Just International

Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” escalate economic war against the world

By Nick Beams

The imposition of the new US tariff regime unveiled by President Trump yesterday is a declaration of economic war against the rest of the world.

It has been driven forward by two interconnected objectives. On the economic front, it seeks to extract hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff hikes, ultimately paid for by US companies and consumers, to shore up the ever-worsening trade and financial position of the US, while weakening its global economic rivals, particularly China, to improve its trade position.

It also aims to enhance US military capacity by using tariffs to force companies, foreign and domestic, to increase the level of their operations on American soil, much of which is needed to supply the military.

Under the new regime, the US will impose “reciprocal tariffs” on a range of countries. The tariff is not determined by the tariff actually charged on US exports.

Rather, a number has been assigned to each of the countries involved. This includes not only the tariff charged on US exports, but all measures such as subsidies, regulations, bio-security measures for agricultural products, and the value of the currency, which the US considers to have the same effect as a tariff in discriminating against the US.

The reciprocal tariff to be charged has been set at half that number. Thus, for China, a key target of the new regime, the number assigned to it by US economic officials is 67, and the reciprocal tariff will be 34 percent. This will be on top of the 20 percent tariff already imposed on Chinese goods, bringing the total tariff level to 54 percent.

One of the immediate effects of the tariff hike, set to come into effect on April 9, will be a major price increase for a vast range of goods made in China and purchased by American consumers.

The European Union, which Trump has denounced as an organisation set up to “screw” the US, has been assigned the number 39, and the tariff impost will be 20 percent.

Southeast Asian countries—a number of which have become a center of manufacturing operations for many companies seeking to escape the effect of trade bans on China—will be hit even harder. The tariff for Thailand will be 36 percent, Malaysia 24 percent and Vietnam 46 percent.

The tariff for South Korea, already hit by the 25 percent tariff on “foreign-made” cars, which came into effect at midnight, will be 25 percent. And the list goes on.

All countries not hit with a “reciprocal tariff” will have a 10 percent tariff imposed on their exports, in a measure aimed, in part, at preventing companies from transferring some of their operations to countries not specifically targeted by the US. Now there is nowhere in the world they can go.

Trump began his presentation of the new tariff regime in the White House Rose Garden with his now customary rant against the rest of the world.

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” he said, remarking later that in some cases friends had been worse than foes.

“For years, hard-working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense, but now it’s our turn to prosper.”

However, the repeated claims by Trump that the tariff measures are going to produce a new golden age for the US are a fiction. They will not bring down inflation but raise prices on a vast range of goods. The auto tariffs are set to raise prices on cars from anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000.

Thousands of jobs will be lost, and any new plants set up in the US will be highly automated, with a small labour force to cut costs.

Furthermore, the so-called “American-made” is non-existent. Every car in the world, including in the US, is the product of a complex international division of labour. For example, the Ford F-150 pickup truck, one of the standard bearers for what is regarded as an “American” car, comprises thousands of parts imported from all over the world.

Trump claims the new tariff regime is a magic cure-all that is going to both pay down US government debt and reduce the trade deficit.

But estimates of the expected tariff revenue, according to Capital Economics, are that at most, it will bring in around $800 billion.

The interest bill alone on the US debt, now at around $36 trillion and rising, is $1 trillion every year as it fast becomes the biggest item in the budget.

The trade policies of the Trump administration are internally contradictory. On the one hand, it wants to expand US export markets by weakening the value of the US dollar, thereby making American goods cheaper in world markets. But maintenance of its reserve currency status, which Trump regards as an existential issue for the US—losing it, he has said, would be the equivalent of losing a war—depends on a strong dollar.

Moreover, however much Trump harks back to President William McKinley and his tariff regime at the turn of the 20th century, the US economy has long outgrown its national borders and is dependent on an expanding global economy.

But the global economy, already experiencing some of the lowest growth in decades, is now about to take another major blow. According to calculations published earlier this week in the Financial Times, the overall hit to the world economy could be in the order of $1.4 trillion if, as is virtually certain, there is retaliation.

On top of this, there is growing nervousness in financial markets—already in a fragile condition because of the rise in global debt—both of governments and corporations.

This was expressed in the letter by Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm, to shareholders this week. He said, “protectionism has returned in force” and that in his conversations, people were “more anxious about the economy than at any time in recent memory.”

Recent memory, it should be noted, includes the global financial crisis of 2008 and the financial crisis of March 2020, which saw the freezing of the US Treasury bond market.

Trump is imposing the sweeping tariff regime under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, passed under the Democratic Carter administration, which gives him the power to declare a national emergency if there is an “unusual and extraordinary” threat from outside the US that impacts national security, foreign policy or the economy.

The so-called Fact Sheet issued by the White House said the national emergency was the result of the large and persistent trade deficit. It was $918 billion in 2024, an increase of 17 percent from the previous year.

The White House statement made clear that military considerations are a central driving force of the new tariff regime. The “reciprocal tariffs” are directed against countries “with which the US has the largest trade deficits,” but virtually every time economic matters are raised in the document, they are linked with military issues.

It said that “pernicious” economic policies and practices of trading partners undermined US ability to produce goods for the public “and the military, threatening national security.”

“‘Made in America’,” it declared, “is not just a tagline—it’s an economic and national security priority of this administration.”

US stockpiles of military goods were “too low to be compatible with national defense interests,” and developments in bio-manufacturing, batteries and microelectronics had to be made “to support defense needs.”

Explaining the focus on non-tariff barriers, particularly with regard to China, it said they had not only undermined US competitiveness but threatened “US economic and national security by increasing our reliance on foreign-controlled supply chains for critical industries, as well as everyday goods.”

The Fact Sheet outlined the central core of the economic war.

“Today’s IEEPA Order,” it said, “also contains modification authority, allowing President Trump to increase the tariff if trading partners retaliate or decrease the tariffs if trading partners take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align with the United States on economic and national security matters.”

In other words, get in line or you will be hit—and even harder if you lift a finger.

