footage shows medical personnel moving an injured man into the hospital while an explosion is audible in the background after a hit nearby. The PRCS stated that the strikes then increased in intensity, duration, and proximity to the hospital, and have led to 12 injuries among people sheltering inside, in addition to injuries to two patients, one of whom was in the intensive care unit.
OCHA reported that 14,000 displaced people were in al-Quds hospital along with hospital staff and patients as of October 29. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned that hundreds of injured, bed-ridden, and long-term patients, including those in intensive care, on life-support, and babies in incubators, were being endangered by strikes in the vicinity of the hospital along with displaced people and medical staff, and that it “is close to, if not impossible” to evacuate patients in the current situation.
Strikes on Ambulances
Israeli forces have on several occasions struck ambulances marked with the Red Cross or Red Crescent emblem, often near hospitals. Ambulances, like medical facilities, have special protections under the laws of war such that they may not be attacked unless being used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy” and after due warning. In at least one case, the Israeli military claimed that armed groups were unlawfully using the ambulance that had been attacked, but did not provide more information or a warning.
On November 3, the Israeli military struck a marked ambulance just outside of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital. Video footage and photographs taken shortly after the strike and verified by Human Rights Watch show a woman on a stretcher in the ambulance and at least 21 dead or injured people in the area surrounding the ambulance, including at least 5 children. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that 15 people were killed and 60 injured in the strike. An IDF spokesperson said in a televised interview that day: “Our forces saw terrorists using ambulances as a vehicle to move around. They perceived a threat and accordingly we struck that ambulance.” Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the ambulance was being used for military purposes.
On October 7, WHO reported that an ambulance in front of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis was struck around 2 p.m., injuring several paramedics. A verified video posted to social media and an Anadolu Agency photograph showed the destroyed ambulance outside the complex.
WHO reported that a separate attack on October 7, which hit two ambulances in Jabalia, killed two paramedics and injured others.
Gaza’s Health Ministry also reported that on October 13, Israeli strikes hit three ambulances, injuring 10 paramedics.
Hostilities and Blockade
The Israeli military’s current operations in Gaza began following an October 7 Hamas-led attack in southern Israel that resulted in the killing of about 1,200 people, hundreds of them civilians, according to the Israeli government. Hamas and Islamic Jihad took hostage 240 people, including children, people with disabilities, and older people. Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have also launched thousands of rockets indiscriminately towards Israeli population centers.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported that since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began on October 7, more than 11,000 people have been killed as of November 10, including more than 4,500 children. Over 1.5 million people have been displaced, OCHA said.
The Israeli government’s blockade of Gaza, preventing civilians’ access to items essential for their survival, such as water, food, and medicine, amounts to collective punishment and is a war crime. Warring parties must facilitate the rapid passage of impartial humanitarian aid for all civilians in need. During military occupations, such as in Gaza, the occupying power has a duty under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to the fullest extent of the means available to it, “of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population.”
END
”Medische zorg is in Gaza bijna niet meer mogelijk. Zeker vier ziekenhuizen zijn omsingeld door het Israëlische leger en met name het grootste hospitaal, Al Shifa, ligt al een paar dagen onder vuur. Volgens internationale hulporganisaties is Al Shifa verstoken van water en elektriciteit en kan er niet meer worden geopereerd. Waarom valt Israël ziekenhuizen aan?”
AD
MEDISCHE ZORG IN GAZA BIJNA NIET MEER MOGELIJK DOOR OORLOG, ZIEKENHUIZEN
Door het uitvallen van de stroom, vanwege gebrek aan brandstof, zijn er volgens de directeur van het Al Shifa-ziekenhuis in Gaza-Stad zeker twee pasgeboren baby’s en een jonge man op de intensive care overleden. Een kleine 40 pasgeboren baby’s in couveuses vechten voor hun leven. Dat meldt het ministerie van Volksgezondheid, dat onder bewind van Hamas staat.
Ook de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie (WHO) en het Rode Kruis melden dat er sprake is van intens geweld bij het grootste ziekenhuis. Bij aanvallen zijn al meerdere doden gevallen. Het Rode Kruis pleit voor het beschermen van zo’n 20.000 gewonden, ontheemden en het medisch personeel. ‘Dit kan niet zo doorgaan, deze mensen moeten in lijn met het oorlogsrecht worden beschermd’, schrijft Fabrizio Carboni namens het Rode Kruis op X.
De WHO wil dat er een gevechtspauze komt, zodat iedereen de ziekenhuizen veilig kan verlaten. De ziekenhuisdirectie van Al Shifa en het Israëlische leger meldden dat de baby’s en andere patiënten die in levensgevaar zijn, worden geëvacueerd. Volgens een woordvoerder van het Israëlische leger willen de militairen helpen ‘omdat we niet willen dat Hamas in de toekomst doorgaat deze mensen als menselijk schild te gebruiken’.
Ook een ander groot ziekenhuis in Gaza, Al Quds, is uitgevallen door brandstoftekort. De Palestijnse Rode Halve Maan, zusterorganisatie van het Rode Kruis, meldt dat er geen brandstof meer is voor de generatoren die voor stroom zorgden. Ook is er een tekort aan medische goederen, voedsel en water. De baby’s in deze kliniek riskeren uitdroging door een tekort aan alternatieven voor moedermelk.
Volgens de Palestijnse autoriteiten worden meerdere ziekenhuizen flink geraakt door Israëlische aanvallen. Het Indonesische ziekenhuis zou zijn beschadigd en in het Al-Rantisi-ziekenhuis zou brand zijn uitgebroken. Vier ziekenhuizen zouden zijn omsingeld. Tanks en andere gepantserde voertuigen hebben het gebied rondom de ziekenhuizen volledig afgesloten, meldt Al Jazeera.
VERBORGEN COMMANDOCENTRA
Volgens de directeur van het Al Shifa voert Israël oorlog tegen de ziekenhuizen in Gaza-stad. Het Israëlische leger (IDF) zegt dat burgers geen doelwit zijn en dat het IDF zijn best doet om ze niet te raken. Israël meldt dat Hamas verborgen commandocentra onder het Al Shifa en andere ziekenhuizen heeft gebouwd.
Het gebouw zelf zou ook worden gebruikt om aanvallen uit te voeren. Daarbij zouden burgers als menselijk schild worden ingezet. Onder het Al Shifa zouden slaapzalen en badkamers zijn voor tientallen Hamas-strijders. Ook zou Hamas zelf nog voldoende brandstof hebben. Hamas ontkent de beschuldigingen.
Volgens defensiespecialist Peter Wijninga, verbonden aan het Den Haag Centrum voor Strategische Studies, heeft het IDF tot nu toe geen sluitend bewijs geleverd dat er onder de ziekenhuizen inderdaad commandocentra zijn gevestigd. ,,Maar dat is niet zo vreemd, aangezien Hamas deze centra tot nu toe altijd verborgen wist te houden. Ik denk dat Israël niet zomaar aanvallen uitvoert in de buurt van gezondheidsvoorzieningen. Ze weten meer. De kans is dan ook groot dat ze binnenkort bewijs zullen vrijgeven. Want bewijs van de aanwezigheid van militaire faciliteiten is ook noodzakelijk om de beschermde status van een ziekenhuis te laten vervallen. Anders kunnen deze aanvallen als een oorlogsmisdaad worden gezien.’’
Toch vindt Wijninga het een zeer lastige afweging om een ziekenhuis aan te vallen. ,,Israël zegt de zogeheten ‘nevenschade’, ofwel burgerslachtoffers, zo beperkt mogelijk te willen houden, maar in dit geval is dat bijna niet te doen. Veel patiënten kunnen niet eens worden geëvacueerd. Het IDF moet een afweging maken of de militaire winst van het oprollen van een commandocentrum opweegt tegen de slachtoffers die er worden gemaakt. Dat lijkt me een enorm dilemma.’’
