US calls out Israel at UN for 'catastrophic conditions' in Gaza

Michelle Nichols
Wed, October 9, 2024 

Palestinians walk past a house hit in an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip


By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israel needs to address urgently "catastrophic conditions" among Palestinian civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip and stop "intensifying suffering" by limiting aid deliveries, its ally the United States told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.

Referring to reports of squalid conditions in south and central Gaza, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: "These catastrophic conditions were predicted months ago, and yet, have still not been addressed. That must change, and now."


"We call on Israel to take urgent steps to do so," she said in a blunt statement.

The 15-member Security Council met over the humanitarian crisis a year after a deadly attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel has since laid to waste much of the enclave and almost the entire population of 2.3 million has been displaced.

Israel says Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, while health authorities in Gaza say nearly 42,000 people have been killed so far during Israel's retaliation.

Thomas-Greenfield also addressed a recent Israeli order for civilians in Gaza's north to evacuate again, saying they must be able to return to communities to rebuild.

"There must be no demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza," Thomas-Greenfield said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, told the Security Council: "Hundreds of thousands of people are again being pushed to move to the south, where living conditions are intolerable.

"Yet again, Gazans are teetering on the edge of a man-made famine," he said.

'NO RESTRICTIONS'

The U.N. has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza and distributing it during the war.

Reuters reported last week that food supplies to Gaza have fallen sharply in recent weeks because Israeli authorities have introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses.

"We need to see fewer barriers to the delivery of aid, not more of them," Thomas-Greenfield said.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon defended his country's record: "Israel imposes no restrictions on humanitarian aid. In fact, 82% of all requests for humanitarian coordination have been approved and implemented."

He accused Hamas of diverting aid from those in Gaza who need it.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the council that Israel "must do much more" to avoid civilian casualties and ensure the U.N. and aid groups can operate safely and effectively in Gaza.

"Delivery of humanitarian assistance is being hindered, and humanitarian workers are constantly under threat," French U.N. Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said.

More than 300 humanitarian aid workers, most of them UNRWA staff, have been killed.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

US incredibly concerned about humanitarian situation in Gaza, State Department says

Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis
Wed, October 9, 2024 



By Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is incredibly concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, particularly in northern Gaza, the State Department said on Wednesday, adding it is the subject of very urgent discussions between Washington and Israel.

"It has been the subject of some very urgent discussions between our two governments," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

"We have been making clear to the government of Israel that they have an obligation under international humanitarian law to allow food and water and other needed humanitarian assistance to make it into all parts of Gaza, and we fully expect them to comply with those obligations."

The United Nations World Food Program on Wednesday said that aid entering the Gaza Strip has plummeted to its lowest level in months, forcing the agency to stop the distribution of food parcels this month.

"If the flow of assistance does not resume, one million vulnerable people will be deprived of this lifeline," it said, adding that the closure of crossing points, security issues and disruptions to routes at crossings were limiting aid delivery.

Reuters reported last week that food supplies to Gaza have fallen sharply in recent weeks because Israeli authorities have introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses, according to people involved in getting goods to the war-torn territory.

Miller on Wednesday was separately asked about reports, including from CNN and Al Jazeera, that some Palestinians fleeing sites of Israel’s renewed military operation in northern Gaza were shot at as they fled.

"We have seen those reports. I can't speak to the details of them, but obviously that would be unacceptable. If they were Palestinian civilians that were fleeing that were being shot by Israeli forces, that would be unacceptable. We would expect the government of Israel to investigate it, and, if appropriate, we'd expect them to hold people fully accountable," he said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk, Kanishka Singh and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)


UN inquiry accuses Israel of ‘crime of extermination’ through deliberate destruction of Gaza’s health care system

Niamh Kennedy and Muhammad Darwish, CNN
Fri, October 11, 2024 


A United Nations inquiry has accused Israel of carrying out a “concerted policy” of destroying the health care system in Gaza during its year-long conflict with Hamas in attacks it said amount to war crimes.

