By Countercurrents Collective
Nine weeks of war have left Gaza unfit for human habitation, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said on Thursday. With hunger rampant and UN shelters crammed to capacity, the organization demanded an immediate end to Israel’s siege of the enclave.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, the commissioner-general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, described how Israel’s ground operation in Gaza has pushed more than a million refugees south to the city of Rafah.
The head of the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said conditions in Gaza were “a living hell”.
“There is no more food to buy, even for those who can pay. In the shops, the shelves are empty,” he said.
“Rafah is the epicenter of the displacement,” Lazzarini said. “One [UN] warehouse that became a shelter is home to 30,000 people. The lucky ones have made it inside our premises. The others have absolutely nowhere to go. They live in the open, in the cold, in the mud, and under the rain. Everywhere you look is congested with makeshift shelters. Everywhere you go people are desperate, hungry, and are terrified.”
At the start of its bombing campaign in October, Israel urged residents of Gaza City – located in the north of the enclave – to migrate south for their own safety. Those who complied then had to push further south when Israeli planes began bombing the city of Khan Younis, and with Israeli ground troops now pushing into both cities, Rafah remains the only relatively safe area in the entire strip.
The influx into Rafah has quadrupled the city’s population and strained resources in what was already the poorest sector of Gaza, Lazzarini said. Israel’s near-total siege has caused shortages of food and water, and humanitarian agencies have complained that the convoys of aid trucks allowed through the Egypt-Rafah crossing cannot meet the needs of millions of people.
“Over the last few weeks we met more and more people who have not eaten in one, two, or three days,” Lazzarini noted, describing how trucks carrying food are often unable to make it to UN shelters and distribution points. “People are stopping aid trucks, taking the food, and eating it right away,” he added.
“Every time I go back [to Gaza], I always think it cannot get worse, but every time I see more misery, more grief, more sadness, and have the feeling that Gaza is not really a habitable place anymore,” the UN official told reporters.
“What is happening in Gaza should outrage anyone,” Lazzarini stated, insisting that only an immediate lifting of the Israeli siege followed by the “uninterrupted, unconditional flow of commodities” into the strip will reverse the declining humanitarian situation.
Lynn Hastings, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday that the war threatened peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis for years or even decades to come
She said the hostilities had pushed almost half of Gaza’s population – or about a million people – into Rafah in the south, compounding the dire health and hunger crisis.
People seeking safety in overcrowded shelters in Gaza are facing the spread of infectious diseases as well as inadequate food, water and basic services.
Al-Nasser hospital in southern Gaza, close to heavy fighting and airstrikes in Khan Younis, gave the names of 45 people killed, CNN reported.
Medical staff at al-Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, also in southern Gaza, said 19 bodies were recovered after two houses in the area were hit by airstrikes, the network said.
Earlier Wednesday, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 18,608 people have been killed and 50,594 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.
There is rain in Gaza. Parts of Gaza were flooded on Wednesday, after a night of heavy rains and strong winds.
The rainwater soaked and damaged the tents of people already displaced by Israeli offensives, exacerbating Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
At least 85% of Gaza’s population of 2 million have been displaced since fighting started in October, raising urgent concerns about the spread of disease, as well as scarce supplies of water, electricity and food.
Among those caught in the open was Ameen Edwan, camped with thousands of others in the grounds of al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza, who said his family had been unable to sleep.
“Rainwater seeped in. We could not sleep,” he told the AFP news agency. “We tried to find nylon covers but couldn’t find any so we resorted to stones and sand” to keep the rain out.
Hamas operatives attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking roughly 240 hostages. In the nine weeks since, Israeli strikes have killed 18,787 people in Gaza and injured more than 50,000, according to figures released on Thursday by the Gaza Health Ministry. Some 135 UNRWA staff have been killed, and Israeli strikes on the agency’s schools, clinics, and offices have killed 270 people and wounded more than 1,000, Lazzarini said on Thursday. According to a UN report released on Tuesday, almost a fifth of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed during the Israeli campaign. Hospitals in Gaza reported an uptick in civilian casualties on Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said.
U.S. Pushes For ‘More Precise’ Military Operations In Gaza To Save Civilians
Media reports said:
U.S. President Joe Biden on Israel: “I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas but be more careful.”
White House security envoy has talks with Netanyahu about military operations shifting to more precise, more targeted phase.
A Reuters report said:
A U.S. security envoy discussed with Israeli officials on Thursday how to better protect civilians during their war against Hamas in Gaza and President Joe Biden appealed for lives in the Palestinian territory to be saved.
Israel pounded the 25-mile (40-kilometer) length of Gaza, killing families in their homes as the more than two-month-old conflict raged across the entire enclave, causing a humanitarian catastrophe with little end in sight.
“It will last more than several months – but we will win and we will destroy them,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told visiting White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan said in an Israeli TV interview that he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about when Israel will shift from high-intensity military operations to a more precise, more targeted phase.