Raketlanceerinstallaties bij scholen
Tot nu toe werden er beelden getoond van tunnels die beginnen in bunkers en woonhuizen en raketlanceerinstallaties die vlakbij scholen en speeltuinen zijn neergezet. Wijninga: ,,Zeker als Hamas ook ziekenhuizen en de tunnels onder deze gebouwen gebruikt voor militaire doeleinden, kun je deze organisatie ook verantwoordelijk houden voor de slachtoffers. Niet alleen Israël.’’
In de tussentijd wordt de situatie van de ziekenhuizen in Gaza dus steeds ernstiger en is medische zorg in veel gevallen niet meer mogelijk. Volgens de WHO zijn 21 van de 36 klinieken in de strook buiten gebruik doordat ze verwoest of beschadigd zijn, of doordat de brandstof op is. Hulpgoederen die vanuit Egypte Gaza binnenkomen, kunnen het noorden niet bereiken vanwege de onveilige situatie. In de ziekenhuizen die nog wel (deels) operationeel zijn, liggen niet alleen patiënten. Tienduizenden Gazanen die hun huis uit zijn gevlucht, gebruiken de ziekenhuizen als schuilplaats.
EINDE BERICHT
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 21 en 22/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
”Vlak na het uitbreken van de oorlog, op 7 oktober, riep het Israëlische leger de Gazanen op het noorden van de Gazastrook te verlaten. Veel van hen trokken naar de stad Khan Younis. Deze week werd ook die voormalige ‘veilige plek’ onderdeel van het strijdtoneel.
NOS
85 PROCENT VAN DE MENSEN IN GAZA IS OPDE VLUCHT, MAAR NERGENS IS HET VEILIG
Een week geleden werden de gevechten tussen Israël en Hamas en de bombardementen op Gaza hervat, na een tijdelijke gevechtspauze van zeven dagen. Sindsdien is het Israëlische leger niet alleen in het noorden van de Gazastrook aanwezig, maar stak het leger ook de grens over in het zuiden. De honderdduizenden ontheemde Palestijnen die zich daar bevinden slaan daardoor opnieuw op de vlucht.
Vlak na het uitbreken van de oorlog, op 7 oktober, riep het Israëlische leger de Gazanen op het noorden van de Gazastrook te verlaten. Veel van hen trokken naar de stad Khan Younis. Deze week werd ook die voormalige ‘veilige plek’ onderdeel van het strijdtoneel.
Al eerder voerde het leger aanvallen uit op steden in het zuiden van de Gazastrook, hoewel ze als ‘veilig’ werden bestempeld, maar nu roept het leger op om nog zuidelijker te trekken. Bijvoorbeeld naar de grens bij Rafah of Al-Mawasi.
Geïmproviseerde schuilplaatsen
“We zien enorme stromen aan ontheemde mensen die nu naar het zuidelijkste puntje komen, naar Rafah”, zegt Rik Peeperkorn, vertegenwoordiger van de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie (WHO) in de Palestijnse gebieden. “Elke ochtend zie je meer geïmproviseerde schuilplaatsen”, zegt hij. “Overal zie je mensen die proberen plastic vellen te krijgen, hout te sprokkelen. Op zoek naar van alles eigenlijk om maar een soort tent te maken.”
Het gaat om de zwaarste gevechten sinds het begin van de oorlog, zei de Israëlische generaal Finkelman eerder deze week over de opnieuw losgebarsten strijd. Dat heeft gevolgen voor de ontheemde Gazanen. Volgens schattingen van de Verenigde Naties zijn 1,9 van de 2,2 miljoen inwoners van Gaza ontheemd. Niet alleen moeten zij opnieuw evacueren, ook de (internationale) hulpverlening loopt gevaar door de gevechten.
Cijfers dodenaantal moeilijker te controleren:
Sinds 1 december, de dag dat de oorlog in Gaza werd hervat na een week gevechtspauze, is het moeilijker om het aantal doden in kaart te brengen. Persbureau Reuters legde donderdag uit dat in de eerste zes weken van de oorlog cijfers van ziekenhuismortuaria naar het ministerie van Volksgezondheid in Gaza werden gestuurd. Dat wordt geleid door Hamas en huisde in het al Shifa-ziekenhuis.
Voor die data legden ambtenaren in Excel-sheets namen, leeftijden en identiteitskaartnummers van de doden vast. Die lijsten werden dan doorgestuurd naar het Palestijnse ministerie van Volksgezondheid op de Westelijke Jordaanoever. Die geven de cijfers weer door aan de persbureaus. Dat ministerie laat aan Reuters weten dat van de vier mensen die het datacentrum in het al Shifa-ziekenhuis leidden één persoon gedood is bij een luchtaanval en drie mensen vermist zijn geraakt, nadat het pand door Israël in beslag was genomen.
Sindsdien is het volgens het persbureau lastig geworden om bij te houden hoeveel mensen er dagelijks omkomen. Volgens de laatste cijfers van de Palestijnse ministeries zijn er sinds het begin van de oorlog 17.177 mensen gedood. Voor de gevechtspauze ging het om ongeveer 15.000 mensen. Volgens Unicef waren er voor de gevechtspauze 5300 kinderen onder het aantal doden.
Het Israëlische leger heeft eenzijdig Al-Mawasi aangewezen als “humanitaire zone”. Het gaat om een klein gebied van ongeveer 1 kilometer breed en 14 kilometer lang aan de zuidwestkust van de Gazastrook. VN-organisatie UNRWA heeft meerdere keren genoemd dat “eenzijdig uitgeroepen ‘veilige zones’ helemaal niet veilig zijn”.
Het Israëlische leger garandeert overigens niet dat het niet ook dat gebied zal aanvallen.
EINDE
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
ISRAEL/OPT: ”NOWHERE SAFE IN GAZA”/UNLAWFUL
ISRAELI STRIKES ILLUSTRATE CALLOUS DISREGARD FOR PALESTINIAN LIVES
Further evidence of war crimes killing 46 civilians
Victims of attack on church include three-month-old baby and woman aged 80
“There is nowhere safe in Gaza during this war” – Ramez al-Sury, whose three children were killed
Israeli forces have demonstrated – yet again – a chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians of their ongoing relentless bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip.
As part of its ongoing investigation into violations of the laws of war, Amnesty International has documented two illustrative cases in which Israeli strikes killed 46 civilians, including 20 children. The oldest victim was an 80-year-old woman and the youngest was a three-month-old baby. These attacks must be investigated as war crimes.
The attacks, which occurred on 19 and 20 October, hit a church building where hundreds of displaced civilians were sheltering in Gaza City and a home in al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Amnesty International, based on its in-depth investigation of these events, has determined that these strikes were indiscriminate attacks or direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects, which must be investigated as war crimes.
“These deadly, unlawful attacks are part of a documented pattern of disregard for Palestinian civilians, and demonstrate the devastating impact of the Israeli military’s unprecedented onslaught has left nowhere safe in Gaza, regardless of where civilians live or seek shelter,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Director of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy.
“We urge the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to take immediate concrete action to expedite the investigation into war crimes and other crimes under international law opened in 2021.
“The harrowing accounts from survivors and relatives of victims describing the devastating human toll of these bombardments offer a snapshot of the mass civilian suffering being inflicted daily across Gaza by the Israeli military’s relentless attacks, underscoring the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire.”
Amnesty International visited the sites of the strikes, took pictures of the aftermath of each attack, and interviewed a total of 14 individuals, including nine survivors, two other witnesses, a relative of victims and two church leaders. Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab analysed satellite imagery and open-source audio-visual material to geolocate and verify the attacks.