Israel’s actions in the besieged Palestinian enclave “constitute the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and the crime against humanity of extermination,” the commission said in a statement Thursday.

“Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles” in Gaza, according to the report by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

The Israeli attacks resulted in “fuel, food, water, medicines and medical supplies not reaching hospitals, while also drastically reducing permits for patients to leave the territory for medical treatment,” it said.

The Israeli foreign ministry called the accusations “outrageous” and said they were “another blatant attempt by the (commission) to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel and obstruct its right to protect its population while covering up the crimes of terrorist organizations.”

“This report shamelessly portrays Israel’s operations in terror-infested health facilities in Gaza as a matter of policy against Gaza’s health system, while entirely dismissing overwhelming evidence that medical facilities in Gaza have been systematically used by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for terrorist activities.”

Hamas, it said, uses medical facilities to conceal operatives, store weapons, conduct attacks and hide hostages. Hamas has repeatedly denied that it uses hospitals for military activity.

The UN report also accused Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups of committing war crimes of “torture, inhuman or cruel treatment, rape and sexual violence” for their treatment of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza. It also investigated “institutionalized mistreatment” of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

The Israeli foreign ministry rejected “accusations of widespread ill-treatment and torture of detainees,” saying Israel is “fully committed to international legal standards” on treatment of detainees.

In a statement accompanying the 24-page report, which does not have the force of law, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Israel “must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction” in Gaza.

“Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” she said.

As part of the report, UN experts investigated the killing of 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who made headlines in late January after a recording emerged of her pleading to emergency workers to rescue her and her family after they became trapped in their car due to Israeli shelling.

Despite an ambulance arriving at the scene while the girl was still alive, the presence of Israeli security forces effectively “prevented access,” meaning the bodies of Rajab’s relatives “could not be retrieved from their bullet-ridden car until 12 days after the incident,” the report said.

The report “determined on reasonable grounds that the Israeli Army’s 162nd Division” which operated in the area at the time is “responsible for killing the family of seven, shelling the ambulance and killing the two paramedics inside.”

The incident was just one of several alleged attacks on health care in Gaza, amid broader wartime conditions.

The report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 30.

The commission previously alleged that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, and that Israel’s actions also amounted to crimes against humanity.

CNN’s Dana Karni contributed to this report.


UN agency for Palestinians warns Gaza aid work may 'disintegrate' if Israeli legislation passes

EDITH M. LEDERER
Wed, October 9, 2024 

Tents are crammed together as displaced Palestinians camp along the beach of Deir Al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday that if pending Israeli legislation is adopted, all humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank may “disintegrate,” leaving hundreds of thousands of people in dire need as war rages.

Philippe Lazzarini told the U.N. Security Council that senior Israeli officials are bent on destroying the U.N. body known as UNRWA, which is the main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, the Palestinian territory rocked by a year of war between Israel and Hamas.

An Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills this week that would ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the U.N. agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

Lazzarini said in a video briefing that “legally, the Knesset legislation violates Israel’s obligation under the United Nations Charter and international law.’

Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA’s thousands of staff members participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas' attacks that sparked the war in Gaza. The U.N. has fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have participated in the attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel.

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told the Security Council that UNRWA has allowed Hamas to infiltrate its ranks and that “this infiltration is so ingrained, so institutional, that the organization is simply beyond repair.”

Danon noted that the head of Gaza’s teachers union was recently killed in Lebanon and revealed as a Hamas commander, saying this showed that UNRWA has been infiltrated “to the point where terrorists are running classrooms, indoctrinating future generations and hiding in plain sight under the banner of the United Nations.”

UNRWA had suspended the union leader in March when allegations of his ties to Hamas emerged and launched an investigation.

Lazzarini urged the Security Council to shield the agency “from efforts to end its mandate arbitrarily and prematurely in the absence of a long-promised political solution.”

When UNRWA was created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949, it was meant to provide health care, education and welfare services to about 700,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 conflict with Israel. Today, it provides such services to about 6 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Lazzarini stressed that the entire humanitarian response in Gaza rests on UNRWA’s infrastructure and that it “may disintegrate” if the Israeli legislation is adopted.