The tariff measures are not just a preparation for war—they are certainly that, and in earlier times could have been considered an act of war. Today, the lines between the states of war and peace are blurred, as the war on the economic front is tied directly to the expansionist drive of US imperialism—the threats to make Canada the 51st state, the ongoing operations to take over Greenland, and the increased bombing of the Houthis in Yemen, to name just a few.

3 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Israel’s execution of 15 medical personnel is unprecedented in recent history; crime demands immediate accountability

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – The international community must hold Israeli officials andresponsible individuals accountable for the deliberate killing of 15 paramedics and first responders from the Palestinian Red Crescent and Civil Defence. The victims—killed by the Israeli military in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip—also include an employee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). This killing is part of Israel’s widespread and systematic attacks on humanitarian, medical, and UN workers, all of whom are protected by international law.

According to field evidence, Israeli forces killed eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, five Civil Defence personnel, and one UNRWA employee; all were on duty at the time of their targeting. The crime has been referred to as “the largest mass execution of humanitarian workers in the history of modern warfare”.Following the total destruction of the workers’vehicles, the majority of their bodies were subsequently interred in a deep pit that was then filled with sand. This horrifying scene serves as further evidence of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and is a major crime that is a serious breach of international humanitarian law.

The crime is just one of a string of intentional assaults that have been directed at humanitarian and medical workers since 7 October 2023. Since then, Israel has killed over 1,400 medical personnel, 27 Red Crescent paramedics, and 111 Civil Defence personnel as part of a systematic campaign to destroy the Gaza Strip’s health and relief infrastructure to kill Palestinians, while simultaneously aiming to destroy their means of subsistence as well.

A Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance left Rafah’s Hashash neighbourhood early on Sunday (23 March 2025) to evacuate injured individuals who had been hit by Israeli attacks. However, the medical staff inside the ambulance suffered injuries themselves as a result of the Israeli occupation forces’ intense fire. Three more ambulances were sent to evacuate the injured, including the crew members hurt in the initial attack, as the situation worsened. The area was thenabruptly surrounded by a strict security cordon by the occupation forces, which has since cut off all communication with medical personnel.

That same day, a Civil Defence rescue team in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood received urgent calls to travel to al-Hashash area. The calls stated that Israeli occupation forces had unexpectedly invaded the area, killing and injuring dozens of people and trapping medical personnel. Though the call was answered by a team of six Civil Defence personnel, communication with the team was lost shortlyafter they left to do their job.

One of the crew members was severely beaten by the Israeli occupation forces and then released that evening. The rest—the UNRWA employee, five Civil Defence personnel, and eight Red Crescent paramedics—were killed.

Additional ambulance and Civil Defence crews were able to reach the scene on Friday 28March, following international coordination, and discovered the mission leader, Civil Defence officer Anwar Abdul Hamid al-Attar, dead, with his body shredded. The rescue crews that arrived Friday also found all of the Red Crescent vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances completely reduced to charred metal.

Despite being protected by international humanitarian law, the paramedics were directly targeted, as evidenced by the ripped remains of the safety gear discovered at the crime scene. Additionally, evidence shows that theIsraeli occupying forces not only killed the victims, but also covered up their crime byusing bulldozers and other large equipment tobury the bodies in a mass grave.

The bodies of the eight Red Crescent paramedics were recovered by rescue crews on Sunday 30 March 2025, the first day of Eid al-Fitr. One crew member is still missing, and is thought to be being held by the Israeli military. The bodies of the UNRWA employee and five Civil Defence personnel were also discovered on 30 March.

The Palestinian Red Crescent has identified the following victims: Mohammed Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Labda, Mohammed Al-Hila, Raed Al-Sharif, Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, and Refaat Radwan. The victims from the Civil Defence are Yousef Rasem Khalifa (ambulance officer), Fouad Ibrahim Al-Jamal (ambulance driver), Ibrahim Nabil Al-Maghari (firefighter officer), Samir Yahya Al-Bahabsa (firefighter officer), and Zuhair Abdul Hamid Al-Farra (firefighter driver). The victim who worked for UNRWA is Kamal Mohammed Shahtout.

“As soon as the incident occurred, we entered the site west of Rafah with OCHA crews,”Sufyan Ahmed, a member of the Civil Defence team involved in the effort to recover the victims’ bodies, said in a statement to Euro-Med Monitor. “The Israeli army told OCHA that the bodies of the victims were found next to a fire truck and an electrical pole. Using a small bulldozer, we started our excavation at the spot the army had designated. One body was discovered. After examining it, it was determined to be the body of the mission leader, Anwar Abdel Hamid al-Attar.”

He continued: “We used OCHA to get in touch with the army and enquire about the whereabouts of the other bodies. They replied that the bodies were in the same hole from which we had taken al-Attar’s body, next to the electrical pole. We dug deeper into the hole and kept looking, but we could not find anything. We then had to leave the site because the army had given us a limited amount of time.

“We went to the site the following day and waited at a nearby location, awaiting the army’s approval to enter,” he added. “After roughly five hours, we were told that entry was refused, so we departed. The following day, we anticipated being granted access to the site, but were still denied permission. After a few days of waiting, we received approval yesterday, Sunday, and were able to access the site. We were told that the army would stay with us until they told us where the bodies were interred so that we could start the excavation process.”

Explained Ahmed: “When we got to the site, a quadcopter was flying overhead, showing us where the bodies were buried. We received a sign pointing to the graveyard from the drone. We were shocked to learn that the designated site was far from the one where we had previously been informed the bodies were interred. At that moment, we recognised that they had been attempting to delay, procrastinate, and waste our time the first [few days]. We, the Civil Defence staff (two paramedics and two drivers), convened briefly after the new location was determined to devise a strategy for safely retrieving the bodies. We had prior experience on similar missions and had the required equipment.