The organization also reviewed relevant statements by the Israeli military and sent questions to the Israeli military’s spokesperson unit on 30 October regarding the church attack and the al-Nuseirat camp attack. At the time of publication, no response had been received.
Israeli authorities have not published any credible evidence of the basis for these strikes, including about alleged military objectives present. On the contrary, in the case of the bombing of the church building, the Israeli military published contradictory information, including a video it later withdrew and a statement it failed to substantiate. Amnesty International’s research did not find any indication that the buildings hit could be considered military objectives or were used by fighters.
These findings build on previous Amnesty International documentation of unlawful Israeli strikes during the current escalation and on documentation of a similar pattern of unlawful strikes during previous rounds of Israeli operations in Gaza. The current bombardment is unparalleled for Gaza in its intensity, in the number of civilians killed, and in the level of destruction to homes, schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure
“Israeli forces’ callous disregard for international humanitarian law has been documented by the organization extensively in previous military operations – but the intensity and cruelty of the current bombardment is unparalleled,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.
“The horrifying death toll in Gaza – with more than 11,000 Palestinians killed, including more than 4,600 children within just six weeks – is in itself a signal of just how disposable Palestinian lives are in the eyes of Israeli forces ordering and carrying out these attacks.”
‘My heart died with my children’
On 19 October, an Israeli air strike destroyed a building in the compound of the Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the heart of Gaza’s old city, where an estimated 450 internally displaced members of Gaza’s small Christian community were sheltering. The strike killed 18 civilians and injured at least 12 others.
Ramez al-Sury, who lost his three children and 10 other relatives in the attack, told Amnesty International: “My heart died with my children that evening. All my children were killed: Majid, 11, Julie, 12, and Suhail, 14. I have nothing left. I should have died with my children.
“I left them only two minutes earlier. My sister called me to go downstairs to the basement to help my father [who is] bedridden since he had a stroke… my children stayed in the room with my cousins and their wives and children. That is when the strike happened and killed everyone.
“We left our homes and came to stay at the church because we thought we would be protected here. We have nowhere else to go… The church was full of peaceful people, only peaceful people… There is nowhere safe in Gaza during this war. Bombardments everywhere, day and night. Every day, more and more civilians are killed. We pray for peace, but our hearts are broken.”
Sami Tarazi told Amnesty International that his parents, Marwan and Nahed, were killed, along with his six-month-old niece, Joelle, and his 80-year-old relative, Elaine.
One of the church leaders told Amnesty International: “We don’t know why this bombardment [was launched] against our church; nobody has provided any explanation for causing such a tragedy. This is a church, a place of peace and love and prayer… There is no safety anywhere in Gaza at present.”
On 20 October, the Israeli military posted a video of drone footage on social media, reviewed and archived by Amnesty International, showing the moment of the air strike on a building within the church compound. Several media outlets then quoted an Israeli military statement indicating that “IDF fighter jets struck the command and control center belonging to a Hamas terrorist involved in the launching of rockets and mortars toward Israel”, acknowledging that “a wall of a church in the area was damaged” as a result of the strike, and assuring that “the incident is under review”.
However, the Israeli military video showing the strike has since been deleted, and no information has been provided by the Israeli military or authorities to substantiate the claim that the destroyed church building was a Hamas “command and control center”, nor any further information about the purported review of the strike.
Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab examined, verified and geolocated videos and images posted on social media of the immediate aftermath of the strike, and analyzed satellite images of the location before and after the strike – all confirming the destruction of one building and partial destruction of another in the church compound.
Amnesty International’s weapons expert also examined the military’s video and other images, and concluded that a large air-delivered munition directly struck the building where those killed and injured were sheltering.
Church officials had publicly stated that hundreds of civilians were sheltering there prior to the strike, so their presence would therefore have been known to the Israeli military. The Israeli military’s decision to go ahead with a strike on a known church compound and site for displaced civilians was reckless and therefore amounts to a war crime, even if there was a belief that there was a military objective nearby.
I will live with that guilt for the rest of my life’
On 20 October at around 2pm local time, 28 civilians – including 12 children – were killed by an Israeli strike, which destroyed the al-Aydi family home and severely damaged two neighbouring houses in the al-Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, within the area where the Israeli military had ordered residents of northern Gaza to move to.
Rami al-Aydi, his wife Ranin, and their three children – Ghina, 10, Maya, eight, and Iyad, six – were killed. Zeina Abu Shehada and her two children, Amir al-Aydi, four, and Rakan al-Aydi, three, were also killed, along with Zeina’s two sisters and mother.
Hani al-Aydi, who survived the strike, told Amnesty International: “We were sitting at home, it was full of people, of children, of relatives. Suddenly, without any warning, everything collapsed on our head. All my brothers died, my nephews, my nieces… My mother died, my sisters died, our home is gone… There is nothing here, and now we are left with nothing and are displaced. I don’t know how much worse things will get. Could it get any worse?”
Hazem Abu Shehada’s wife and three daughters were among the victims. They had moved from the nearby al-Maghazi refugee camp looking for safety. He told Amnesty International: “I will live with that guilt for the rest of my life. It was I who suggested they move there temporarily. I wish I did not do that, I wish I could turn the clock back. I’d rather we all died together than losing my family.”
The strike also caused severe damage and the near-total destruction of the neighbouring houses of the al-Ashram and Abu Zarqa families. Six people were killed at the Abu Zarqa home, including four children: sisters Sondos, 12, and Areej, 11; and their cousins Yara, 10, and Khamis Abu Tahoun, 12.
Amnesty International’s investigation found that all of those present in the al-Aydi house that was hit directly and in the two nearby homes were civilians. Two members of the al-Aydi family had permits to work in Israel, which requires rigorous security checks by Israeli authorities, for those obtaining the permit and their extended family.
Satellite imagery of the site confirms destruction – consistent with an air strike – between 20 October at 11:19 UTC and 21 October at 08:22 UTC. The area and many of the structures appear to have sustained significant damage.
International humanitarian law
Parties to an armed conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and civilian objects on the one hand and fighters and military objectives on the other. Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects are prohibited, as are indiscriminate attacks.
When attacking a military objective, Israel is obligated to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, death and injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Such precautions include doing all that is possible to verify that a target is a military objective; choosing means and methods of attack that minimize civilian harm; assessing whether an attack would be disproportionate; giving effective advance warning where feasible; and canceling an attack should it become apparent that it would be unlawful.
Amnesty International did not find any indication that there were any military objectives at the site of the two strikes or that the people in the buildings were military targets, raising concerns that these strikes were direct attacks on civilians or on civilian objects.
But even if there had been a legitimate military objective in the vicinity of any of the buildings that were hit, these strikes failed to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects. The evidence collected by Amnesty International also indicates that the Israeli military failed to take feasible precautions to minimize damage to civilians and civilian property, including by not providing any warning – at minimum to anyone living in the locations that were hit – before launching the attacks.
Indiscriminate strikes that kill or injure civilians constitute war crimes. A longstanding pattern of reckless attacks that strike civilian objects, which Amnesty International has documented throughout Israel’s ongoing attacks, as well as during the 2008-9, 2014, and 2021 conflicts, may amount to directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, also a war crime.
The extremely high population density in Gaza entails additional challenges for all the parties involved in the conflict. Hamas and other armed groups are required under international humanitarian law to take feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attacks. This includes, to the extent feasible, avoiding locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.
However, even if armed groups fail to fulfil their obligations, Israel remains bound by international humanitarian law, including prohibitions against indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.
Background
Amnesty International is calling for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to aid for people in Gaza amidst an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.
