Break in fighting would also allow Canadians to ‘exit’ Gaza Strip, say officials
Barry Ellsworth |25.10.2023 -
TRENTON, Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that Canada backs “humanitarian pauses” in the Israel-Hamas war to allow much-needed aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“There’s a lot of conversations going on now about the need for humanitarian pauses, and I think that’s something that Canada supports,” Trudeau told reporters on his way to the House of Commons in Ottawa.
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly echoed those sentiments and added the pause would also allow Canadians to get out of Gaza to safety.
“We need more humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and for Canadians to be able to exit,” Joly wrote on X, Tuesday. “For this reason, we are calling for humanitarian pauses on hostilities to be considered.”
She said whether Israeli or Palestinian, “a civilian is a civilian” and deserves to receive humanitarian aid.
Another Canadian Cabinet minister, Deputy-Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, weighed in on the conflict and said Canada would not be providing military aid to Israel. Rather, she said Canada is zeroed in on humanitarian aid, “that is consistent with … the long-standing role that Canada has played” in world affairs.
International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen added to the chorus Tuesday and said Canada would support “whatever it takes” to get more aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip.
A third convoy of aid trucks arrived in Gaza Monday, crossing from Egypt, as reported by Anadolu, and delivered water, food and medicine.
But the UN said fuel was not included and supplies were dangerously low.
Israel has continued a relentless bombardment campaign on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Israeli border towns on Oct. 7 that killed 1,400 Israelis.
Nearly 5,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the bombardment began, including more than 2,000 children, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry.
Maureen Clare Murphy
An injured boy is treated at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on 23 October. Omar Al-DirawiAPA images
Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza is getting even deadlier, with more than 700 Palestinians killed overnight, the health ministry in the territory said on Tuesday.
Nearly 5,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the health ministry, including 2,360 children. Hundreds of people remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The UN is begging Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, particularly fuel.
The Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza “was forced to shut down some critical services due to lack of fuel, and is now running with limited functionality,” the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
“The Turkish Friendship Hospital, the only oncology hospital in the Gaza Strip, remains partially functional due to lack of fuel, putting around 2,000 cancer patients at risk,” WHO said.
The Indonesian hospital, al-Shifa hospital and the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital are all in the northern half of Gaza. Israel ordered the evacuation of more than one million Palestinians from that area on 12 October.
Hospitals in that area have said that it is impossible to evacuate their patients.
More than 5,000 patients are currently being treated at al-Shifa hospital, “significantly over its capacity of 700 patients,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Monday. Additionally, there are around 45,000 displaced people staying on the hospital grounds.
The UN added that “12 hospitals and 46 primary care clinics across Gaza have been forced to shut down due to damage they had sustained or lack of electricity and supplies.”
The World Health Organization has meanwhile documented 72 attacks on health care in Gaza resulting in 16 deaths and 30 injuries of on-duty health care workers.
Thousands of lives at risk
The lives of thousands of patients are at risk as hospitals run out of fuel, including 1,000 patients dependent on dialysis treatment, 130 premature babies and patients in intensive care or who rely on life support equipment.
WHO said that 34,000 liters of fuel were delivered to four hospitals in southern Gaza and the Palestine Red Crescent Society “to sustain its ambulance services.”
“However, this is only enough to keep ambulances and critical hospital functions running for a little over 24 hours,” WHO added.
The UN’s health agency said that medicines and health supplies were distributed to four hospitals in the southern half of Gaza and to the Palestine Red Crescent Society for two of its facilities and ambulance crews.
Palestinian organizations have called on the international community, particularly Egypt and UN agencies, to “ensure that the delivery of humanitarian aid and relief will not be conditioned or limited to Gaza’s southern districts.”
WHO said on Tuesday that it had delivered medical supplies to al-Shifa hospital in the northern half of Gaza and emphasized that “much more is needed across all health facilities in the Gaza Strip.”
Aid trickles in via Rafah
Since Saturday, aid has begun to trickle into Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. But the number of trucks entering the territory are only a tiny fraction of what came into Gaza on a daily basis before Israel imposed a total siege on the territory on 9 October.
Aid is being brought in only via Rafah crossing, which is a passenger crossing not equipped for the transfer of large quantities of goods. The nearby Karem Abu Salem crossing – or Kerem Shalom – controlled by Israel is Gaza’s main point of entry for humanitarian aid.
Israel says that it will not transfer any aid through the crossings it controls so long as Palestinian armed groups in Gaza are holding people captured in Israel.
“Willfully impeding relief supplies is a war crime, as is collectively punishing civilians for the actions of armed groups,” Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
NEW YORK (24 October 2023) – Israeli occupation forces kill, maim, orphan and detain hundreds of children in the occupied Palestinian territory every year, a UN expert said today, and their plight has multiplied in recent weeks.
“The oppression and trauma suffered by Palestinian children, half of the Palestinian population under Israeli rule, is a unique stain on the international community,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, in a report to the General Assembly.