“We started digging right away, discovered a body, and recovered it. We dug out another body that we found underneath. We then found a third body underneath. We dug further until all of the Red Crescent and Civil Defence personnel’s bodies were found in the same hole. The body of an UNRWA employee was the only one still missing. We asked OCHA about its location, and they told us that it was close to the ‘barracks’ area, west of Rafah.

The bodies had distinct features, but they were in the early stages of decomposition. When they were examined, it was evident that a barrage of bullets had struck them. Based on my observations, the injuries were located in the chest region. A closer look revealed that some of the victims had still been alive despite their injuries—they were apparently buried alive with their feet bound.

“Among the bodies we looked at was Ibrahim al-Maghari’s. His body was covered in severe bruises and showed evidence of torture, and his legs seemed bound. After being shot in the back of the head, his face was completely ripped apart. Regarding Fouad al-Jamal’s body, he was shot in the head from a very close distance, causing his skull to shatter,[giving the appearance of] crushed bones. We discovered that every employee of the Palestinian Red Crescent had been shot in the left and right sides of the head.

After getting permission from the Israeli army, we removed the bodies with immense grief and suffering, moved them to ambulances, and left the site for the hospital.”

Ahmed went on, “We saw bags, blankets, clothing, and other items belonging to thousands of citizens who had been displaced that day, when we first arrived at the scene of the incident and collected the body of Anwar al-Attar. However, these items were absent when we returned to the site a few days later, indicating that the incident site had been altered and tampered with.”

He affirmed: “We were joined by a Red Cross delegation and a forensic physician with expertise in autopsies when the bodies were recovered. Along with documentation experts, we were joined by a delegation from UNRWA and OCHA. All of them observed the process of recovery.”

Another Civil Defence crew’s testimony, which was obtained by Euro-Med Monitor, claimsthat the victims were cruelly tortured and killed by the occupation forces. The body of one Civil Defence member was wearing handcuffs, while others were discovered in a state of partial undress, and additional victims were found to have suffered from extreme torturethat led to their deaths, such as having more than 20 bullets fired into their chest. Most of the victims’ bodies were discovered in a mass grave that was two to three metres deep, thistestimony confirms, suggesting that Israeli soldiers forced the victims out of their cars, killed them in cold blood, and then buried them to hide any evidence of the crime.

The Geneva Conventions, which provide protection for medical personnel, relief and humanitarian workers, and United Nations personnel, are gravely violated by this heinous crime, which also blatantly violates international humanitarian law. This is one of many full-fledged war crimes committed by Israel as part of its genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The international community must take prompt legal action and hold Israel and its allies accountable, as Israel is clearly attempting toeradicate the Strip’s Palestinian population, either by killing them directly or by destroying the institutions that support their existence—the gravest possible crimes.

All states must swiftly launch international criminal investigations to bring every perpetrator to justice. This includes using national courts to hold their own citizens accountable for any crimes related to Israel’s genocide, as well as supporting the International Criminal Court’s work and assisting the Court in any way possible, such as by issuing arrest warrants and turning over any criminals to the appropriate authorities. In order for states to fulfil their responsibilities under international law, Israeli citizens or dual citizens who have committed crimes against the Palestinian people must be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Every state, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their binding legal obligations and act quickly to end the genocide in the Gaza Strip. Since this is a fundamental, non-negotiable right of a population under international law, states should take all reasonable steps to protect Palestinian civilians in the Strip; protect medical, humanitarian, and UN personnel there; lift the blockade on the enclave; and permit the immediate and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid. There is no legal exception that would permit Israel to deny this aid to the Palestinian people.

The international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel due to its egregious and ongoing violations of international law. These sanctionsshould include a travel ban; a freeze on the financial assets of officials linked to crimes against Palestinians; a suspension of military cooperation; and a ban on arms sales to—and purchases from—Israel. In addition, trade privileges and bilateral agreements that give Israel economic advantages and allow it to carry out crimes against Palestinians must besuspended as part of these sanctions.

The United States and other nations that give Israel any kind of support or assistance in connection with the commission of itsegregious crimes, including aid and contractual relationships in the military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other areas that contribute to the persistence of such crimes, should be held accountable and prosecuted.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

2 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

New Episode of Israeli-Made Starvation in Gaza: All Bakeries Forced to Close

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- All bakeries in the Gaza Strip have been forced to close due to Israel’s blockade on food and essential supplies, amid ongoing bombardment that has killed over 1,000 Palestinians.

Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami, the head of Gaza’s bakery owners’ association, announced on Tuesday that bakeries had shut as a result of lack of fuel and flour.

“The World Food Programme [WFP] informed us today that flour had run out in its warehouses,” Ajrami said.

“Bakeries will no longer operate until the [Israeli] occupation opens the crossings and allows the necessary supplies to enter.”

The WFP supports the running of 19 bakeries in the enclave. Their closures will worsen a starvation and malnutrition crisis that has devastated Gaza’s two million residents.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that the WFP was closing its remaining 19 bakeries after shuttering six others last month. She said that hundreds of thousands of people relied on them.

For four weeks, since March 1, Israeli forces have closed off the supply of all sources of food, fuel, medicine and essentials into the Palestinian enclave. It’s the longest continuous such blockade since war began 18 months ago.

“All entry points into Gaza are closed. At the border, food is rotting. Medicine is expiring. Vital medical equipment is stuck,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian chief.

“If the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act to uphold them.”

The four weeks coincided with the holy month of Ramadan and the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

A WFP memo circulated to aid groups on Monday said that it could no longer operate its remaining bakeries, which produce the pita bread on which many rely. The UN agency said that it was prioritizing its remaining stocks to provide emergency food aid and expand hot meal distribution.

2 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Iran to give crushing response to US if it commits evil acts

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei delivered a speech at the Grand Mosalla mosque of Tehran where he led this year’s Eid al-Fitr prayers.

At the beginning of his speech, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution offered feliciations on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, as well as the Eid al-Fitr.

