15]
ZIE NOOT 14
[16]
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
ISRAEL: UNLAWFUL GAZA BLOCKADE DEADLY FOR
CHILDREN
18 OCTOBER 2023
Denial of Water, Fuel, Electricity Endangers Lives
Update October 19, 2023: President Joe Biden announced that the United States mediated an agreement allowing the movement of up to 20 trucks of food, medicine, and water into Gaza. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has urged negotiators to raise their “level of ambition.” OCHA reported that, in August 2023 alone, 12,072 truckloads of “authorized goods entered Gaza through the Israeli and Egyptian-controlled crossings.” After the total siege on the civilian population on October 9, a single dispatch of 20 truckloads does not adequately address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Israel’s international partners should press the Israeli government to restore water and electricity supplies and lift its unlawful restrictions on aid delivery and closure.
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government should immediately end its total blockade of the Gaza Strip that is putting Palestinian children and other civilians at grave risk, Human Rights Watch said today. The collective punishment of the population is a war crime. Israeli authorities should allow desperately needed food, medical aid, fuel, electricity, and water into Gaza, and let sick and wounded civilians leave to receive medical treatment elsewhere.
Israel announced on October 18, 2023, that it would allow food, water, and medicine to reach people in southern Gaza from Egypt, but without electricity or fuel to run the local power plant or generators, or clear provision of aid to those in the north, this falls short of meeting the needs of Gaza’s population.
The Israeli bombardment and total blockade have exacerbated the longstanding humanitarian crisis resulting from Israel’s unlawful 16-year closure of Gaza, where more than 80 percent of the population relies on humanitarian aid. Doctors in Gaza report being unable to care for children and other patients because the hospitals are overwhelmed by victims of Israeli airstrikes. On October 17, a munition struck al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, causing mass casualties; Hamas blamed Israel for the strike, while Israel said it was a rocket misfire by Palestinian militants. Human Rights Watch is looking into the strike.
Public health officials said the lack of water, contamination of areas by sewage, and many bodies that cannot be safely stored in morgues could trigger an infectious disease outbreak.
“Israel’s bombardment and unlawful total blockade of Gaza mean that countless wounded and sick children, among many other civilians, will die for want of medical care,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “US President Joe Biden, who is in Israel today, should press Israeli officials to completely lift the unlawful blockade and ensure the entire civilian population has prompt access to water, food, fuel, and electricity.”
Senior Israeli officials have said the total blockade of the Gaza Strip, where children comprise nearly half of the population of 2.2 million, is part of efforts to defeat Hamas, following its October 7 attack on Israel. Hamas-led Palestinian fighters killed more than 1,300 people, according to Israeli authorities, and took scores of civilians, including women and children, as hostages. On October 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced “a complete siege … no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported, as of October 18, that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed. The Palestinian rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine reported that more than 1,000 children are among those killed.
The laws of war do not prohibit sieges or blockades of enemy forces, but they may not include tactics that prevent civilians’ access to items essential for their survival, such as water, food, and medicine. Parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid passage of impartial humanitarian aid for all civilians in need. Aid may be inspected but not arbitrarily delayed.
In addition, 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.” Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited and is a war crime.
Under international human rights law, states must respect the right to water, which includes refraining from limiting access to, or destroying, water services and infrastructure as a punitive measure during armed conflicts as well as respecting the obligations to protect objects indispensable for survival of the civilian population.
Israel’s total blockade against the population in Gaza forms part of the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution that Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians.
News media reported on October 17 that Israel had refused to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while Egypt was refusing to allow Palestinians to cross into the Sinai. Egypt and Israel should permit civilians to pass through their respective crossings to seek at least temporary protection or life-saving medical care, while also ensuring that anyone who flees is entitled to voluntary return in safety and dignity.
Lack of Medical Care
Shortages of medical equipment, supplies, and medication in the face of overwhelming casualties are causing avoidable deaths in hospitals in the Gaza Strip. More than 60 percent of patients are children, Dr. Midhat Abbas, director general of health in Gaza, told Human Rights Watch. An intern emergency room doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital wept while speaking to Human Rights Watch by phone on October 15:
Yesterday, in the intensive care unit, it was full, and all ventilators were in use. A child came in with head trauma who needed a ventilator. They had to choose between two children, who would die. He [the doctor] made a decision that one child was more promising to treat, so we were forced to switch the ventilator, and the other child died.
