Thursday, December 21, 2023

Gaza war is world's 'moral failure', Red Cross chief says

Emma Farge
Updated Tue, December 19, 2023

 Red Cross President Spoljaric Egger attends a briefing in Geneva

GENEVA (Reuters) -The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday deplored the conflict in Gaza as a "moral failure" of the international community and urged Israel and Hamas to reach a new deal to halt the fighting.

"I have been speaking of moral failure because every day this continues is a day more where the international community hasn't proven capable of ending such high levels of suffering and this will have an impact on generations not only in Gaza," ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric told journalists in Geneva following trips to the Gaza Strip and Israel.

"There's nothing without an agreement by the two sides, so we urge them to keep negotiating..." she said, referring to the release of Israeli hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas gunmen during their deadly rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

A truce mediated by Qatar and Egypt held for a week at the end of November and brought about the release of 110 hostages in Gaza in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and teenagers from Israeli jails.

Heavy fighting resumed on Dec. 1 and some of the remaining hostages have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.

Although the ICRC facilitated the release of hostages during the truce, the group has been criticised by some Israelis for not doing more to free others and provide them with medical care. Some social media users have equated it to a taxi service to drive hostages out of Gaza.

"You don't just go there and take the hostages and bring them out," Spoljaric said, saying that any analogy with an Uber or taxi service was "unacceptable and outrageous."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to confirm last week that new negotiations were under way to recover hostages still held by Hamas, after a source said Israel's intelligence chief met the prime minister of Qatar.

"We continue to talk to all sides to then be ready to operationalise the agreement that they reach," Spoljaric said.

"What is clear is that at the current level of hostilities, a meaningful humanitarian response remains extremely difficult, if not impossible," she said.

Her remarks come as the 160-year-old Swiss-based ICRC releases a new four-year strategy after narrowly avoiding a liquidity crisis this year amid surging humanitarian needs.

The organisation is cutting around 4,000 posts this year and next to reduce costs, Spoljaric said, but remained committed to its core role as an impartial go-between for warring parties.

Under the new strategy, spending will rise in 2024 in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Haiti due to growing violence there, but fall in Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and South Sudan, a spokesperson said.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Miranda Murray and Mark Heinrich)

A Palestinian baby girl, born 17 days ago during Gaza war, is killed with brother in Israeli strike

MOHAMMED JAHJOUH and SAMY MAGDY
Tue, December 19, 2023 at 3:47 PM MST·3 min read
3.7k




Palestinians stand by relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip outside a morgue in Rafah, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

RAFAH, Gaza (AP) — She was born amid war, in a hospital with no electricity in a southern Gaza city that has been bombarded daily. Her family named her al-Amira Aisha — “Princess Aisha.” She didn't complete her third week before she died, killed in an Israeli airstrike that crushed her family home Tuesday.

Her extended family was asleep when the strike leveled their apartment building in Rafah before dawn, said Suzan Zoarab, the infant's grandmother and survivor of the blast. Hospital officials said 27 people were killed, among them Amira and her 2-year old brother, Ahmed.

“Just 2 weeks old. Her name hadn’t even been registered,” Suzan said, her voice quivering as she spoke from the side of her son's hospital bed, who was also injured in the blast.

The family tragedy comes as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza nears 20,000, according to the Health Ministry. The vast majority have been killed in Israeli airstrikes which have relentlessly pounded the besieged Gaza enclave for two and a half months, often destroying homes with families inside.

The war was triggered when militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza, and other groups broke into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and abducting 240 others.

The Zoarab family were among the few Palestinians in Gaza who remained in their own homes. Israel's onslaught, one of the most destructive of the 21st century, has displaced some 1.9 million people — more than 80% of the territory's population — sending them in search of shelter in U.N. schools, hospitals, tent camps or on the street.

But the Zoarabs stayed in their three-story apartment building. Two of Suzan's sons had apartments on higher floors, but the extended family had been crowding together on the ground floor, believing it would be safer. When the strike hit, it killed at least 13 members of the Zoarab family, including a journalist, Adel, as well as displaced people sheltering nearby.

“We found the whole house had collapsed over us,” Suzan said. Rescue workers pulled them and other victims, living and dead, from the wreckage.

Israel says it is striking Hamas targets across Gaza and blames the militants for civilian deaths because they operate in residential areas. But it rarely explains its targeting behind specific strikes.

Princess Aisha was only 17 days old. She was born on Dec. 2 at the Emirati Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah while there was no power at the facility, Suzan said — less than 48 hours after bombardment of the town and the rest of Gaza resumed following the collapse of a week-long cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

“She was born in a very difficult situation,” Suzan said.

As of Monday, 28 of Gaza's 36 hospitals across the Gaza Strip were reported as out of service, the U.N said, while eight remaining health facilities were only partially operational. Amid the devastation, some 50,000 Palestinian women are pregnant, the WHO said.

Princess Aisha and Ahmed's parents survived — their mother, Malak, with burns and bruises on her face, their father, Mahmoud, with a fractured pelvis. As Mahmoud lay in his bed at Rafah's Kuwati Hospital, Suzan brought him the two children for a final goodbye before they were buried.