Sullivan did not provide a specific timeline or elaborate on what such operations would look like, although he said Israel was expected to continue its military campaign for some time.
“The issue really is, when does Israel shift from the high-intensity military operations that are under way today to a different phase of this conflict. One that’s more precise, more targeted,” Sullivan said on Israel’s Channel 12 television.
The occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip need to be connected under a “revamped and revitalized” Palestinian Authority government, Sullivan said.
On Friday, Sullivan would discuss revamping the Palestinian Authority and holding “extremist” Jewish settlers accountable for violence against Palestinians when he visits Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, a U.S. official said.
U.S. President Joe Biden, asked whether he wanted Israel to scale back its assault on the Gaza Strip by the end of the year, said: “I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas but be more careful.”
Washington has been pushing Israel for weeks to do more to protect civilians in Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Israel launched its campaign in retaliation for a rampage by Hamas, the Iran-backed group that rules Gaza, whose fighters killed 1,200 Israelis and seized 240 hostages in a cross-border raid on Oct. 7.
Since then, Israeli forces have besieged the coastal strip and laid much of it to waste, with nearly 19,000 people confirmed dead, according to Palestinian health officials, and thousands more feared buried under the rubble.
People Jammed In Makeshift Tents
In the Rafah area, jammed with people in makeshift tents on Gaza’s southern edge, people wept at a morgue near bodies wrapped in bloodied shrouds.
Residents picked forlornly through the rubble of the adjacent homes of the Abu Dhbaa and Ashour families where Gaza health authorities said 26 people had been killed.
Neighbour Fadel Shabaan rushed to the area after the bombing. “It was difficult because of the dust and people’s screams,” he said. “This is a safe camp, there is nothing here, the children play soccer in the street.”
With Europe on alert for Islamist threats linked to the war, authorities in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands said seven people, including four suspected Hamas members, were arrested on suspicion of planning attacks on Jewish institutions.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri denied Hamas members were arrested, saying the reports were meant to erode support for Palestinians in Europe.
In further possible international fallout from the war, Danish company Maersk said a cargo ship was targeted by a missile off Yemen. A Maersk spokesperson said the vessel was not hit, denying a claim by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement that the militia made a drone strike on a Maersk vessel sailing towards Israel.
Maritime security company Ambrey said a Malta-flagged, Bulgarian-owned bulk carrier was reportedly boarded in the Arabian Sea near the Yemeni island of Socotra.
Yemen’s Houthi group, which has warned cargo ships in the Red Sea to avoid travel toward Israel, has attacked vessels and fired drones and missiles at Israel since the Gaza war began.
Nearly all of Gaza’s residents have been forced from their homes, many several times.
The U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency said hungry people were stopping trucks and eating food aid immediately. “We meet more and more people who haven’t eaten for one, two or three days,” its head Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva.
People in Gaza described begging for bread, paying 50 times more than usual for a single can of beans and slaughtering a donkey to feed a large family.
‘Revenge’
Israel has extended its ground campaign from the north to the south this month.
In the main southern city Khan Younis, where advancing Israeli forces reached the centre this week, a whole city block was bombed overnight to dust. Though most people fled after Israeli warnings, neighbours digging with a hand shovel believed four people were inside. One body was recovered.
“May God take revenge on them,” said Nesmah al-Byouk, returning to the ruins of the home she had fled three days ago. “We came and saw everything destroyed … Where we can we go to now?”
In the north, fighting has escalated even after Israel announced its troops had largely completed their military objectives last month.
The Israeli military said its troops had dismantled a Hamas operating site in a school in the Shejaia area and destroyed two tunnel shafts, a rocket launch pit and a weapons storage facility in Khan Younis.
Elsewhere in the north in Jabalia, Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli forces had stormed a hospital, detaining and abusing medical staff and preventing them from treating wounded patients, at least two of whom had died.
Israel’s military said fighters had been operating inside the hospital, 70 of whom had surrendered.
The White House On The Defensive
Other media reports said:
The White House went on the defensive over President Joe Biden’s comments to Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” and that Netanyahu should change his hard-right dominated government. U.S. security spokesman John Kirby was evasive at a press briefing when asked if Biden’s comments were the official position of the US government.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant acknowledged the differences with the U.S. but said he was confident the two sides would find a way for Israel’s military operation to continue. Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen said earlier that his country would continue its war in Gaza “with or without international support”.
U.S. Made Rifles Sale Delayed
The Biden administration is delaying the sale of more than 20,000 U.S.-made rifles to Israel over concerns about attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, two sources familiar with the matter have said. The state department sent an informal notification for the sale to Congress several weeks ago but the sale has not gone ahead, despite being cleared by Senate and House committees.
A former U.S. official familiar with the sale said on Wednesday:
Other members of Congress became aware of this case, and reached out to the administration to demand they obtain assurances from Israel that the firearms will not go to settlers.
The administration has been engaged with Israel in trying to get satisfactory assurances in that regard prior to formally notifying it. Under the license as drafted, these firearms can also go to Israeli police units about which the department has significant human rights concerns.