A doctor at the Northern Medical Complex said that on the night of October 14, intensive-care unit medics had to disconnect an adult patient from a ventilator to use it for a 10-year-old. He said a lack of medical supplies had obliged him to stitch a woman’s head wound without gloves or sterile equipment.
In a voice message on October 14, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital described a group of patients with “back wounds, including compound fractures, that can be really painful.” He said that the hospital had run out of painkillers to administer to them.
Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British surgeon volunteering at al-Shifa hospital, posted on social media on October 10, that “the hospitals, because of the siege, are so short of supplies that we had to clean a teenage girl with 70 percent body surface burns with regular soap because the hospital is out of chlorhexidine (antiseptic).” On October 14, he said in a voice note shared with Human Rights Watch: “We are no longer able to do anything but the most life-saving surgeries” because medical supplies were exhausted, and deaths and injuries had caused staff shortages.
More than 5,500 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are expected to deliver within the next month, but face “compromised functionality of health facilities” and lack of “lifesaving supplies,” the United Nations Population Fund said on October 13.
“We need insulin [for diabetics],” said the head of a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) shelter on October 15. “People are dying.” The shelter was overwhelmed with 15,000 internally displaced people.
The UN World Health Organization stated on October 14 that it had flown medical and basic health supplies for 300,000 patients to Egypt, near the Gaza Strip’s southern border, and more than 1,000 tons of other humanitarian aid had been shipped to the area. As of October 17, though, humanitarian workers and aid remain blocked via the Rafah border crossing. Israeli attacks have reportedly hit the crossing repeatedly, rendering it unsafe. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said four Egyptian aid workers were injured in the Israeli strikes and that “there is not yet any sort of authorization for a safe passage from the other side of the crossing.”
Israel’s order on October 13 to all civilians located in the north of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south exacerbated the medical crisis: 21 hospitals currently holding more than 2,000 patients are located in this region. The World Health Organization said the evacuations “could be tantamount to a death sentence” for the sick and injured and said hospitals were already beyond capacity in the southern Gaza Strip. A pediatric doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital said evacuating would likely cause the deaths of seven newborns in the ICU who were connected to ventilators.
Dr. Abu Sitta said that Israel’s evacuation order forced the Mohammed al-Durra Pediatric Hospital east of Gaza City to close, including a neonatal intensive care unit supported by the charity he volunteers with, Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The sick and wounded, including children and pregnant women, have not been allowed to cross Rafah into Egypt or the Erez crossing into Israel to receive treatment. Dr. Abbas, the director general of health, said, “We are in desperate need of a safe humanitarian passage for patients immediately, [and] we need field hospitals immediately.”
Electricity
On October 7, Israeli authorities cut the electricity it delivers to Gaza, the main source of electricity there. Israeli authorities also cut fuel necessary to run Gaza’s only power plant. The power plant has since run out of fuel and shut down. On October 17, Dr. Abbas told Human Rights Watch by phone that hospitals’ emergency generators will run out of fuel “within hours.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross regional director warned on October 11 that the power cuts are “putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk. Kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken. Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”
Water and Sewage
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that 97 percent of the groundwater in Gaza is “unfit for human consumption,” leaving people dependent on the supply of water from Israel and on the territory’s desalination plants. Israel cut off all water on October 11, and most desalination also stopped that day due to the cutoff in electricity, leaving about 600,000 people without clean water, Omar Shatat, deputy director general of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told Human Rights Watch.
The last functioning desalination plant stopped operating on October 15. Israel partially resumed water delivery that day, but only to the eastern Khan Younis area, and it amounted to less than 4 percent of the water consumed in Gaza prior to October 7, according to OCHA.
UNRWA warned that “people will start dying of severe dehydration” unless access to water is resumed. The Associated Press reported on October 15 that a doctor had treated 15 cases of children with bacterial dysentery due to lack of clean water, which can also cause diseases like cholera, particularly in children under 5.