The halt to coordination with Israel, he said, would further disrupt the provision of shelter, food and health care to Palestinians as winter approaches. More than 650,000 children would lose any hope of resuming their education “and an entire generation would be sacrificed,” Lazzarini said.

In the West Bank, he said, “the delivery of education, primary health care and emergency aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees would grind to a halt.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Tuesday that he has written to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express “profound concern” about the legislation.

Lisa Doughten, a director in the U.N. humanitarian office, told the council that “few times in recent history have we witnessed suffering and destruction of the size, scale and scope that we see in Gaza.”

Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters. It has said women and children make up over half of the dead.

Doughten said “nearly every one of the more than 2 million people in Gaza receives some form of aid or service provision from UNRWA.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield expressed concern at recent Israeli government actions limiting the delivery of goods into Gaza. These restrictions, combined with new bureaucratic limits on humanitarian goods arriving from Jordan and the closure of most border crossings in recent weeks, will only intensify the suffering in Gaza, she said.

Thomas-Greenfield said the United States, a close ally of Israel, is following “with deep concern” Israel’s proposed legislation, saying it reflects “the significant distrust between Israel and UNRWA.”

UN accuses Israel of war crimes over attacks on Gaza hospitals

Imogen Foulkes - Geneva correspondent
Thu, October 10, 2024

The Al-Salam hospital in Khan Yunis is one of several healthcare facilities which has been ruined by the ongoing Israeli campaign in Gaza [Getty Images]


A United Nations commission of inquiry has accused Israel of carrying out a “concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system" during its ongoing war with Hamas.

The commission said Israeli attacks on Gaza’s healthcare facilities and Israel’s treatment of Palestinian detainees amounted to war crimes, as well as the crime against humanity of “extermination”.

Hamas and other Palestinian groups are also accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their treatment of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Israel is yet to comment, but has long accused the UN of bias and dismissed previous critical reports.

The report, which will be presented to the UN General Assembly on 30 October, was led by Navi Pillay, the South African former UN human rights chief.

Israeli security forces have “deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel”, the report said, while children have “borne the brunt” of “the collapse of the health system".

The commission cites the case of five-year-old Hind Rajab, whose car was hit as she and her family tried to flee bombing. Several family members were killed, but Hind managed to phone the Palestinian Red Crescent for help. The ambulance trying to reach her was also shelled, and Hind, her family, and the ambulance crew all died.

The commission says the attacks on the healthcare system have “inflicted conditions of life resulting in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group”.

The report alleges Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, have subjected Israeli hostages to "physical violence, abuse, sexual violence, forced isolation, limited access to hygiene facilities, water and food, threats and humiliation".

It calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the remaining hostages.

The report also expresses concern about the treatment of thousands of Palestinian detainees, some of them children.

Israeli security forces have subjected them to systematic abuse, including torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, the reports alleges.

It directly names Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, saying the abuse took place “under direct orders” from him.

The report contains detailed evidence and adds to growing concerns, reflected in a case at the International Court of Justice and investigations by the International Criminal Court, at the conduct of the widening war in the Middle East.

The war began after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 42,060 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.


UN Security Council members warn Israel over laws curbing UNRWA

AFP
Wed, October 9, 2024 

All UN Security Council members that spoke were unanimous in calling for Israel to respect UNRWA's work and to protect its staff (Eyad BABA) (Eyad BABA/AFP/AFP)


Members of the United Nations Security council warned Israel on Wednesday against proceeding with a law aimed at curbing the UN's Palestinian refugees agency.

Israel has long been at odds with the agency known as UNRWA and alleged that some of its employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks that triggered the war in Gaza.

The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, approved two bills on Sunday essentially aimed at ending UNRWA's activity and privileges in Israel. These bills were quickly condemned by UN chief Antonio Guterres.

Washington's envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Wednesday that the United States was "following with deep concern the Israeli legislative proposal that could alter UNRWA's legal status."