Amnesty International documented how Hamas and other armed groups launched indiscriminate rockets into Israel on 07 October 2023, and sent fighters who committed war crimes, such as deliberate mass killings of civilians and hostage taking. According to Israeli authorities, at least 239 people, including 33 children, remain hostages of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
The organization has also documented damning evidence of war crimes by Israeli forces in their Gaza offensive, including other indiscriminate attacks, that have resulted in mass civilian casualties, wiped out entire families, and destroyed residential neighbourhoods.
END
VOLKSKRANT
ZE ZIJN NAAR EEN VEILIGE PLEK GEGAAN EN NU ZIJN ZE
Ook het zuidelijke gedeelte van de Gazastrook, waar Gazanen in opdracht van Israël massaal naartoe zijn gegaan, blijkt onveilig. Het huis waarin zijn familie zat werd zaterdagmiddag gebombardeerd, vertelt Sami Al-Ajrami. Ondertussen worden water, voedsel en brandstof steeds schaarser.
Ze waren vrijdag naar het zuiden van de Gazastrook gegaan, zoals bevolen door het Israëlische leger. De zussen van Sami Al-Ajrami en hun kinderen, en vrienden. Ze gingen naar Deir al-Balah, ten zuiden van de rivierbedding Wadi Gaza. Daar zou het veilig zijn. Maar dat bleek anders. ‘Het huis waar mijn familie zat is net gebombardeerd’, vertelt Al-Ajrami aan de telefoon vanuit het ziekenhuis Shuhadaa’ Al Aqsa.
Al-Ajrami, van wie de familie voor zover de Volkskrant bekend geen banden heeft met Hamas, verblijft zelf met zijn dochters in een ander huis. Hij kan niet geloven wat er is gebeurd. ‘Ze zijn naar een veilige plek gegaan en nu zijn ze daar gedood. Waarom?’ Al-Ajrami, die werkt als fixer voor internationale media, kan weinig anders zeggen dan dat. ‘Waarom? Deze plek zou veilig zijn.’ Het telefoongesprek is kort. Hij wil terug naar de gewonden en ‘proberen afscheid te nemen van degenen die dood zijn’.
Bij hem in het ziekenhuis is zijn vriend Wisam al-Ashi, een video-editor. Ook hij is gisteren met zijn familie naar het zuiden gegaan en zit met zo’n vijftig mensen in een huis net aan de noordkant van Wadi Gaza. Al-Ashi, de redelijkheid zelve en nooit vol verwijt over Israël, is de weg kwijt.
‘Mijn vriend Sami staat hier naast me te huilen, hij heeft net heel veel familieleden verloren. Er zijn veel doden, veel gewonden. En ik vraag me af: waar zijn we dan veilig? Israël heeft via sociale media en via pamfletten die uit de lucht kwamen gezegd dat we het noorden moesten verlaten. We hebben dat gedaan. Veel mensen zitten nu met drie of vier families bij elkaar in een huis. En dan, zomaar, worden ze gedood. Waarom? Ik kan het niet begrijpen.’
Gebrek aan water
Iets verder naar het zuiden zit Reham Owda, een jonge vrouw uit Gaza-Stad. Zaterdagochtend al, voor haar vertrek naar het zuiden, moest ze haar huis uit, vertelt ze via de telefoon, omdat de hele straat werd geëvacueerd vanwege aanstaande bombardementen. Ze schuilde in het Shifa-ziekenhuis. Die avond kwam ze aan in de zuidelijke stad Khan Younis. ‘Het grootste probleem is dat we geen water hebben, omdat er geen elektriciteit is. De pompen werken niet. Wij hebben nog een paar flessen mineraalwater.’
Ook in Khan Younis zijn er bombardementen, vertelt ze. Dus ook daar geen veiligheid. ‘Maar het ergste nu is het gebrek aan elektriciteit en brandstof voor de generatoren. Sommige families hebben nog een beetje diesel op voorraad.’ Om in contact met de buitenwereld te blijven, vertelt ze, gaan mensen naar de medische centra om de batterij van de telefoon op te laden.
Ook Al-Ashi noemt als grootste nood nu vooral het gebrek aan water. ‘Om je te wassen, voor wat dan ook. Drinkwater kun je nog in flessen krijgen. Maar de prijs gaat snel omhoog. En het is op steeds minder plekken te krijgen. Ook voedsel is er nog, maar wordt steeds duurder, omdat de voorraden kleiner worden doordat Israël de toevoer via de grensovergangen heeft gestopt.’
Gazanen spreken van tweede Nakba
Voor veel mensen in Gaza roept wat nu gaande is herinneringen op aan 1948, toen honderdduizenden Palestijnen op de vlucht sloegen, in wat sindsdien de Nakba heet – de catastrofe. Ze verlieten hun huizen en talloze families namen de sleutel mee. Voor als ze terug zouden gaan. In veel Palestijnse huizen hangt nog zo’n sleutel. Zij wonen sindsdien in vluchtelingenkampen op de Westelijke Jordaanoever, in Libanon en Jordanië. En in de Gazastrook.
Velen in Gaza, opnieuw verdreven, spreken nu over een tweede Nakba. Sommigen gaan om die reden niet naar het zuiden, ze zeggen dat ze liever sterven in hun eigen huis. Stel dat er een kans komt naar Egypte te gaan, zouden ze dat doen? Reham Owda: ‘Ik blijf hier tot we terug kunnen naar Gaza-Stad. Tenzij ze ons dwingen om te gaan.’ Wisam al-Ashi: ‘Jazeker, dan ga ik. Ik wil niet dat mijn familie, mijn kinderen doodgaan. Elke keer als ik kinderen zie die zijn gestorven, zie ik mijn eigen kinderen voor me.’
Bij het bombardement op de plek waar de familie van Sami al-Ajrami ‘veilig’ onderdak had gevonden, blijkt een woonblok van zes gebouwen geraakt. Geruchten doen de ronde, zegt hij zondagochtend, dat in een van de woningen een lid zat van Al-Qassam, de gewapende brigade van Hamas. En zo heeft Al-Ajrami zondag veertien familieleden begraven.
At least 700 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours – one of the highest daily death tolls since the war began on October 7.
From the north to the south, Palestinians in Gaza say nowhere is safe.
The Israeli military targeted the Jabalia refugee camp for a second day. Several homes were destroyed, killing dozens of people. More are buried under the rubble.
Israel has also called on residents from certain neighbourhoods in Khan Younis in southern Gaza to evacuate. Roads leading to other parts of the city or further south have been destroyed or heavily damaged.
More than 15,500 people have been confirmed killed in Gaza since the start of the conflict, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
A Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson told Al Jazeera that conditions across Gaza are “beyond dire”, warning that rescuers lack the resources to reach all victims of Israeli bombardment.
“There are dozens of civilians being killed in every single air strike. Hundreds are also being wounded,” said Mahmoud Basal.
END
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 23 en 24/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
VN-waarnemers zeggen dat het gebied waarvoor een Israëlisch evacuatiebevel geldt nu twee derde van de Gazastrook uitmaakt, ofwel 246 vierkante kilometer. De plaatsen waar de inwoners van Gaza naartoe kunnen vluchten beslaan daardoor nog maar een derde van hun leefgebied van voor de oorlog met Israël.
De meeste inwoners zijn nu samengedrongen in het zuidelijke deel van de Gazastrook. Meer dan de helft van de 2,3 miljoen Gazanen verblijft in de stad Rafah, aan de grens met Egypte, en het gebied eromheen.
Guido Versloot werkt voor het Rode Kruis in het zuiden van Gaza als fysiotherapeut in het European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis. Woordvoerder Danielle Brouwer van de hulporganisatie sprak hem vorige week voor het laatst over de situatie.