Mahmoud grimaced with pain as he pulled himself up to cradle Ahmed, wrapped in a white burial shroud, before falling back and weeping. His wife held Princess Aisha, also bundled in white cloth, up to him.

Dozens of mourners held a funeral prayer Tuesday morning outside the hospital in Rafah, before taking Princess Aisha, Ahmed and the others killed in the strike for burial in a nearby cemetery

“I couldn’t protect my grandchildren" Suzan said. "I lost them in the blink of an eye.”

—-

Magdy reported from Cairo.



UK
Israel's war on Gaza 'beyond self-defence', senior Tory MP warns

Conservative MP Alicia Kearns warns Israel its actions in Gaza will recruit more militants for Hamas
.
James Hockaday
Updated Tue, December 19, 2023 

A woman in Rafah mourns by the bagged bodies of Palestinians killed overnight during Israeli bombardment. (Getty Images)

Israel's war in Gaza has gone beyond self-defence and bombing the besieged area into "oblivion" could backfire on them in the future, a senior Conservative MP has warned.

Conservative MP Alicia Kearns said the assault on Hamas and subsequent death toll and destruction throughout Gaza has broken international humanitarian law and that the "lives lost are excessive to the military advantage".

She also called on the UK needs to take a more decisive stance, desxribing Rishi Sunak's call for a "sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza "unclear" that leaves too many questions about the conflict unanswered,


Kearns told BBC Radio 4 that Israel's sustained attack, which is reported to have killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, may not be in its long-term interest. She said its framing by Israel as a war, rather than a counter-terrorism operation, and the sheer scale of destruction, is "acting as a recruiting sergeant" for Hamas.



Sunak has been piling pressure on Israel to agree to what he and foreign secretary Lord David Cameron describe as a "sustainable ceasefire", arguing "too many lives have been lost" in the conflict. Downing Street has positioned such a ceasefire as one “that can last, that means that Hamas no longer has a place in Israel, that rockets have stopped firing, that the hostages are returned”.

However, Kearns says the proposal is "just not clear enough". She asked: "Under what conditions are we saying a ceasefire becomes sustainable? How do we get to that place of a sustainable ceasefire? It also doesn’t deal with the biggest question, which is, what is that military outcome which will effectively defeat Hamas at a level that justifies the cost of civilians that’s taking place?"

“What I want to see is a UK-UN Security Council motion. Bombs don’t obliterate an ideology, and neither can a stable state be constructed from oblivion.

Figures according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. (Getty Images)

Her comments echo those of former defence secretary Ben Wallace, who argued Israel is losing its legal authority over the war with its "killing rage" against the Palestinian people.

While he stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in the region, he said the "indiscriminate" method of attack on Gaza could "fuel the conflict for another 50 years" and "radicalise Muslim youth across the globe".

Even the US, Israel's strongest ally, has begun taking a tougher stance on the war, with president Joe Biden arguing Tel Aviv is losing international support due to its "indiscriminate bombing". The United Nations Security Council were expected to vote on another resolution seeking a ceasefire on Tuesday.
What's the latest on the Gaza conflict?

The destruction of buildings and complexes where civilians have been seeking shelter, including hospitals and schools has been a major focal point of the war. On Tuesday, at least 13 Palestinians were killed and 17 others wounded following an airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Hamas officials.

Speaking on Tuesday, James Elder, of UN children's agency UNICEF said: "I’m furious that children who are recovering from amputations in hospitals are then killed in those hospitals." He added that Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, the largest operational hospital left in Gaza, was shelled twice in the past 24 hours. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has told how she has relatives trapped by Israeli forces in Gaza City's only Catholic church, with people being targeted by snipers.



Signalling on Sunday that Israel has no plan to relent in its attacks, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "We will fight until the end. We will achieve all of our aims — eliminating Hamas, freeing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will not again become a centre for terrorism.”

That same day, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) posted footage showing that it claimed to be “the biggest Hamas terrorist tunnel” in the Gaza Strip. Hamas uses a complex network of underground tunnels to move around Gaza and conceal its activities.

Reports suggest Israel and Hamas are both open to resuming negotiations to exchange hostages and prisoners, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, although major obstacles remain. Netanyahu has been facing pressure at home to bring more hostages home after IDF troops mistakenly shot dead three of them last week.

Palestinians assess the damage caused by an Israeli attack in the southern city of Rafah. (Getty Images)
How close are we to a two-state solution?

Many Western politicians have warned that Israel's actions in Gaza will make it harder to strike a peace deal that will ultimately end with a two-state solution.

The US, the UK and many other countries see an independent Palestinian state established alongside Israel as the only way to achieve peace in the long-term. However, recent warnings from Western leaders about halting this process are likely to fall on deaf ears, as Israel's leadership has been quite clear it has no interest in a two-state solution.

In an interview with Sky News last week, Israel's ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, said there was “absolutely no” prospect of Tel Aviv agreeing to a two-state solution. She added: “Israel knows today, and the world should know now that the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel. They want to have a state from the river to the sea. They are saying it loud and clear.”