The report does not cover the horrific events of 7 October and their aftermath. The expert found that Israel, despite its obligations as an Occupying Power, deprives Palestinians and their children of their basic human rights as part of its efforts to impede the development of Palestinian society and to permanently frustrate the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
From 2008 until 6 October 2023, 1,434 Palestinian children were reportedly killed, with an additional 32,175 sustaining injuries, primarily at the hands of Israeli occupation forces. Of these, 1,025 children were killed in Gaza alone, since the unlawful blockade began in 2007. During the same timeframe, 25 Israeli children were killed, mostly by Palestinian assailants, and 524 were injured. Between 2019 and 2022, 1,679 Palestinian children and 15 Israeli children sustained lasting physical injuries, leaving many permanently disabled. An average of 500-700 Palestinian children are reported to be detained by Israeli occupation forces each year, with an estimated 13,000 mostly arbitrarily detained, interrogated, tried in military courts and imprisoned since 2000.
“Israel’s framing of Palestinian children as ‘human shields’ or ‘terrorists’ to justify the violence against them and their parents is profoundly dehumanising,” the expert said.
“Today’s hell cannot obscure the violence of the past decades,” the Special Rapporteur said. “To address the crisis, it is imperative to comprehend what led to it. This does not mean justifying or downplaying the heinous crimes against Israeli civilians on 7 October; rather it compels us to face that horror in the context of what preceded it.”
“We must understand the devastating impact of Israel’s occupation and ever-expanding colonial presence on generations of Palestinian children,” the expert said.
The report details children’s daily experiences of violence through the confiscation of family land and expropriation of resources, separation of communities, destruction of homes and livelihoods, and attacks on their education.
“Generations of Palestinian children, whether in the besieged Gaza Strip, the West Bank enclaves or annexed east Jerusalem, have seen their lives reduced to the bare minimum and, far too often, cut short as expendable,” Albanese said. “This is profoundly “unchilding”: it takes away the lightness of childhood and robs children of their future,” she said.
The Special Rapporteur urged the international community to use all measures under the UN Charter to immediately end Israel’s illegal occupation, sanction its internationally wrongful acts, prosecute all international crimes by all actors in the occupied Palestinian territory, and set up a task force to dismantle Israel’s settler-colonial occupation as a precondition for peace in the region.
ENDS
Ms. Francesca Albanese was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN human rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms. Special Procedures mandate-holders are independent human rights experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent of any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.
Over 800 Children Missing Under The Rubble In Gaza As Rescue Efforts Hindered By Ongoing Bombardment And Siege
At least 870 children are missing in Gaza and feared trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, as relentless bombardments, decimated infrastructure including roads, and lack of fuel due to the ongoing siege prevent rescue workers from reaching them.
Since violence escalated in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory on 7 October, at least 2,360 children have been killed in Gaza and 5,364 injured. According to Israeli media, 28 children were killed in Israel and at least 220 people are currently held captive in Gaza, including children.
A doctor at Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza told Save the Children that concerns over missing people and the increasing number of separated children are growing, adding that he received at least 10-12 cases of separated children in his hospital and several other cases of deceased children whose bodies hadn’t been identified or claimed by any relatives.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said they received at least 1,550 reports of missing persons still under the rubble, including 870 children.
Rescue efforts are severely complicated by the ongoing bombardments and shortage of fuel, which essential search and rescue equipment relies on, as well as a lack of heavy machinery in Gaza.
According to the UN, at least 34 rescue workers have been killed in the conflict in Gaza in the past fortnight, with at one rescue worker killed and four injured while on duty. Rescue workers have warned that the disruption of electricity and lack of fuel is taking a heavy toll on their work, preventing them from accessing wounded people or retrieve dead bodies from the rubble of bombed homes.
For those children still alive yet trapped under the rubble, they are likely to be suffering from severe physical trauma- including complex crush injuries - dehydration, and extreme mental distress, said Save the Children. For those who have been rescued but have suffered severe injuries, most are unable to receive even basic treatment because the health system is barely functioning. Relentless airstrikes have damaged hospitals and pulverized ambulances, generators are running out of fuel, and shortages of medicine, equipment and specialized personnel mean that those hospitals that are still open are barely able to treat injured people. With no safe passage out of Gaza through the crossings, injured children and their families are also being denied lifesaving, specialised treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
Save the Children is also deeply concerned for the dignity of those children that have not survived by whose bodies remain trapped under rubble. Beyond the trauma endured by parents not knowing whether their children are still alive, parents are also being denied the ability to bury their children in accordance with their cultural beliefs.
Jason Lee, Save the Children’s Country Director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said:
"It is unconscionable that there are hundreds of children trapped under the rubble, with rescue teams struggling to reach them. They will undoubtedly be in extreme pain, terrified, alone, and waiting for help. If there is not a ceasefire, if the siege is not lifted, this help will simply not come for many.
Many of those who are rescued will not receive the treatment they need, as healthcare has been another casualty of this war. All parties must ensure that children who need specialised and life-saving care can receive it outside of Gaza.
Children in Gaza have been through unimaginable horror. They’ve lost their homes, their loved ones, their safety. We must make every effort to ensure that thousands more don’t lose their lives. All parties must agree to an immediate ceasefire. With every hour that passes, more children’s lives will be the cost."
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