He also hailed the Iranian nation’s turnout in this year’s International Quds Day rallies across the country.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Leader referred to the ongoing barbaric actions of the Israeli regime throughout the region, considering the Israeli bloodshed of innocent people a bitter incident for Muslims.

He went on to say that the assassination of officials is a common practice of the Israeli regime, which is backed by the US and Western governments.

The Leader added that Israel is committing genocide and, if given the opportunity, it will invade other countries’ territories, just as it invaded Syria as the proxy force of the colonizers.

“The Zionist regime, this criminal group, must be eradicated from Palestine; and by God’s grace and power, it will be eradicated.”

“There is only one proxy force in this region, and that is the corrupt usurper Zionist regime. The Zionist regime invades countries on behalf of the colonialists,” he stressed.

He stressed that if enemies commit evil against Iran, they will definitely receive a strong and reciprocal blow. “And If they seek to create sedition within the country, the (Iranian) nation itself will (give a proper) answer to them.”

MP/

31 March 2025

Source: en.mehrnews.com

New US airstrike campaign targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels more intense than last, AP review finds

By Jon Gambrell

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new American airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels appears more intense and more extensive, as the U.S. moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in city neighborhoods, an Associated Press review of the operation shows.

The pattern under U.S. President Donald Trump reflects a departure from the Biden administration, which limited its strikes as Arab allies tried to reach a separate peace with the group. It comes after the Iran-backed Houthis threatened to resume attacking “any Israeli vessel” and have repeatedly fired at Israel over the country’s refusal to allow aid into the Gaza Strip.

The Houthi attacks and the response to them have drawn new scrutiny in Washington after security officials in Trump’s administration shared plans for the first round of strikes on the rebels in a group chat that included a journalist. But bombing alone may not be enough to stop the Houthis, whose earlier barrage of missile fire toward the U.S. Navy represented the most intense combat it had seen since World War II.

“Folks that say, ‘We’ll go in there and take out everyone with the last name Houthi and we’ll win.’ The Houthi leadership has been taken out in history in the past, and they are resilient,” retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan said. “They came back and they grew stronger. So this isn’t something that is a one-and-done.”

Meanwhile, concerns are growing over civilians being caught in the middle of the campaign. While the U.S. military has not acknowledged any civilian casualties since the strikes began over a week ago, activists fear strikes may have killed noncombatants already in territory tightly controlled by the Houthis.

“Just because you can’t see civilian harm doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” warned Emily Tripp, the director of the U.K.-based group Airwars, which studies Western airstrike campaigns.

A new, intense U.S. airstrike campaign shakes Yemen

The Trump campaign began March 15. American warships fired cruise missiles while fighter jets flying off of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier dropped bombs on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, a nation on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that is the Arab world’s poorest.

“No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World,” Trump said in a social media post announcing the campaign, days after his administration reimposed a “foreign terrorist organization” designation on the Houthis.

So far, the Houthis say the airstrikes have killed 57 people.

That’s just over half the 106 people the Houthis’ secretive leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, claimed the U.S. and U.K. killed during all of 2024. He provided no breakdown of combatants versus noncombatants. Houthi fighters often aren’t in uniform.

Al-Houthi said the two countries launched over 930 strikes last year. The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED, has recorded 305 strikes. The discrepancy between the figures could not be immediately reconciled, though the Houthis could be counting individual pieces of ordnance launched, rather than a single event with multiple bombs used, as ACLED does. The rebels also have exaggerated details in the past.

Between March 15 to March 21, ACLED reported 56 events. The campaign also has seen the highest number of events in a week since the American bombing campaign began on Yemen during the Israel-Hamas war.

Trump administration officials have touted the differences between their strikes and those carried out under President Joe Biden.

“The difference is, these were not kind of pin prick, back and forth, what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,” Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told ABC’s “This Week” on March 16. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.”

Waltz has also claimed key members of Houthi leadership, including their “head missileer,” have been killed. The Houthis have not acknowledged any losses in their leadership.

There are indeed clear differences, said Luca Nevola, the senior analyst for Yemen and the Gulf at ACLED. Under Biden, the focus appeared to be on mobile launchers for missiles and drones, then infrastructure, he said. Trump is targeting urban areas more intensely, judging from the number of strikes on cities so far.

“It’s very likely that somehow the Trump administration is pursuing a decapitation strategy,” Nevola added.

The Trump administration is also allowing the U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees Mideast operations, to launch offensive strikes at will, rather than having the White House sign off on each attack as under Biden. That will mean more strikes — like a particularly intense set early Friday.

Israel, which has repeatedly been targeted by Houthi missile fire and drones, including Thursday, also launched four rounds of airstrikes in 2024 and another in January.

Less transparency, growing concerns about civilians being harmed

During the Biden administration, Central Command offered details to the public on most strikes conducted during the campaign. Those details often included the target struck and the reason behind it.

Since the start of the new campaign, however, there’s been no similar breakdown.

Donegan, the retired vice admiral, praised that strategy during a recent call hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “You don’t tell the enemy what you’re going to do, and you don’t tell them what you’re not going to do.”

But that also means the Houthis’ description of targets is the only one that’s public. They’ve claimed two attacks targeted an under-construction cancer clinic in the city of Saada, as well as private homes and crowded city neighborhoods. There’s been no effort so far from the U.S. military to either dispute that or offer evidence to support strikes on those targets.

“It’s an extremely complicated information environment in Yemen,” Tripp, of Airwars, said. “The Houthis have extensive restrictions on (activists) and operations, media and press.”

Even so, some information can be gleaned from Houthi-released footage. One strike around Saada that the Houthis say killed a woman and four children included missile debris. Serial numbers on the fragments correspond to a contract for Tomahawk cruise missiles, an AP examination of the imagery showed. That corresponded to an assessment separately made by Airwars.

Including that Saada strike, Airwars believes it is likely that at least five U.S. strikes in the new Trump campaign that have hurt or killed civilians, based off of videos and photos from the site, Houthi statements and other details.