“Hij vertelde dat er steeds meer zware regenval in Gaza is. Mensen wonen in tenten rondom het ziekenhuis, omdat het daar relatief veilig is. Maar die tenten lopen onder water, waardoor mensen in het ziekenhuis onderdak zoeken.”
Operaties zonder verdoving
Het vervoeren van hulpgoederen is een grote uitdaging. Volgens fysiotherapeut Versloot raakt de voorraad medicijnen en verdovingsmiddelen op. Hij vreest dat de hulpverleners binnenkort noodgedwongen operaties zonder verdoving moeten uitvoeren. “Er zijn veel meer hulpgoederen nodig in Gaza,” zegt Brouwer.
Een deel van een ander ziekenhuis in het zuiden van Gaza, het Al-Amal ziekenhuis, is gisteren geëvacueerd, vertelt ze. “Afgelopen weekend zijn daar drie medewerkers van de Rode Kruis om het leven gekomen.”
8000 mensen verlieten het ziekenhuis omdat het gebied onveilig was door bombardementen en beschietingen. Er wordt nog wel zorg verleend in het ziekenhuis, ouderen en zieke mensen kunnen er blijven.
Van 300 naar 1000 tenten
Het Rode Kruis bouwde tenten als tijdelijk onderdak voor mensen bij Khan Younis. Er staan er nu 300 tenten, dat worden er 1000. Momenteel is er ruimte voor 1500 mensen. De extra tenten zouden onderdak moeten bieden aan nog eens 6000 mensen.
Israël zegt dat het alleen doelen van Hamas aanvalt. Het stelt Hamas verantwoordelijk voor de burgerslachtoffers, omdat de organisatie vanuit bewoond gebied tegen Israël vecht.
Bij de oorlog in Gaza zijn volgens de Palestijnse autoriteiten meer dan 27.000 mensen omgekomen. De autoriteiten maken geen onderscheid tussen burgers en Hamasstrijders die tegen Israël vechten. Twee derde van de doden zouden vrouwen en kinderen zijn.
EINDE
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noot 25/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
Israeli snipers in Khan Younis kill at least 21 people outside of Nasser Hospital with medical staff also being targeted. Some 107 Palestinians were killed and 142 injured in the past 24 hours.
US President Joe Biden calls Israel’s attack on Gaza “over the top” and says he continues to work “tirelessly” for an extended “pause in fighting”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres says half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population “is now crammed into Rafah with nowhere to go”, warning the displaced “have no homes” and “no hope”.
At least 27,947 people have been killed and 67,459 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the October 7 Hamas attacks stands at 1,139.
[27] ”
Although Israel says it strives to avoid civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation orders, more than 11,500 under-18s have been killed according to Palestinian health officials” BBCINJURED, HUNGRY AND ALONE-THE GAZANCHILDREN ORPHANED BY WAR31 JANUARY 2024
Born amid the horrors of the war in Gaza, the month-old baby girl lying in an incubator has never known a parent’s embrace.
She was delivered by Caesarean section after her mother, Hanna, was crushed in an Israeli air strike. Hanna did not live to name her daughter.
“We just call her the daughter of Hanna Abu Amsha,” says nurse Warda al-Awawda, who is caring for the tiny newborn at the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Warning: This piece contains graphic descriptions which some may find upsetting.
In the chaos caused by the ongoing fighting and with entire families almost wiped out, medics and rescuers often struggle to find carers for bereaved children.
“We have lost contact with her family,” the nurse tells us. “None of her relatives have shown up and we don’t know what happened to her father.”
Children, who make up nearly half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, have had their lives shattered by the brutal war.
Although Israel says it strives to avoid civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation orders, more than 11,500 under-18s have been killed according to Palestinian health officials. Even more have injuries, many of them life-changing.
It is hard to get accurate figures but according to a recent report from Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a non-profit group, more than 24,000 children have also lost one or both parents.
Ibrahim Abu Mouss, just 10 years old, suffered severe leg and stomach injuries when a missile hit his home. But his tears are for his dead mum, grandfather and sister.
“They kept telling me they were being treated upstairs in the hospital,” says Ibrahim as his father clutches his hand.
“But I found out the truth when I saw photos on my dad’s phone. I cried so much that I hurt all over.”
The cousins of the Hussein family used to play together but now they sit solemnly by the sandy graves where some of their relatives are buried by a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza. Each has lost one or both parents.
“The missile fell on my mum’s lap and her body was torn into pieces. For days we were taking her body parts from the rubble of the house,” says Abed Hussein, who lived in al-Bureij refugee camp.
“When they said that my brother, my uncle and my whole family were killed I felt like my heart was bleeding with fire.”
With dark bags around his eyes, Abed stays awake at night frightened by the sounds of Israeli shelling and feeling alone.
“When my mum and dad were alive, I used to sleep but after they were killed, I can’t sleep any more. I used to sleep next to my dad,” he explains.
Abed and his two surviving siblings are being looked after by his grandmother but everyday life is very hard.
“There’s no food or water,” he says. “I have a stomach ache from drinking sea water.”
Kinza Hussein’s father was killed trying to fetch flour to make bread. She is haunted by the image of his corpse, brought home for burial after he was killed by a missile.
“He had no eyes, and his tongue was cut,” she remembers.
“All we want is for the war to be over,” she says. “Everything is sad.”
Nearly everyone in Gaza now relies on aid handouts for the basics of life. According to UN figures, some 1.7 million people have been displaced, with many forced to move repeatedly in search of safety.
But the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, says its biggest concern is for an estimated 19,000 children who are orphaned or have ended up alone with no adult to look after them.
“Many of these children have been found under the rubble or have lost their parents in the bombing of their home,” Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications for Unicef Palestine, tells me from Rafah in southern Gaza. Others have been found at Israeli checkpoints, hospitals and on the streets.
“The youngest ones very often cannot say their name and even the older ones are usually in shock so it can be extremely difficult to identify them and potentially regroup them with their extended family.”
Even when relatives can be found, they are not always well placed to help care for bereaved children.
“Let’s keep in mind they are often also in a very dire situation,” Mr Crickx says.
“They may have their own children to take care of and it can be difficult, if not impossible, for them to take care of these unaccompanied and separated children.”
Since the war started, a non-profit organisation, SOS Children’s Villages, which works locally with Unicef, says it has been working to take in 55 such children, all aged under 10. It has employed additional specialist staff in Rafah to give psychological help.
A senior SOS staff member tells me about a four-year-old who had been left at a checkpoint. She was brought in with selective mutism, an anxiety disorder which left her unable to speak about what had happened to her and her family, but is now making progress after being welcomed with gifts and playing with other children she lives with.
Unicef believes that nearly all children in Gaza are now in need of mental health support.
With their lives shattered, even when there is a lasting ceasefire, many will be left with terrible losses that they will struggle to overcome.
END
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 26 en 27/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
Zoals verwacht gaat Israel niet akkoord met het voorstel
van Hamas voor een staakt-het-vuren.
Premier Netanyahu zei dat op een persconferentie in
Jeruzalem.
Hamas had een staakt-het-vuren in drie fases voorgesteld waarbij
de gijzelaars vrij zouden komen net als Palestijnse gevangenen.
Ook zou Israel uit Gaza moeten vertrekken.
Netanyahu noemde de eisen van Hamas waanzinnig.
Volgens Netanyahu gaat de oorlog door tot Israel de totale
overwinning heeft behaald.
Hij herhaalde zijn doelen: het ontmantelen van Hamas en de
vrijlating van alle gijzelaars.
De overwinning ligt binnen handbereik, zei Netanyahu.