She said it risked "hindering its ability to communicate with Israeli officials and removing privileges and immunities afforded to UN organizations and personnel around the globe."

Algeria, which along with Slovenia called the emergency Security Council meeting on the crisis in the Palestinian territories, said "for years, the Israeli authorities has made clear its desire, its will to dismantle UNRWA."

"It symbolizes the Palestinian refugees and their inviolable rights. We reiterate that the rights of Palestinian refugees are not subject to statutes of limitation," said Amar Bendjama, ambassador of non-permanent Security Council member Algeria.

- UN's 'greatest success'? -

All UN Security Council members that spoke were unanimous in calling for Israel to respect UNRWA's work and to protect its staff.

"Senior Israeli officials have described destroying UNRWA as a war goal," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warned the Security Council, noting that 226 UNRWA personnel have been killed in 12 months.

"Legislation to end our operations is ready for final adoption by the Israeli Knesset.

"It seeks to ban UNRWA's presence and operations in the territory of Israel, revoking its privileges and immunities, in violation of international law.

"If the bills are adopted, the consequences will be severe. Operationally, the entire humanitarian response in Gaza -- which rests on UNRWA's infrastructure -- may disintegrate."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that he had written to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning the legislation "could prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory."

The Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour told the Security Council that "we totally support UNRWA and what Lazzarini said and take it very seriously, and honor what is a very indispensable organization that should be protected by all means."

"It is the greatest success story in the history of the United Nations," Mansour said.

UNRWA was created in 1949 to support Palestinian refugees across several countries.

An internal probe published in August found that nine employees "may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October" on Israel.

"Yes we work with UN agencies," Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told the security council.

"We are willing and able to work on the ground.

"Compare our efforts to the failures of UNRWA... UNRWA Gaza has allowed Hams to infiltrate its ranks.

"The organization is beyond repair."

Lebanon envoy urges pressure on Israel to end military campaigns, allow humanitarian relief

Emma Farge
Thu, October 10, 2024

FILE PHOTO: Scenes of destruction in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip


By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) - Lebanon and other states called for more pressure on Israel to end its military campaigns in the Middle East at a meeting at the U.N. in Geneva on Thursday, saying that it was repeating its Gaza methods in Lebanon with catastrophic consequences.

Pakistan, as head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, hosted the meeting to examine the humanitarian situation a year into the Gaza war, triggered by the Hamas-led attack in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Addressing assembled U.N. officials and ambassadors, the Palestinian ambassador said the pain of a year of conflict in Gaza was "indescribable", while Lebanon's envoy accused Israel of using the "same sinister playbook" in his country as in Gaza.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed over 42,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, and reduced much of the coastal enclave to rubble.

Since Israel intensified its military actions against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah last month, more than 1,000 people have been killed and one million have fled their homes, Lebanon authorities say.

Israel says it targets military capabilities in Lebanon and Gaza and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians in both places. It accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.

Its campaign against the more heavily-armed Hezbollah aims to secure the return home of Israelis evacuated from areas near the border as a result of nearly a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel in support of Hamas.

"As these atrocities keep unfolding we have the right to ask ourselves after one year: what is the real and ultimate goal of this?," Lebanon's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Salim Baddoura said.

"There is a pressing necessity for the international community to forcibly push for a ceasefire and uninhibited humanitarian relief," he added, warning of the risk of all-out war in the region.

South Africa's envoy Mxolisi Nkosi described Gaza as an "apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe", echoing remarks by U.N. agencies who decried safety risks and difficulties delivering aid there. Turkey's ambassador Burak Akçapar called for a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. "We cannot see the Israeli (military) objectives being clearly defined," he added.

The meeting was also attended by many Western ambassadors, including from the U.S. and Britain. Israel did not attend.

Several countries called for a two-state solution after the Israel-Hamas conflict, an outcome that Turkey and Spain said was unworkable as long as many countries refuse to recognise Palestine.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Editing by William Maclean)