“Israel has cut off the most basic goods necessary for survival in Gaza, where there are more than a million children at risk,” Van Esveld said. “Every hour that this blockade continues costs lives.”
END
[17]
”(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government should immediately end its total blockade of the Gaza Strip that is putting Palestinian children and other civilians at grave risk, Human Rights Watch said today. The collective punishment of the population is a war crime. Israeli authorities should allow desperately needed food, medical aid, fuel, electricity, and water into Gaza, and let sick and wounded civilians leave to receive medical treatment elsewhere.”
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
ISRAEL: UNLAWFUL GAZA BLOCKADE DEADLY FOR
CHILDREN
18 OCTOBER 2023
ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 16
[18]
”The laws of war do not prohibit sieges or blockades of enemy forces, but they may not include tactics that prevent civilians’ access to items essential for their survival, such as water, food, and medicine. Parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid passage of impartial humanitarian aid for all civilians in need. Aid may be inspected but not arbitrarily delayed.
In addition, 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.” Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited and is a war crime.”
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
ISRAEL: UNLAWFUL GAZA BLOCKADE DEADLY FOR
CHILDREN
18 OCTOBER 2023
ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 16
[19]
””Mensen zijn afhankelijk van water dat ze kopen bij kleine waterstation”, zegt de lokale journalist Noor Swirki tegen Nieuwsuur. “Dat water komt uit de grond en is niet veilig om te drinken of om mee te koken, maar ze hebben geen keuze.”
NOS
COLLECTIEF STRAFFEN EN WEGJAGEN VAN
GAZANEN IS MOGELIJK ETNISCHE ZUIVERING
De leefsituatie in Gaza wordt met de dag zorgwekkender. Dit weekend braken duizenden mensen in bij opslagplaatsen en distributiecentra van de Verenigde Naties om aan meel en andere levensmiddelen te komen.
Na de Hamas-aanslagen op 7 oktober blokkeerde Israël Gaza volledig. Sinds vorig weekend worden hulpkonvooien toegelaten, maar slechts mondjesmaat. Dit beleid is illegaal, volgens het Internationaal Strafhof. “Israël straft de Palestijnen collectief. Er is mogelijk sprake van etnische zuivering”, zegt universitair docent internationaal strafrecht Marieke de Hoon.
De afgelopen weken was de verdeling van levensmiddelen nog redelijk georganiseerd, zegt Tamara Alrifai, woordvoerder van de VN-organisatie voor Palestijnse vluchtelingen UNRWA. “De 600.000 mensen in VN-gebouwen kregen heel weinig, maar wel geregeld, voedsel en medicijnen.”
Maar toen vrijdagavond alle communicatie uitviel nadat Israël de aanvallen opvoerde, brak er paniek uit, zegt Alrifai. “Niemand wist wat er gebeurde. Mijn collega’s konden geen berichten versturen over de voedsel- en waterdistributie. Dus mensen namen het heft in eigen hand en besloten zelf voedsel uit opslagplaatsen te halen.”
Een minstens zo nijpend probleem is het grote gebrek aan brandstof, waardoor elektriciteitsgeneratoren niet draaien en ontziltingsinstallaties stilliggen. Inwoners moeten vervuild water drinken. “Mensen zijn afhankelijk van water dat ze kopen bij kleine waterstation”, zegt de lokale journalist Noor Swirki tegen Nieuwsuur. “Dat water komt uit de grond en is niet veilig om te drinken of om mee te koken, maar ze hebben geen keuze.”
UNRWA noemt het brandstoftekort desastreus. “Als we geen brandstof meer hebben, kunnen we de bakkerijen niet voorzien van schoon water en kunnen we onze vrachtwagens niet sturen om de levensmiddelen op te halen die nu via Egypte binnenkomen”, zegt Alrifai.
‘Israël mag noodhulp niet belemmeren’
Volgens nieuwszender Al Jazeera zijn sinds het begin van de oorlog 87 vrachtwagens Gaza binnengelaten via de door Egypte gecontroleerde grensovergang bij Rafah. Dat aantal is een fractie van wat nodig is voor de 2 miljoen Gazanen, zegt Alrifai. “Voor de oorlog kwamen er elke dag zo’n 500 trucks binnen, waarvan 100 met humanitaire goederen.”