The state department did not have a comment on the sale. The Biden administration is specifically worried that some of the rifles could end up in the hands of Israeli settlers, the two sources said.
President Joe Biden and other senior US officials have warned repeatedly that Israel must act to stop settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The administration last week began imposing visa bans on people it said were involved in the violence, which this year has risen to its highest level in more than 15 years.
Israel’s Combat Loss
Israel has announced its worst combat losses in six weeks after an ambush in the ruins of Gaza, saying on Wednesday that 10 of its soldiers had been killed over the past 24 hours. Two senior Israeli commanders and seven other soldiers were killed by Hamas in a complex ambush in the Gaza City suburb of Shejaiya, in one of the most lethal incidents for Israeli soldiers during the two-month-long war.
Most of the deaths came in the Shejaia district of Gaza City in the north, where troops were ambushed trying to rescue another group of soldiers who had attacked Hamas fighters in a building, the military said.
Hamas said the episode showed that Israeli forces could never subdue Gaza.
In a televised address, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said any future arrangement in Gaza without Hamas was a “delusion”.
Polls in recent weeks show overwhelming backing for the war despite the rising human costs. Six Israelis who spoke to Reuters on Wednesday said now was not the time back down, regardless of fading global sympathy reflected in Tuesday’s UN resolution.
Israel’s army website was briefly hacked on Wednesday by a pro-Palestinian group that warned of more attacks against Israeli forces, including further cyber-attacks.
In a short letter that covered the main page of the Israeli army website, the group, calling itself “Anonymous Jo”, said the military’s “arrogance and injustice toward our people in Gaza will only harm you through terror, killing and war, whether by land, air or electronically”, Associated Press reports.
The letter went on to call for the “liberation of Palestine”.
The Israeli army confirmed the hack.
Little is known about Anonymous Jo, although the group or individual behind the attack indicated they were of Jordanian origin. One of the lines read:
From your brothers in Jordan to our people in Gaza and Palestine.
Family members of Israeli hostages held in Gaza say they are “shocked” by a report that Israel’s war cabinet has decided against sending the head of Mossad to Qatar for negotiations on a new hostage deal and are demanding an “immediate explanation” from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel is reporting.
The Times of Israel said Israel’s Channel 13 news reported that Mossad chief David Barnea, who helped negotiate last month’s hostage-release deal, had offered to go to Qatar again but the war cabinet decided against sending him amid cabinet disagreements over efforts being made on talks towards a new agreement.
Israel has said it believes nearly 140 people remain captive after being seized during Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel.
Ceasefire Discussion
Discussions over a possible ceasefire hit a dead end, according to a “senior US official” quoted by CNN. The news network said Qatar, which helped broker the previous week-long pause in hostilities that led to the release of more than 100 hostages, had been active in pursuing a new deal but Hamas had “not been responsive”.
Arab Neighbours’ Economic Cost Of War
A UN study said economic cost of the war on Arab neighbours Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan could rise to at least $10bn (£7.9bn) this year and push more than 230,000 people into poverty. The cost for the three states in terms of loss of GDP may amount to $10.3bn, or 2.3%, and could double if the conflict lasts another six months, the UN development program (UNDP) paper reveals.
Jordan, which borders the occupied West Bank, has a large Palestinian population and the public is very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.
Israel’s Existence
The sense of the people is that this is a threat to the very existence of Israel.
Hermann, of the Israel Democracy Institute, which conducts regular opinion polls on the war, said people were prepared for more deaths of soldiers.
Speaking in Jerusalem, retired former IT worker Ben Zion Levinger said Israel’s enemies would view any slowdown in fighting Hamas as a sign of weakness.
If we do not take this fight to the end, then tomorrow morning we will have battles in the north and in the east and the south and maybe Iran. Therefore, we have no choice.
Israeli Military Raid In Jenin
The Israeli military carried out a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian news agency Wafa said seven Palestinians were killed and there were a “number of wounded civilians with various injuries”.
Pope Renews Call For Ceasefire
Pope Francis renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire, saying “may this great suffering for the Israelis and the Palestinians be over”.
Ceasefire Protest In Los Angeles
Police in Los Angeles arrested a group of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza after they shut down a busy stretch of freeway in the city’s downtown.
The U.S. has seen a slew of major protests about the war since the conflict began in October. At least 50 people were arrested in Washington DC on Monday at a protest calling for the US to push for a permanent ceasefire.
In California, hundreds of people assembled outside the office of the US senator Alex Padilla on Tuesday to demand an immediate ceasefire. Last month, a demonstration in Los Angeles shut down a portion of Hollywood Boulevard, while in San Francisco dozens of protesters calling for a ceasefire were arrested after blocking traffic on the Bay Bridge.
Video posted by IfNotNow, the group behind Wednesday’s protest in LA, showed people singing as they linked arms in front of stopped cars while wearing shirts that read “not in our name” and “Jews say ceasefire now”.
15 December 2023
Source: countercurrents.org