The U.S. military declined to answer questions regarding possible civilian casualties but said the “Houthis continue to communicate lies and disinformation.”

“CENTCOM won’t provide details on strikes and locations until the operation has concluded, and there is no additional risk to U.S. personnel or assets involved,” it added, using an acronym for Central Command. “At the direction of the president, CENTCOM continues to conduct strikes across multiple Iran-backed Houthi locations every day and night to restore freedom of navigation and restore American deterrence.”

Houthi attacks started over the Israel-Hamas war

From November 2023 — weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began — until January of this year, the Houthis targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two and killing four sailors.

The rebels said the campaign in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the two waterways was carried out in solidarity with Hamas. It stopped with the ceasefire reached in that war in January.

The attacks greatly raised the Houthis’ profile as they faced economic problems and launched a crackdown targeting any dissent and aid workers at home amid Yemen’s decadelong stalemated war.

Since the ceasefire ended, the Houthis have not resumed their attacks on shipping in the vital corridor for cargo and energy shipments moving between Asia and Europe. Still, overall traffic remains sharply reduced.

A European Union naval force has been patrolling the Red Sea and escorting ships, as well as taking Houthi fire. However, the vast majority of Houthi attacks toward military targets has been pointed at U.S. Navy vessels.

More US forces move into Mideast as Yemen’s future in question

The U.S. airstrikes have kept up a daily tempo since beginning March 15. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson and its carrier strike group is to transit into the Middle East.

That, along with the Truman, will likely give the American military two places to launch aircraft since it hasn’t immediately appeared that any strikes came from bases in other Mideast nations — where public sentiment remains strongly with the Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war.

The U.S. military also may be bringing additional firepower, as radio transmissions from B-2 stealth bombers and flight-tracking data suggested the U.S. Air Force is moving a number of the aircraft to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP showed three B-2s parked Wednesday at Camp Thunder Cove on the island. That would provide a closer location for the long-range bombers to launch that’s still far outside of the range of the rebels — and avoids using allies’ Mideast bases.

In October, the Biden administration used the B-2 to target what it described as underground bunkers used by the Houthis.

But the future of Yemen itself remains in question. The Houthis broadly maintain control over the capital of Sanaa and the country’s northwest. Yemen’s exiled government is part of a fractious coalition that for now appears unable to wrest any control back from the rebels. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which launched a war 10 years ago against the Houthis, have pushed for peace talks as fighting appears broadly frozen on the ground.

“The United States can hurt the Houthis, it can weaken them,” wrote Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, “but without effective ground troops — either its own or someone else’s — it will not be able to eliminate their capabilities.”

Jon Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press.

28 March 2025

Source: apnews.com

Israeli military orders evacuation of most of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah

By Wafaa Shurafa

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Israeli military on Monday issued sweeping evacuation orders covering most of Rafah, indicating it could soon launch another major ground operation in the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.

Israel ended its ceasefire with the Hamas militant group and renewed its air and ground war earlier this month. At the beginning of March it cut off all supplies of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to the territory’s roughly 2 million Palestinians to pressure Hamas to accept changes to the truce agreement.

The evacuation orders appeared to cover nearly all of the city and nearby areas. The military ordered Palestinians to head to Muwasi, a sprawl of squalid tent camps along the coast. The orders came during Eid al-Fitr, a normally festive Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Last May, Israel launched a major operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, leaving large parts of it in ruins. The military seized a strategic corridor along the border as well as the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled by Israel.

Israel was supposed to withdraw from the corridor under the ceasefire it signed with Hamas in January under U.S. pressure, but it later refused to, citing the need to prevent weapons smuggling.

Israeli forces killed 15 first responders during a ground operation in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood last week, in what the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said was the deadliest attack on its medics in years.

The Israeli military said its forces opened fire on several vehicles that raised suspicions by advancing without headlights or emergency signals. The military said a Hamas operative and eight other militants were among those killed.

The United Nations humanitarian office said the dead included eight Red Crescent workers, six members of Gaza’s Civil Defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government, and a U.N. worker.

Rescuers were only allowed to access the area nearly a week later to recover the bodies. Footage of Sunday’s recovery operation released by the U.N. showed Civil Defense workers digging into a mound of sand and pulling out a body wearing the same orange vest as the rescuers.

Israel has vowed to intensify its military operations until Hamas releases the remaining 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed to be alive. Israel has also demanded that Hamas disarm and leave the territory, conditions that were not included in the ceasefire agreement and which Hamas has rejected.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would take charge of security in Gaza after the war and implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza’s population in other countries, describing it as “voluntary emigration.”

That plan has been universally rejected by Palestinians, who view it as forcible expulsion from their homeland, and human rights experts say it would likely violate international law.

Hamas, meanwhile, has insisted on implementing the signed agreement, which called for the remainder of the hostages to be released in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout. Negotiations over those parts of the agreement were supposed to have begun in February, but only preliminary talks have been held.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, rampaging through army bases and farming communities and killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The militants took another 251 people hostage, most of whom have since been released in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. At its height, the war had displaced some 90% of Gaza’s population, with many fleeing multiple times.

Large areas of Gaza have been completely destroyed, and it’s unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt.

31 March 2025

Source: washingtontimes.com

DCI Statement Calls for Immediate Action in Lebanon to Ensure Birth Registration, Recognising it as a Fundamental Human Right.

Delivered at the General Debate on Item 3: Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development.

On 17 March, on behalf of DCI-Lebanon, Defence for Children International delivered a statement during the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. The statement asserted that birth registration is a fundamental human right and called attention to the hundreds of thousands of unregistered children at risk of statelessness in Lebanon.

There are between 50,000 and 60,000 stateless people in Lebanon, excluding Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon. Additionally, 100,000 children born to Syrian refugees in Lebanon remain unregistered.