EINDE NOS TELETEKSTBERICHT
ORIGINEEL NOS TELETEKST BERICHT
NOS TELETEKST
NETANYAHU VERWERPT HAMAS VOORSTEL
https://teletekst-data.nos.nl/webplus?p=125 Netanyahu verwerpt Hamas-voorstel Zoals verwacht gaat Israël niet akkoord met het voorstel van Hamas voor een staakt-het-vuren.Premier Netanyahu zei dat op een persconferentie in Jeruzalem. Hamas had een staakt-het-vuren in drie fases voorgesteld waarbij de gijzelaars vrij zouden komen net als Palestijnse gevangenen.Ook zou Israël uit Gaza moeten vertrekken.Netanyahu noemde de eisen van Hamas waanzinnig. Volgens Netanyahu gaat de oorlog door tot Israël de totale overwinning heeft behaald.Hij herhaalde zijn doelen:het ontmantelen van Hamas en de vrijlating van alle gijzelaars.De overwinning ligt binnen handbereik,zei Netanyahu. nieuws buitenland binnenland sport
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 28 en 29/Astrid Essed weer ten strijde tegen NOS Teletekst
De Israëlische oud-premier Benjamin Netanyahu heeft een nieuwe, ultrarechtse regering gevormd. Het wordt de meest rechtse regering in de geschiedenis van het land. Netanyahu’s conservatieve partij Likud gaat regeren met religieus-nationalistische partners.
De deadline verliep woensdagavond, maar vlak daarvoor stelde Netanyahu president Isaac Herzog ervan op de hoogte dat hij eruit was met zijn coalitiepartners.
Likud won de parlementsverkiezingen van 1 november. De partij sleepte 32 zetels binnen. Dat was het beste resultaat in de partijgeschiedenis, maar onvoldoende om zelfstandig te regeren. Als grootste partij kreeg Likud wel het mandaat om als eerste te proberen een regering te vormen.
Dat mandaat verliep eigenlijk begin december, maar Netanyahu kreeg van president Herzog tien dagen extra, tot 22 december middernacht.
Ultra-orthodoxe partijen zijn voor annexatie en tegen gelijke rechten
Met de steun van de ultra-orthodoxe partijen kan de nieuwe regering rekenen op 64 van de 120 zetels in het parlement. Wanneer de nieuwe regering wordt beëdigd en hoe de ministersposten zijn verdeeld is nog niet bekend. Naar verwachting zullen de leiders van de ultra-orthodoxe partijen een plek in het kabinet krijgen.
Zij hebben zich in het verleden uitgesproken voor onder meer annexatie van de door Israël bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever. Ook spraken ze zich uit voor ruimere bevoegdheden voor het leger om geweld te gebruiken en tegen gelijke rechten voor vrouwen en de lhbtiq+-gemeenschap.
Netanyahu (73) was van 1996 tot 1999 al premier van Israël en van 2009 tot 2021 opnieuw.
A new government seen as the most right-wing in Israel’s history has been agreed, sealing Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power.
Mr Netanyahu, who won elections in November, is set to serve an historic sixth term as prime minster.
His coalition contains far-right parties, including one whose leader was once convicted of anti-Arab racism.
Palestinians fear the new government will also strengthen Israel’s hold on the occupied West Bank.
“I have managed [to form a government],” Mr Netanyahu tweeted, just minutes before a midnight local time (22:00 GMT) deadline set by the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog.
It will take over from the outgoing centre-left caretaker government when it is sworn in, which is expected to happen next week.
Mr Netanyahu’s coalition partners reject the idea of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict – the internationally backed formula for peace which envisages an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank alongside Israel, with Jerusalem as their shared capital.
The leader of the Religious Zionism party, which in alliance with two other far-right parties won the third largest number of seats in the knesset (parliament), wants to see Israel annex the West Bank and has been given wide powers over its activities there.
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 war. More than 600,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The settlements they live in are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. Israel pulled its settlers and troops out of the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Israeli opposition politicians, as well as its attorney general, have warned that reforms planned by the incoming government – including giving MPs the right to overrule Supreme Court decisions – threaten to undermine Israeli democracy.
Coalition partners have also proposed legal reforms which could end Mr Netanyahu’s ongoing trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Mr Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing.
Israeli opposition and civil rights groups have expressed particular alarm at the inclusion of the far-right in the new government.
Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir is known for his anti-Arab comments and has called for the relaxation of rules on when security forces can open fire in the face of threats. Once convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terror organisation, he is set to become national security minister with authority over the police in Israel and the West Bank.
The other far-right partner in government, Avi Maoz of the anti-LGBT Noam party, has called for Jerusalem’s Gay Pride event to be banned, disapproves of equal opportunities for women in the military, and wants to limit Jewish immigration to Israel to those defined as such according to Jewish religious law.
Mr Netanyahu has accused critics of fearmongering and has vowed to preserve the status quo.
“I’ll have two hands firmly on the steering wheel,” he told US broadcaster NPR last week. “I won’t let anybody do anything to LGBT or to deny our Arab citizens their rights or anything like that, it just won’t happen. And the test of time will prove that.”
Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, Amnesty International said today in a damning new report. The investigation details how Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it has control over their rights. This includes Palestinians living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), as well as displaced refugees in other countries.
The comprehensive report, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity, sets out how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law. This system is maintained by violations which Amnesty International found to constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.
Amnesty International is calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider the crime of apartheid in its current investigation in the OPT and calls on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to bring perpetrators of apartheid crimes to justice.
“There is no possible justification for a system built around the institutionalized and prolonged racist oppression of millions of people. Apartheid has no place in our world, and states which choose to make allowances for Israel will find themselves on the wrong side of history. Governments who continue to supply Israel with arms and shield it from accountability at the UN are supporting a system of apartheid, undermining the international legal order, and exacerbating the suffering of the Palestinian people. The international community must face up to the reality of Israel’s apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored.”
Amnesty International’s findings build on a growing body of work by Palestinian, Israeli and international NGOs, who have increasingly applied the apartheid framework to the situation in Israel and/or the OPT.
Identifying apartheid
A system of apartheid is an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination by one racial group over another. It is a serious human rights violation which is prohibited in public international law. Amnesty International’s extensive research and legal analysis, carried out in consultation with external experts, demonstrates that Israel enforces such a system against Palestinians through laws, policies and practices which ensure their prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment.
In international criminal law, specific unlawful acts which are committed within a system of oppression and domination, with the intention of maintaining it, constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid. These acts are set out in the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute, and include unlawful killing, torture, forcible transfer, and the denial of basic rights and freedoms.
Amnesty International documented acts proscribed in the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute in all the areas Israel controls, although they occur more frequently and violently in the OPT than in Israel. Israeli authorities enact multiple measures to deliberately deny Palestinians their basic rights and freedoms, including draconian movement restrictions in the OPT, chronic discriminatory underinvestment in Palestinian communities in Israel, and the denial of refugees’ right to return. The report also documents forcible transfer, administrative detention, torture, and unlawful killings, in both Israel and the OPT.
Amnesty International found that these acts form part of a systematic and widespread attack directed against the Palestinian population, and are committed with the intent to maintain the system of oppression and domination. They therefore constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid.
The unlawful killing of Palestinian protesters is perhaps the clearest illustration of how Israeli authorities use proscribed acts to maintain the status quo. In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza began to hold weekly protests along the border with Israel, calling for the right of return for refugees and an end to the blockade. Before protests even began, senior Israeli officials warned that Palestinians approaching the wall would be shot. By the end of 2019, Israeli forces had killed 214 civilians, including 46 children.
In light of the systematic unlawful killings of Palestinians documented in its report, Amnesty International is also calling for the UN Security Council to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. This should cover all weapons and munitions as well as law enforcement equipment, given the thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been unlawfully killed by Israeli forces. The Security Council should also impose targeted sanctions, such as asset freezes, against Israeli officials most implicated in the crime of apartheid.