Hamas's leadership has taken a hard-line on this issue, with a senior official telling Lebanese TV in October: “We will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated.”

This may help explain the UK government's rationale that a ceasefire can only be "sustainable" once Hamas no longer has control over Gaza. But Kearns' comments that "bombs don’t obliterate an ideology" suggests that anger over the mistreatment of Palestinians will remain.

The US has been pushing for the Palestinian Authority, which partially rules the West Bank, to run Gaza as part of a process that would eventually lead to a Palestinian state. But critics have warned the idea may be unrealistic and premature, while Israel has suggested it would oppose such a move.

Researchers mapped the damage in Gaza, and more than a third of the buildings have been wrecked as the war moves south

Jake Epstein
Wed, December 20, 2023 

Israel's campaign in Gaza started in the north but has now shifted to the southern area.


Researchers mapping the damage say more than a third of the buildings in the strip have been destroyed.


Tens of thousands of munitions — a mix of precision and unguided — have been dropped on the enclave.

Israel's continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks has damaged more than a third of all buildings that existed there before the war began over two months ago, according to analysis by a pair of satellite data researchers.

The scale of the destruction underscores the intensity of the ground fighting and air campaign, which has seen Israel drop tens of thousands of munitions — a mix of deadly precision and unguided weapons — on the coastal enclave since the early October massacre.

Since that day, Jamon Van Den Hoek and Corey Scher, two researchers who work with satellite data to examine the impact of armed conflict, have been monitoring and charting structural damage across the Gaza Strip. They recently shared their findings and imagery with Business Insider.


All likely damage across Gaza between Oct. 5 and Dec. 16.Source: Damage analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.

As of Dec. 16, the researchers estimate that between 102,000 and 129,000 buildings across the enclave have been damaged out of a pre-conflict total of nearly 288,000 structures. At the lower end of their estimate, that's a little under 36% of all buildings, and at the upper end, that figure jumps to nearly 45%.

Northern Gaza has suffered the most overall destruction during the conflict, the researchers found, which is consistent with where the Israeli military focused its efforts during the first half of the conflict.

Following its nonstop aerial bombardment of Gaza, the Israeli military began its ground invasion in the northern part of the strip and eventually ended up controlling much of the territory there as intense urban battles with Hamas continued.

Fighting briefly paused during a week-long truce with the militant group that saw Hamas release over 100 of the more than 200 hostages it was holding, but after hostilities resumed in early December, the Israeli military began operating more frequently in the south.

The shift to the south can be observed in data analyzed by Van Den Hoek and Scher, who found that the area around the southern city of Khan Younis suffered more damage than any other area in Gaza — including North Gaza, Gaza, Deir Al-Balah, and Rafah — between the recent stretch between Dec. 11 and Dec. 16.




Khan Younis likely suffered the most damage of Gaza's five major areas between Dec. 11 and 16.Source: Damage analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.

In addition to airstrikes in and around Khan Younis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have also been operating on the ground in this area.

"We saw at the beginning of the war an intense bombardment in Gaza, primarily, as well as North Gaza," Van Den Hoek, an associate professor of geography at Oregon State, told Business Insider. "After the ceasefire, there was a bit of a turn to the south — in particular, Khan Younis."

To obtain their data, the researchers use open-source satellite radar data from the European Space Agency's Copernicus network and analyze changes in how radar waves echo in urban areas. This involves comparing stable areas before a conflict to those same areas during a conflict, and looking for signs of destabilization. Those signs are detected by their algorithms and flagged as damage-affected areas.

A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike on October 8, 2023.MAHMUD HAMS

The researchers also remove false positives, clean up the map, compare it to known buildings in Gaza before the war started, and break down the amount of aerial damage estimated in an area.

Scher, a PhD candidate at the City University of New York, said that even though there may have been relatively little damage in southern Gaza during the first few weeks of the conflict, the number of buildings damaged or destroyed is still an "order of magnitude" above the most recent clash between Israel and Hamas, which occurred in 2021.

"What now looks small — relative to what's happening in the north — is still pretty unprecedented for air campaigns over Gaza in the last 10 years at least," he told Business Insider.

An Israeli soldier looks on from Merkava tank during operations in the Gaza Strip in this handout picture released on Dec. 17, 2023.Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS

Israel's air campaign has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and nearly 85 percent of the population forced to flee their homes.

The intensity of the air operations has drawn comparisons to other major bombardments this century, including the US-led coalition fight against the Islamic State, the war in Afghanistan war, Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There have also been comparisons to bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War and World War II.

Van Den Hoek and Scher said that this type of satellite radar data collection has only recently allowed researchers to compare damage across conflicts, but they've already noticed that the pace and magnitude of the destruction in Gaza is unlike anything they've seen before in their work.

"We're talking about one of the fastest — if not the fastest — aerial bombardment campaigns in modern history," Van Den Hoek said. "How does anyone respond to that kind of intensity, that kind of dynamism?"

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