Lebanon unfortunately lacks a systematic mechanism to ensure all births are registered.  Furthermore, the lack of birth registration is also affected by:

  • Legal barriers that are complex and consist of strict deadlines, making registration difficult; missing the one-year deadline leads to costly legal procedures.
  • High costs and fees that make registration unaffordable for low-income families.
  • Displacement challenges that affect families and prevent them from accessing civil registry offices.
  • Many parents are unaware of the importance of timely registration or its serious consequences

Unregistered children are deprived of their right to a name, nationality, education, healthcare, and legal protection. They are more vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking, recruitment into armed groups, and lifelong statelessness.

DCI urges the Lebanese government and international partners to take the following steps:

  • Implement a computerised system for birth notifications and streamline the process
  • Extend administrative registration and deadlines and simplify procedures for late registrations.
  • Reduce penalties and offer financial assistance for legal fees to ease the burdens on families.
  • Deploy certified midwives in refugee settlements to ensure proper birth documentation.
  • Educate families about their right to register births and the importance of doing so.
  • Provide free legal assistance to Lebanese and refugee families facing registration challenges.

We urge Member States, UN agencies, and humanitarian organisations to prioritize birth registration in their funding, programming, and advocacy efforts. Together, we can prevent an entire generation from being left stateless and vulnerable.

24 March 2025

Source: defenceforchildren.org

Palestinians starve as Israel continues full ban on humanitarian aid

By Ahmed Dremly

Huda Helles enjoyed a brief respite during the first days of the latest two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

She lived with her family of eight in a makeshift tent in Al-Wihda Street, central Gaza City, after their house in Al-Shujaiya was bombed by an Israeli air strike in 2023. She and her family had a plan for the various dishes they wanted to cook during Ramadan.

That plan was turned upside down on 2 March, when Israel closed the borders, halting the entry of all humanitarian aid, food, and goods into Gaza. The renewed blockade has brought the enclave to the brink of famine once again.

“We used to cook a variety of dishes every day, but now, for over 20 days, all we’ve had is rice,” Huda said. “Now it’s starting to give me severe stomach cramps.”

On Wednesday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said in its latest update that Israel’s ban on entry of aid has continued for nearly a month and that no aid entered the enclave throughout this period. All requests by humanitarian agencies to coordinate access with Israeli authorities have been denied.

Moreover, Israeli attacks killed eight humanitarian workers since its unilateral decision to resume hostilities on Gaza on 18 March, bringing the total number of aid workers killed by the Israeli army in Gaza to 399, OCHA said.

Helles recalled when the blockade was imposed. The shops were empty within hours, and what was left was too expensive, she said. Even the charity distributions, which once offered a variety of meals, have dwindled, now providing only small servings of rice at the time of Iftar.

After days of eating little more than rice, Huda couldn’t sleep at night, suffering from severe stomach pain and colic. She was diagnosed with a stomach infection two weeks ago.

“Doctors advised me to eat healthy food and avoid canned goods,” she said. “But there’s nothing else to eat except the low-quality charity distribution. I am surviving on eating only bread and cheese, when possible.”

Helles’s mother, Manal, 52, was also supposed to eat healthy food. She suffered a heart attack and high blood pressure at the beginning of this month. Huda thinks that the main reason for her mother’s deteriorating health is living in the harsh conditions in the tents, including the dire lack of food and clean water for drinking.

“During Ramadan, my mother used to prepare a beautiful spread of chicken, meat, and vegetables, carefully preparing each dish for the family,” Huda recalled. “Now, she looks at us helplessly, asking us to hang on, hoping that the starvation will not last much longer.”

‘We lived on canned hummus’

Before the ceasefire, Huda and her family had been displaced to Khan Younis, in the southern part of Gaza.

“We were not able to find a piece of bread. For two months, we lived only on canned hummus.”

During the ceasefire, Huda and her family feared the return of war and the famine that would inevitably follow. And that is what has happened. “It’s unfair to live in starvation again,” she said.

Ahmed Ramda, 38, also struggles to find something to eat or feed his four children during Israel’s current complete blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid, including food. He thinks that the blockade’s impact is even worse than last year.

“We no longer have the energy to flee from one place to another, fetch water, or even recover from wounds due to the lack of food and medical care,” he said.

“They want us to be homeless, reliant on limited humanitarian aid, but all we want is for the borders to open so we can work, make a living, and live in peace.”

He was once a driver, but his car was bombed by Israeli air strikes in November 2023 while he and his family were evacuating. His house was also destroyed, his father killed, and many other family members were wounded.

Now, Ramda and his family live in a tent on Omar Al-Mukhtar Street in central Gaza.

“My children cry every day, refusing to eat the lentils or rice from the charity distributions. They ask me for chicken, meat, and fruits,” Ahmed said. “Their mother even lied to them, telling them she put minced meat in the food, but it melted while cooking.”

“I wish to be dead before the moment I see my children starve to death.”

In January 2024, Ramda and his wife, Sana, welcomed their baby girl, Misk, into the world in their displacement tent in Deir al-Balah, in the middle of the Gaza Strip. However, due to the lack of proper nutrition, Sana had a difficult time breastfeeding Misk.

Tragically, Misk died of malnutrition in August 2024.

“Sana struggled to breastfeed Misk due to the lack of healthy food and because we couldn’t afford what was available in the markets,” Ramda explained through tears.

Meanwhile, his 10-year-old daughter, Jori, has been battling dehydration.

“I lost one daughter, and I’m terrified of losing another before the borders open and we get food,” he said. “I appeal to the world to end our suffering – not for us, the adults, but for the sake of our children, who are deprived of their most basic rights.

“If the borders open, I hope to flee Gaza, seeking a new life in Norway or Belgium, where I can find a job and live in peace with my family.”

‘We want the war to end’

Mazen Marouf, 48, a farmer, struggles to survive with his 11-member family. During the ceasefire, he and his six sons had planted tomatoes and onions on their farmland in Beit Lahia, hoping to feed themselves and make a living from their crops.

But when Israel broke the ceasefire on 18 March, their plans were shattered.

“Israeli artillery and aerial shelling began suddenly in the morning. We could only take our tent,” Marouf said. “We didn’t know where to go.”

