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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

The epidemiological war on Gaza

The epidemiological war on Gaza

Maya Rosen writes: Since October 7th, Israel has severely reduced the entry of food, water, and fuel into Gaza, successfully creating what global health expert Yara Asi described as “a dire human-made humanitarian catastrophe” characterized by mass hunger, thirst, homelessness, and lack of medical services. As months pass without any meaningful relief, these conditions have produced “the perfect storm for disease,” in the words of United Nations Children’s Fund spokesperson James Elder. On January 2nd, the WHO announced that there…

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UN warns Gaza is now ‘uninhabitable’ as war continues

UN warns Gaza is now ‘uninhabitable’ as war continues

The Associated Press reports: The UN humanitarian chief has described Gaza as “uninhabitable” three months into Israel’s war with Hamas, warning that famine was looming and a public health disaster unfolding. In a grim assessment of the devastating impact of Israel’s military response to the horrific Hamas attacks on 7 October, Martin Griffiths said that Gaza’s 2.3 million people face “daily threats to their very existence” while the world just watches. He said tens of thousands of people, mostly women…

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Inside Israel’s torture camp for Gaza detainees

Inside Israel’s torture camp for Gaza detainees

+972 Magazine and Local Call report: In early December, images circulated worldwide showing dozens of Palestinian men in the city of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, who were stripped to their underwear, kneeling or sitting hunched over, then blindfolded and put into the back of Israeli military trucks like cattle. The vast majority of these detainees were civilians with no affiliation to Hamas, Israeli security officials later confirmed, and the men were taken away by the army without…

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‘He’s breathing’: My two hours under Gaza’s rubble after an Israeli strike

‘He’s breathing’: My two hours under Gaza’s rubble after an Israeli strike

Mohammed R Mhawish writes: On the morning that the unthinkable happened, my father was holding the radio close, hoping the news bulletin might bring some kind of relief such as news of a ceasefire. My mother was attempting to strike a reassuring tone following another long and sleepless night in our family home in central Gaza City. “I am hopeful today shall pass peacefully, or at least be anything unlike last night,” she told us. That morning – December 7…

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Israeli officials’ calls for ‘voluntary’ migration of Palestinians alarm human rights experts

Israeli officials’ calls for ‘voluntary’ migration of Palestinians alarm human rights experts

HuffPost reports: As the reported death toll of the Israeli invasion of Gaza tops 22,000, senior Israeli politicians have grown more explicit in their goal for the Palestinian enclave: the movement of a large number of Gazans out of Gaza entirely. The rhetoric has garnered charges of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and a rare rebuke from U.S. officials. But there are no signs of the calls losing steam within Israel. “What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip…

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Ethnic cleansing: Israel in talks with Congo and other countries on Gaza ‘voluntary’ migration plan

Ethnic cleansing: Israel in talks with Congo and other countries on Gaza ‘voluntary’ migration plan

The Times of Israel reports: The “voluntary” resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza is slowly becoming a key official policy of the government, with a senior official saying that Israel has held talks with several countries for their potential absorption. Zman Israel, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site, has learned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is conducting secret contacts for accepting thousands of immigrants from Gaza with Congo, in addition to other nations. “Congo will be willing to take…

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Gaza is starving

Gaza is starving

Isaac Chotiner writes: Last month, a United Nations report on hunger described a catastrophic situation in Gaza, where more than ninety per cent of the population has been facing “acute food insecurity,” and where “virtually all households are skipping meals every day.” Much of Gaza is at risk of famine in the next several months. Parents have been going without food to insure that their kids have at least something to eat; where food is available, moreover, prices have skyrocketed,…

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Dying in the fields as temperatures soar

Dying in the fields as temperatures soar

Liza Gross and Peter Aldhous report: For most of July 2019, stifling heat hung over the agricultural fields of California’s Central Valley, as farmworkers like William Salas Jiminez labored under the sun’s searing rays. Temperatures had dipped from 99 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit the last day of the month, when the 56-year-old Puerto Rico native was installing irrigation tubing in an almond orchard near Arvin, at the valley’s southern edge. Around 1:30 that afternoon Salas sat down to rest. When…