Het opzettelijk belemmeren van humanitaire hulp is een oorlogsmisdaad, zegt internationaal strafrechtdocent De Hoon. “Israël voldoet hiermee niet aan de plicht om burgerslachtoffers zoveel mogelijk te voorkomen.”
Ook het Internationaal Strafhof in Den Haag spreekt van een schending van het internationaal recht. “Er zouden geen belemmeringen moeten zijn voor het leveren van noodhulp aan kinderen, vrouwen en mannen”, zei aanklager Karim Khan bij een bezoek aan de grensovergang tussen Egypte en Gaza. “Dit zijn onschuldige mensen met rechten.”
Waarschijnlijk overtreden ook Israëls luchtaanvallen het internationaal recht, zegt De Hoon. “Een legitiem militair doel mag je aanvallen, ook als er de kans is op burgerslachtoffers. Maar dit moet op een proportionele manier en dat lijkt in Gaza nu niet te gebeuren.”
Dat Israël vaak waarschuwingen stuurt voor een bombardement, pleit het land volgens De Hoon niet vrij. “Burgers moeten kunnen wegkomen, maar in Gaza kunnen ze nergens heen.”
VN-medewerkers gedood
Het dodental in Gaza steeg zondag naar 8005, volgens het zorgministerie van Gaza, dat onder controle staat van Hamas. De cijfers worden door verschillende hulporganisaties als betrouwbaar gezien. Bij de Israëlische aanvallen zijn ook 59 UNRWA-medewerkers omgekomen.
“Elke dertien minuten sterft er een kind in Gaza”, zegt Jason Lee van hulporganisatie Save the Children. “Geen plek hier is veilig, overal zijn beschietingen en luchtaanvallen. 60 procent van de bevolking, 1,4 miljoen mensen, is hun huis uit gevlucht.”
Israël maakt te weinig onderscheid tussen burgers en militairen, zegt De Hoon. Als voorbeelden geeft ze de aanvallen op woongebouwen, waar ook veel kinderen wonen, en op burgers die naar het zuiden van Gaza vluchten. “De regering verschuilt zich achter het argument dat Hamas begon. Maar je kunt niet suggereren dat die kinderen Hamas-strijders zijn. Palestijnen worden zo gedehumaniseerd. Mensen worden niet meer als mensen gezien en de drempel om ze te doden wordt verlaagd.”
Genocide?
Dit “collectief straffen en wegjagen” van Palestijnen is mogelijk etnische zuivering, zegt De Hoon. De VN waarschuwde al voor “een massale zuivering” van inwoners van Gaza en pleit voor een staakt-het-vuren.
Of er ook sprake is van genocide, zoals Palestijnse organisaties en onder andere een Spaanse minister zeggen, vindt De Hoon lastig te bepalen. “Daarvoor moet je aantonen dat er bij Israëlische leiders een specifieke opzet is om de Palestijnen uit te roeien. Dat zeggen ze niet. Hamas is er bijvoorbeeld wel heel duidelijk in dat ze de joden willen uitroeien. Maar Israël zit wel op het duistere randje.”
Hoe dan ook, zegt De Hoon, zijn er signalen dat genocide kan gaan plaatsvinden. “Maar aan strafzaken hebben we nu niks. Andere landen moeten ingrijpen om te voorkomen dat Israël die genocide zal plegen. Staten hebben die plicht.”
EINDE
”The last functioning desalination plant stopped operating on October 15. Israel partially resumed water delivery that day, but only to the eastern Khan Younis area, and it amounted to less than 4 percent of the water consumed in Gaza prior to October 7, according to OCHA.
UNRWA warned that “people will start dying of severe dehydration” unless access to water is resumed. The Associated Press reported on October 15 that a doctor had treated 15 cases of children with bacterial dysentery due to lack of clean water, which can also cause diseases like cholera, particularly in children under 5.”
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
ISRAEL: UNLAWFUL GAZA BLOCKADE DEADLY FOR
CHILDREN
18 OCTOBER 2023
ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 16