Marouf and his family could hardly find an empty place to set up their tent in Al-Yarmouk neighbourhood due to the crowded movement of displaced people. They are still struggling to find something to eat, as they have no money and were unable to bring any food with them when they evacuated.

The north of the Gaza Strip, especially Beit Hanoun, was once considered the food basket of Gaza, but has been decimated by the war. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), at least 67.6 percent of cropland in northern Gaza has been destroyed by Israel.

“We only eat when charity distributions come or when others share their canned food,” Marouf explained. “My family and I are sick and suffering from malnutrition.”

“We don’t want to rely on humanitarian aid. We want the war to stop now and to live in peace and dignity.”

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

29 March 2025

Source: middleeasteye.net

Weaponizing starvation, Israel seeks full control over Gaza aid distribution

By Lee Mordechai and Liat Kozma

The acute hunger crisis in the Strip is part of a deliberate Israeli strategy to cripple Hamas’ governance capabilities and banish humanitarian groups.

For almost a month, not a single drop of humanitarian aid has entered Gaza. Since March 2 — when the second phase of the ceasefire was due to commence, only for Israel to renege on its commitment to the deal — Israel has blocked the entry of all food into the Strip, along with fuel, medical equipment, and other essential supplies. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned that Gaza’s flour stores will likely run out completely before the end of this week.

While the current policy is more extreme than anything we’ve seen since October 7, Israel has nonetheless imposed restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza throughout its onslaught. Already in December 2023, Human Rights Watch declared that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war. Almost a year later, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in part on the grounds that they had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food.”

The surge of humanitarian aid that Israel allowed to enter Gaza during the recent two-month ceasefire only served to underscore the cruel intentionality of the starvation policy. Israel argued for months — including in a year-long case at the High Court of Justice, in response to a petition by five Israeli human rights organizations — that any obstacles to the entry of aid were not its fault, attributing them instead to the inefficiencies of humanitarian agencies or looting by gangs. Yet the data paint a clear picture to the contrary.

While the quality and quantity of available data about the volume and composition of aid entering Gaza have declined significantly since the beginning of the ceasefire in mid-January (the two primary sources of information, the Israeli army’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, have stopped providing detailed dashboard updates), we can still see that the number of aid trucks authorized to enter Gaza increased dramatically, helping to somewhat alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the Strip.

Whereas, according to COGAT, a daily average of 126 aid trucks entered Gaza in the six months leading up to the deal — even despite an ultimatum from the Biden administration in October, demanding the entry of 350 trucks per day — the numbers that entered in the first three days of the ceasefire were 634, 916, and 897 trucks, respectively. The six-week period between the start of the ceasefire on Jan. 19 and Israel’s imposition of a full blockade on March 2 saw the entry of more trucks (25,200) than during the previous six months altogether (21,368).

During the ceasefire, Israel also lifted some of the barriers it had previously imposed on the entry of aid. For example, aid operations within Gaza no longer required coordination with the Israeli army, and it became possible to deliver much larger quantities of supplies to northern Gaza, which had until then been difficult to access. Over 100,000 tents were distributed, and visual evidence showed that heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, was brought in and used to clear roads and remove some of the rubble.

Additionally, the ceasefire allowed Hamas to reassert its governing capabilities in Gaza, which led to a drastic reduction in the looting of aid trucks to the point that the phenomenon became nearly nonexistent. The increased availability of aid also reduced the demand for goods on the black market, further contributing to the decline in looting.

These humanitarian relief measures, however, were not absolute. For example, around 10 percent of the more than half a million residents who returned to their destroyed homes in northern Gaza ended up moving south again, in part because they could not find sufficient means of survival in the devastated north. Moreover, some of the items that Israel was required to allow into Gaza under the terms of the ceasefire, such as mobile homes, appear to have been almost entirely barred from entering.

At the same time, Israel has quietly expanded its use of bureaucracy as a tool for controlling international organizations, tightening restrictions on the entry of aid workers into Gaza. About half of the doctors who received preliminary approval to enter the Strip through the World Health Organization (which requires all details to be submitted a month in advance), later discovered that Israel was denying them entry. Nearly all of these doctors had already entered the enclave since the start of the war, with prior COGAT approval.

A similar decrease in entry permits was observed among humanitarian aid workers. Arwa Damon, a former CNN journalist who founded the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance (INARA), an organization providing medical and psychological assistance to children in Gaza, entered the Strip four times in 2024. In 2025, however, all five of her applications for entry have been denied.

This policy shift, which began in early February, appears to stem from Israel’s decision to impose new regulations on the approval and registration of international organizations. According to these criteria, Israel can deny entry to any organization that promotes BDS, supports international tribunals against Israeli officials or soldiers, or “denies the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

A step toward direct control

Still, what followed at the start of March was a drastic shift. Israel’s decision to halt all humanitarian aid to Gaza as a means of pressuring Hamas to release the remaining hostages without any commitment from Israel to end the war — an action that amounts to the war crime of collective punishment — was widely condemned by international actors.

About a week after Israel sealed off the border crossings, Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen additionally ordered a cutoff of the electricity that Israel sells to Gaza, crippling the operation of desalination plants. Senior Israeli officials even indicated plans to shut off water pipelines to Gaza. Unsurprisingly, food prices in the have Strip skyrocketed since the closure of the crossings, with the sharpest increases recorded in fresh produce like fruits and vegetables.

The impact of this intensified blockade is even more devastating than the one Israel imposed at the beginning of the war, after Gallant’s “no electricity, no food, no fuel” order; Gaza’s stockpiles were much higher back then than they are now, and Israel eventually relented to international pressure and allowed some aid in, albeit in much smaller quantities than what was needed. Yet the state’s latest response to the High Court of Justice — that it has no authority to rule on these matters — underscores its newfound confidence in its position, while the weak international pushback highlights the low political cost of employing starvation and deprivation as a form of collective punishment and a weapon of war.