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South Africa files genocide case against Israel at International Court of Justice over Gaza war

South Africa files genocide case against Israel at International Court of Justice over Gaza war

The Guardian reports: South Africa has launched a case against Israel at the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) accusing the state of committing genocide in its military campaign in Gaza. Israel responded to the allegations “with disgust”, calling South Africa’s case a “blood libel” and urging the ICJ to reject it. Any case at the ICJ is likely to take years to resolve, but South Africa has called for the court to convene in the next few days to…

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Thousands of children in Gaza have lost limbs and their dreams

Thousands of children in Gaza have lost limbs and their dreams

🚨Read it twice. 9,000 Palestinian children have had to amputate 1 or more limbs and 1000 children endured it without anesthesia. https://t.co/HhFWFD5bjH — Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) December 29, 2023 UNICEF: In the Gaza Strip, the life of any child could turn into a nightmare in the blink of an eye. Families try to keep their children safe, but this becomes harder and harder with the intense bombardments. Many houses have been destroyed, and many children ended up under…

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Palestinian Christian pastor slams Western silence on genocide in Gaza

Palestinian Christian pastor slams Western silence on genocide in Gaza

  Through the Christmas holiday, Israel continued its relentless bombardment and siege of the Gaza Strip that has seen over 20,000 Palestinians killed. In the West Bank, we speak with Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, which canceled Christmas festivities in the storied birthplace of Jesus to mourn the deaths in Gaza and received worldwide attention for their nativity scene depicting the baby Jesus surrounded by rubble. “Christianity started here and never ceased to exist…

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Biden continues to undermine UN efforts; he once defended ‘killing women or children’

Biden continues to undermine UN efforts; he once defended ‘killing women or children’

The Intercept reports: An estimated 570,000 people in the Gaza Strip are now starving. Three-quarters of the territory’s 36 hospitals are closed. The remaining nine, all in southern Gaza, are “partially functional.” The shuttered hospitals in the north are serving as impromptu shelters for some of the 85 percent of Palestinians in Gaza who have been displaced, but did not trek south to escape the ravages of Israel’s ground invasion. Beyond an estimated death toll of 20,000, according to the…

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The cruelty and futility of Israel’s starvation blockade on Gaza

The cruelty and futility of Israel’s starvation blockade on Gaza

Alexander B. Downes writes: Immediately after Hamas’s terrorist attack of Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, Israel imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,” as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it. For weeks, supplies into Gaza were reduced to a trickle. Although the recent cease-fire increased the number of trucks carrying aid to about 150 per day, that is a drop in the bucket compared to…

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Entire Gaza population facing hunger crisis, famine risk, UN-backed report finds

Entire Gaza population facing hunger crisis, famine risk, UN-backed report finds

Reuters reports: The entire 2.3 million population of the Gaza Strip is facing crisis levels of hunger and the risk of famine is increasing each day as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on, a U.N.-backed body said in a report published on Thursday. That makes the proportion of households in the Palestinian enclave that are in hunger crisis, or suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity, the largest ever recorded globally, the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification…

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Humanitarian groups urge Defense Secretary Austin to halt Israel aid over Gaza operations

Humanitarian groups urge Defense Secretary Austin to halt Israel aid over Gaza operations

Politico reports: A group of prominent humanitarian organizations is calling on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to halt military and other aid to Israel over its operations in Gaza that they say have caused “staggering” civilian harm, according to a letter sent to the Pentagon chief on Wednesday. The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, urged Austin in the letter to “withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law”…

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Pope condemns Israeli attack on Catholic church in Gaza as ‘terrorism’

Pope condemns Israeli attack on Catholic church in Gaza as ‘terrorism’

  BBC News reports: Civilians trapped in a church in Gaza City are living in an “unreal” sense of fear, a relative of one of those confined there has said. Fifi Saba, whose sister is trapped inside the Holy Family Church, said people were scared to move out of fear of being shot. A mother and her daughter were killed inside the church by sniper fire on Saturday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said. Pope Francis condemned the attack. “A…

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