Palestinians treated as a demographic threat
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and then maintaining a Jewish demographic majority, and maximizing control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis. In 1967, Israel extended this policy to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded.
Amnesty International recognizes that Jews, like Palestinians, claim a right to self-determination, and does not challenge Israel’s desire to be a home for Jews. Similarly, it does not consider that Israel labelling itself a “Jewish state” in itself indicates an intention to oppress and dominate.
However, Amnesty International’s report shows that successive Israeli governments have considered Palestinians a demographic threat, and imposed measures to control and decrease their presence and access to land in Israel and the OPT. These demographic aims are well illustrated by official plans to “Judaize” areas of Israel and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which continue to put thousands of Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer.
Oppression without borders
The 1947-49 and 1967 wars, Israel’s ongoing military rule of the OPT, and the creation of separate legal and administrative regimes within the territory, have separated Palestinian communities and segregated them from Jewish Israelis. Palestinians have been fragmented geographically and politically, and experience different levels of discrimination depending on their status and where they live.
Palestinian citizens in Israel currently enjoy greater rights and freedoms than their counterparts in the OPT, while the experience of Palestinians in Gaza is very different to that of those living in the West Bank. Nonetheless, Amnesty International’s research shows that all Palestinians are subject to the same overarching system. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians across all areas is pursuant to the same objective: to privilege Jewish Israelis in distribution of land and resources, and to minimize the Palestinian presence and access to land.
Amnesty International demonstrates that Israeli authorities treat Palestinians as an inferior racial group who are defined by their non-Jewish, Arab status. This racial discrimination is cemented in laws which affect Palestinians across Israel and the OPT.
For example, Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied a nationality, establishing a legal differentiation from Jewish Israelis. In the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel has controlled the population registry since 1967, Palestinians have no citizenship and most are considered stateless, requiring ID cards from the Israeli military to live and work in the territories.
Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who were displaced in the 1947-49 and 1967 conflicts, continue to be denied the right to return to their former places of residence. Israel’s exclusion of refugees is a flagrant violation of international law which has left millions in a perpetual limbo of forced displacement.
Palestinians in annexed East Jerusalem are granted permanent residence instead of citizenship – though this status is permanent in name only. Since 1967, more than 14,000 Palestinians have had their residency revoked at the discretion of the Ministry of the Interior, resulting in their forcible transfer outside the city.
Lesser citizens
Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise about 19% of the population, face many forms of institutionalized discrimination. In 2018, discrimination against Palestinians was crystallized in a constitutional law which, for the first time, enshrined Israel exclusively as the “nation state of the Jewish people”. The law also promotes the building of Jewish settlements and downgrades Arabic’s status as an official language.
The report documents how Palestinians are effectively blocked from leasing on 80% of Israel’s state land, as a result of racist land seizures and a web of discriminatory laws on land allocation, planning and zoning.
The situation in the Negev/Naqab region of southern Israel is a prime example of how Israel’s planning and building policies intentionally exclude Palestinians. Since 1948 Israeli authorities have adopted various policies to “Judaize” the Negev/Naqab, including designating large areas as nature reserves or military firing zones, and setting targets for increasing the Jewish population. This has had devastating consequences for the tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins who live in the region.
Thirty-five Bedouin villages, home to about 68,000 people, are currently “unrecognized” by Israel, which means they are cut off from the national electricity and water supply and targeted for repeated demolitions. As the villages have no official status, their residents also face restrictions on political participation and are excluded from the healthcare and education systems. These conditions have coerced many into leaving their homes and villages, in what amounts to forcible transfer.
Decades of deliberately unequal treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel have left them consistently economically disadvantaged in comparison to Jewish Israelis. This is exacerbated by blatantly discriminatory allocation of state resources: a recent example is the government’s Covid-19 recovery package, of which just 1.7% was given to Palestinian local authorities.
Dispossession
The dispossession and displacement of Palestinians from their homes is a crucial pillar of Israel’s apartheid system. Since its establishment the Israeli state has enforced massive and cruel land seizures against Palestinians, and continues to implement myriad laws and policies to force Palestinians into small enclaves. Since 1948, Israel has demolished hundreds of thousands of Palestinian homes and other properties across all areas under its jurisdiction and effective control.
As in the Negev/Naqab, Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Area C of the OPT live under full Israeli control. The authorities deny building permits to Palestinians in these areas, forcing them to build illegal structures which are demolished again and again.
In the OPT, the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements exacerbates the situation. The construction of these settlements in the OPT has been a government policy since 1967. Settlements today cover 10% of the land in the West Bank, and some 38% of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem was expropriated between 1967 and 2017.
Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem are frequently targeted by settler organizations which, with the full backing of the Israeli government, work to displace Palestinian families and hand their homes to settlers. One such neighbourhood, Sheikh Jarrah, has been the site of frequent protests since May 2021 as families battle to keep their homes under the threat of a settler lawsuit.
Draconian movement restrictions
Since the mid-1990s Israeli authorities have imposed increasingly stringent movement restrictions on Palestinians in the OPT. A web of military checkpoints, roadblocks, fences and other structures controls the movement of Palestinians within the OPT, and restricts their travel into Israel or abroad.
A 700km fence, which Israel is still extending, has isolated Palestinian communities inside “military zones”, and they must obtain multiple special permits any time they enter or leave their homes. In Gaza, more than 2 million Palestinians live under an Israeli blockade which has created a humanitarian crisis. It is near-impossible for Gazans to travel abroad or into the rest of the OPT, and they are effectively segregated from the rest of the world.
“The permit system in the OPT is emblematic of Israel’s brazen discrimination against Palestinians. While Palestinians are locked in a blockade, stuck for hours at checkpoints, or waiting for yet another permit to come through, Israeli citizens and settlers can move around as they please.”
Amnesty International examined each of the security justifications which Israel cites as the basis for its treatment of Palestinians. The report shows that, while some of Israel’s policies may have been designed to fulfil legitimate security objectives, they have been implemented in a grossly disproportionate and discriminatory way which fails to comply with international law. Other policies have absolutely no reasonable basis in security, and are clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate.
The way forward
Amnesty International provides numerous specific recommendations for how the Israeli authorities can dismantle the apartheid system and the discrimination, segregation and oppression which sustain it.
The organization is calling for an end to the brutal practice of home demolitions and forced evictions as a first step. Israel must grant equal rights to all Palestinians in Israel and the OPT, in line with principles of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must recognize the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived, and provide victims of human rights violations and crimes against humanity with full reparations.
The scale and seriousness of the violations documented in Amnesty International’s report call for a drastic change in the international community’s approach to the human rights crisis in Israel and the OPT.
All states may exercise universal jurisdiction over persons reasonably suspected of committing the crime of apartheid under international law, and states that are party to the Apartheid Convention have an obligation to do so.
“Israel must dismantle the apartheid system and start treating Palestinians as human beings with equal rights and dignity. Until it does, peace and security will remain a distant prospect for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
In April, Human Rights Watch released a 213-page report, “A Threshold Crossed,” finding that Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. We reached this determination based on our documentation of an overarching government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians coupled with grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem
In the months since, a growing chorus of voices, from former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa and current Knesset members to the ex-UN Secretary General and the French foreign minister, have referenced apartheid in relation to Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians, in particular in the occupied territory. Yet many in Germany, including those critical of Israeli human rights abuses, remain hesitant to apply the label to Israeli conduct.
Given history, one can certainly understand Germany’s concern for the welfare of the Jewish people, but that should not carry over to an endorsement of abusive and discriminatory Israeli government conduct, especially in the occupied territory. As recognition grows that these crimes are being committed, the failure to recognize that reality requires burying your head deeper and deeper into the sand.