Israel followed the aid ban with a resumption of its assault on Gaza in the early hours of March 18, killing more than 400 Palestinians in surprise attacks in the first few hours, including 178 children. Among the targets of these airstrikes were the civilian leadership of Hamas, specifically senior officials responsible for governance in the Strip. By crippling Hamas’ ability to manage civilian life in Gaza, Israel is intending to enable armed gangs — similar or identical to those that looted humanitarian aid — to take its place.

All the while, Israel has begun laying the groundwork to shift control of humanitarian aid management from international organizations to the Israeli military itself.

At the beginning of the month, COGAT published a report accusing the UN of disseminating biased, incomplete, or incorrect data. Shortly afterward, the new IDF Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, reversed his predecessor’s policy and removed the military’s objection to being the power responsible for distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza. The Israeli government and COGAT simultaneously launched a coordinated campaign — echoed by the prime minister’s supporters — alleging that Hamas steals humanitarian aid from international organizations and uses it to harm Israel, all while claiming that Israel is not supplying Gaza with enough food.

Transferring humanitarian aid management away from international organizations would serve several of Israel’s strategic objectives, aligning with its broader war policy. Direct control over aid would allow Israel to regulate assistance as it sees fit as part of a “carrots and sticks” approach — a policy with clear precedents in the decades preceding the current offensive. Additionally, removing aid organizations from Gaza would significantly reduce the flow of critical information about Israel’s actions in the Strip.

There have been some indications that this policy is having its intended effect. On March 24, the UN decided to “reduce its footprint” in the besieged enclave, partially in response to an attack on international UN personnel the previous week. Around 30 percent of the roughly 100 international UN staff were expected to leave within a week, with others likely to follow suit. An attack on a Red Cross building the same day further demonstrated that Gaza is not safe for international humanitarian workers.

If the army does take over the responsibility for distributing aid, this will increase friction with the local population and almost certainly lead to additional harm to civilians as well as higher casualties among Israeli soldiers. All the while, Israel will be the sole official source of information coming out of Gaza, allowing it to further obscure the reality on the ground from the eyes of the world.

A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

Lee Mordechai is a senior lecturer in the Department of History at the Hebrew University.

Liat Kozma is a professor in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and is in charge of the Harry Friedenwald Chair in the History of Medicine at the Hebrew University.

26 March 2025

Source: 972mag.com

Gaza: Red Crescent Says Recovered 15 Bodies After Israel Targeted Ambulances in Rafah

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Sunday it had recovered the bodies of 15 rescuers killed a week ago when Israeli forces targeted ambulances in the Gaza Strip.

Bodies of eight medics from the Red Crescent, six members of Gaza’s civil defence agency and one employee of a UN agency were retrieved, the Red Crescent said in a statement.

It said one medic, Asaad Nasasra, from the Red Crescent remained missing.

The group said those killed “were targeted by the Israeli occupation forces while performing their humanitarian duties as they were heading to the Hashashin area of Rafah to provide first aid to a number of people injured by Israeli shelling in the area”.

“The occupation’s targeting of Red Crescent medics … can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate before the eyes of the entire world.”

In an earlier statement the Red Crescent said the bodies “were recovered with difficulty as they were buried in the sand, with some showing signs of decomposition”.

PRCS President Younis al-Khatib condemned Israel for targeting its paramedics as they “fulfil their humanitarian mission”.

“Those souls are not mere numbers. If this incident [happened] anywhere else, the whole world would have moved heaven and earth to expose this war crime,” al-Khatib said on Sunday.

Last week, the Israeli military said that it had fired on ambulances and fire trucks – calling them “suspicious vehicles” – that arrived at a scene where it was carrying out attacks.

Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim slammed the attack on the ambulance and said the “targeted killing of rescue workers – who are protected under international humanitarian law – constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime”.

The PRCS shared images of its teams saying goodbye to their slain colleagues.

[https://twitter.com/PalestineRCS/status/1906407923489636744]

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed in a statement that the bodies of eight paramedics were recovered today after contact with them had been lost over the previous days.

It added: “Some of these bodies were bound and shot in the chest. They were buried in a deep hole to prevent their identification.”

The ministry called on “UN organisations and relevant international bodies to conduct an urgent investigation into these crimes and hold the occupation accountable for committing them.”

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said the attack is the single deadliest attack on Red Cross/Red Crescent workers anywhere in the world since 2017.

“These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians. They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families; they did not,” IFRC Secretary_General Jagan Chapagain said in a statement.

“Even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules. These rules of International Humanitarian Law could not be clearer – civilians must be protected; humanitarians must be protected. Health services must be protected,” Chapagain said.

OCHA chief Tom Fletcher said since Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza on March 18 and resumed its war on the enclave, Israeli air attacks have hit “densely populated areas”, with “patients killed in their hospital beds, ambulances shot at, first responders killed”.

Since Israel resumed its attacks on Gaza, more than 900 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the territory, adding to the more than 50,000 killed since October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Red Cross Federation ‘Outraged’ at Israel’s Murder of Red Crescent Medics in Gaza

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has condemned Israel’s killing of 14 medics in Gaza. The victims, including nine from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and five from Gaza’s civil defense, were executed and buried in a deep pit to hide their bodies. Their hands were bound, and they were shot in the chest.

Their bodies were recovered a week after Israeli forces attacked their ambulances in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood. The medics had been responding to injured civilians when they came under fire.

“I am heartbroken,” said IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain. “These ambulance workers were humanitarians. Their vehicles were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families—but they did not.”

Israel admitted to firing on the ambulances, calling them “suspicious vehicles.” It claimed Hamas fighters were inside. No evidence was provided to support the claim. Humnitarian groups insist the victims were medics performing their duties.

The IFRC demanded accountability and stressed that international law protects medical workers. “When will this stop?” Chapagain asked. “All parties must stop the killing.”

Since the war began in October 2023, at least 30 PRCS medics have been killed.

31 March 2025

Source: countercurrents.org