The problem begins with the Israeli government having exercised primary control for more than a half-century over the land between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, encompassing Israel and the occupied territory, where two main groups of people of roughly equal size live. Throughout this area, Israeli authorities methodologically privilege one of the groups, Jewish Israelis, who are governed under the same body of laws with the same rights and privileges wherever they live. At the same time, authorities allocate different baskets of inferior rights to the other, Palestinians, systematically discriminating against them wherever they live and most severely in the occupied territory.
Our sense that our research was not capturing this underlying reality led us to write this report. Reporting on “separate, not equal” schools for Palestinians inside Israel, Palestinians being forced out of their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, the serious rights abuses stemming from the Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank, and the crushing closure of the Gaza Strip, we felt that our work captured important dynamics, including entrenched discrimination, in particular areas, but did not capture the full scope of Israel’s discriminatory rule over Palestinians.
We set out in the report to evaluate Israel’s treatment of Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. As we do in the nearly 100 countries across the world we work in, we began by documenting the facts—drawing on years of our own research, case studies that compared Palestinian areas with predominantly or exclusively Jewish ones, and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials, and a range of other materials.
Across Israel and the occupied territory, Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have pursued an intent to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians. They have done so by undertaking policies aimed at mitigating what they openly describe as the “demographic threat” Palestinians pose and maximizing the land available for Jewish communities, while concentrating most Palestinian in dense enclaves. The policy takes different forms and is pursued in a particularly severe form in the occupied territory. It includes efforts to, as leading Israelis officials have put it, “Judaize” the Negev and Galilee regions of Israel and to maintain “a solid Jewish majority,” as described in government planning documents, in the Jerusalem municipality, which includes the eastern part of Jerusalem, which Israel unilaterally annexed and occupies. It also encompasses efforts to “settle [Jews in] the land between the [Palestinian] minority population centers and their surroundings” in the West Bank, as set out in plans that have guided the government’s settlement, and to pursue “separation” between the West Bank and Gaza. The policy across the board serves the same fundamental goal: maximum land, minimum Palestinians.
Furthermore, we found that Israeli authorities have carried out the grave abuses needed for the crimes of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians living in the occupied territory. It has done so through, among other policies, sweeping restrictions on movement in the form of the 14-year generalized closure of Gaza and the discriminatory permit system in the West Bank; the confiscation of more than a third of the land in the West Bank; and denial of residency rights to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their relatives. Israel has imposed draconian military rule over millions of Palestinians, suspending their basic civil rights, while Jewish Israelis living in the same territory are governed under the permissive Israeli civil law; and imposed harsh conditions in parts of the West Bank that led to forcing thousands of Palestinians out of their homes.
We then evaluated these facts against the relevant areas of international law—in this case, the established law on discrimination—which includes a universal prohibition against apartheid. While the term was coined in relation to specific practices in South Africa, international treaties define apartheid as a universal legal term referring to a particularly severe form of discriminatory oppression.
International criminal law, including the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court, define apartheid as a crime against humanity consisting of three primary elements: (1) an intent by one racial group to dominate another; (2) systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group; and (3) particularly grave abuses known as inhumane acts.
Racial group is understood today also to encompass treatment on the basis of descent and national or ethnic origin. International criminal law also identifies a related crime against humanity of persecution. Under the Rome Statute and customary international law, persecution consists of severe deprivation of fundamental rights of a racial, ethnic, or other group with discriminatory intent.
The ratification by the State of Palestine of these two treaties in recent years has strengthened the legal application of these two crimes in its territory. A ruling by a chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier this year confirmed that it has jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity – including apartheid and persecution – committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2014.
Applying the facts to the laws, Human Rights Watch concluded that Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. We found that the elements of the crimes come together in the occupied territory as part of a single Israeli government policy. That policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. It is coupled in the occupied territory with systematic oppression and inhumane acts against Palestinians living there.
Sometimes the most important thing someone who cares deeply about you can do is to share hard truths and push you to confront them. The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and leaders of Israel’s closest ally, the US, including former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State John Kerry, warned of the prospect of apartheid if things did not change.
Today, apartheid is not a hypothetical or future scenario. A 54-year-occupation is not temporary. The threshold has been crossed. Apartheid, and parallel persecution, is the reality for millions of Palestinians. Recognizing and correctly diagnosing a problem is the first step to solving it and ending apartheid is vital to the future of both Palestinians and Israelis and the cause of peace. It is by extension Germany’s special relationship with Israel and history that should prompt them to recognize the reality of apartheid and persecution and bring to bear the sorts of tools needed to end these crimes against humanity.
Peace Palace, Carnegieplein 2, 2517 KJ The Hague, Netherlands
Tel.: +31 (0)70 302 2323 Fax: +31 (0)70 364 9928
Press Release
Unofficial
No. 2024/6
26 January 2024
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel)
The Court indicates provisional measures
THE HAGUE, 26 January 2024. The International Court of Justice today delivered its Order
on the Request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case
concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel)
It is recalled that, on 29 December 2023, South Africa filed an Application instituting proceedings against Israel concerning alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”) in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In its Application, South Africa also requested the Court to indicate provisional measures in order to “protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention” and “to ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide” (see press release No. 2023/77).
Public hearings on South Africa’s request for provisional measures were held on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 January 2024.
In its Order, which has binding effect, the Court indicates the following provisional measures:
“(1) By fifteen votes to two,
The State of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
PAGE 2
– 2 –
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
The State of Israel shall ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts described in point 1 above;
IN FAVOUR:
President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Xue, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth, Brant; Judge ad hoc Moseneke;
AGAINST:
Judge Sebutinde; Judge ad hoc Barak;
(3) By sixteen votes to one
The State of Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip;
IN FAVOUR:
President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Xue, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth, Brant; Judges ad hoc Barak, Moseneke;
AGAINST:
Judge Sebutinde;
(4) By sixteen votes to one,
The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip;
IN FAVOUR:
President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Xue, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth, Brant; Judges ad hoc Barak, Moseneke;
AGAINST:
Judge Sebutinde;
(5) By fifteen votes to two,
The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip;
IN FAVOUR:
President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Xue, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth, Brant; Judge ad hoc Moseneke;
AGAINST:
Judge Sebutinde; Judge ad hoc Barak;
PAGE 3
3
(6) By fifteen votes to two,
The State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order within one month as from the date of this Order.
IN FAVOUR:
President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Xue, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth, Brant; Judge ad hoc Moseneke;
AGAINST:
Judge Sebutinde; Judge ad hoc Barak.”
*
Judge XUE appends a declaration to the Order of the Court;
Judge SEBUTINDE appends a dissenting opinion to the Order of the Court; Judges BHANDARI and NOLTE append declarations to the Order of the Court; Judge ad hoc BARAK appends a separate opinion to the Order of the Court
___________
A summary of the Order appears in the document entitled “Summary 2024/1”, to which summaries of the declarations and opinions are annexed.
This summary and the full text of the Order are available on the case page on the Court’s website.
___________
Earlier press releases relating to this case are available on the Court’s website.
Note: The Court’s press releases are prepared by its Registry for information purposes only and do not constitute official documents.
___________
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
It was established by the United Nations Charter in June 1945 and began its activities in April 1946
The Court is composed of 15 judges elected for a nine-year term by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations.
The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands).
The Court has a twofold role: first, to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States;
and, second, to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and agencies of the system
___________
PAGE 4
4
Information Department:
Ms Monique Legerman, First Secretary of the Court, Head of Department: +31 (0)70 302 2336
Ms Joanne Moore, Information Officer: +31 (0)70 302 2337
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor International Court of Justice/Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v Israel)/26 january 2024
