Ensure unhindered aid into Gaza, World Court tells Israel
Ater nearly six months of war, Gaza’s health sector has been decimated. Roughly a dozen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are only partially functioning
THE HAGUE: Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies arrive without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The ICJ said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading.
“The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (...) but that famine is seting in,” the judges said in their order.
The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its ongoing case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.
In January the ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.
In Thursday’s order the court reaffirmed the January measures but added Israel must take action to ensure unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water and electricity as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza.
The judges added that this could be done “by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary.”
BATTLE RAGES ON: Street batles raged on Thursday near a hospital in besieged Gaza, where the dire humanitarian crisis and surging death toll have caused tensions between Israel and top ally the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be trying to soothe a rit with US President Joe Biden with plans to send a government delegation to Washington ater earlier cancelling the trip.
As truce talks in Qatar also appeared to have ground to a deadlock for now, heavy fighting and sustained bombardment again rocked Gaza in the nearly six-month-old war.
The army reported heavy fighting near the Al Amal Hospital in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis in which its troops had killed dozens of militants and recovered hundreds of weapons.
Across Gaza, Israel’s military said it had struck dozens of targets over the previous day while the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported 62 more deaths.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 32,552 people have been killed in the territory during more than five months of war.
UAE AID: The Joint Operations Command of the Ministry of Defence announced the implementation of the 17th airdrop of humanitarian and relief aid as part of the “Birds of Goodness” operation.
Two C17 aircrat belonging to the UAE Air Force and a C130 aircrat belonging to the Egyptian Air Force participated in the airdrop operation.
The airdrop was carried out over inaccessible isolated areas in the northern Gaza Strip via three aircrat carrying 79 tonnes of food and relief aid, bringing the total amount of aid airdrops to 743 tonnes since the beginning of the operation.
NEW CABINET: Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa formed a new cabinet on Thursday in which he will also serve as foreign minister, making an immediate ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza a priority, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Mustafa, an ally to President Mahmoud Abbas and a leading business figure, was appointed premier this month with a mandate to help reform the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He was also assigned to lead the relief and rebuilding of Gaza, which has been shatered by more than five months of war, while he performs double-duty as foreign minister, replacing Riyad Al Maliki who had served in the position since 2009.
Abbas, who as president remains by far the most powerful figure in the PA, appointed the new government in a demonstration of willingness to meet international demands for change in the administration.
He approved Mustafa’s cabinet with financial expert Omar Al Bitar as finance minister, and Muhamad Al Amour, who served as the president of the Palestinian Businessmen Association, as economy minister.
He kept Ziad Hab Al Reeh, former chief of the PA’S internal intelligence agency, as interior minister, WAFA said.
The new cabinet, which includes eight ministers from Gaza, will also include a state minister for “relief affairs.”
Mustafa said in a statement addressed to Abbas that the first national priority was an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the enclave, in addition to allowing humanitarian aid to enter in large quantities and reaching all areas, WAFA reported.
SITUATION REMAINS SAME: MSF:THE MSF medical charity lamented on Thursday that nothing had changed on the ground in war-ravaged Gaza since the United Nations Security Council resolution this week demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”
An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still let them stunned.
One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His cousin, an infant, is still fighting for her life with part of her face blown off by the same strike.
An unrelated 10-year-old boy screamed out in pain for his parents, not knowing that they were killed in the strike. Beside him was his sister, but he didn’t recognise her because burns covered almost her entire body.
These gut-wrenching casualties were described to The Associated Press by Tanya Haj-hassan, a pediatric intensive-care doctor from Jordan, following a 10-hour overnight shit at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the town of Deir Al Balah.
Haj-hassan, who has extensive experience in Gaza and regularly speaks out about the war’s devastating effects, was part of a team that recently finished a two-week stint there.
Ater nearly six months of war, Gaza’s health sector has been decimated. Roughly a dozen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are only partially functioning. The rest have either shut down or are barely functioning ater they ran out of fuel and medicine, were surrounded and raided by Israeli troops, or were damaged in fighting.
That leaves hospitals such as Al Aqsa Martyrs caring for an overwhelming number of patients with limited supplies and staff. The majority of its intensive care unit beds are occupied by children, including infants wrapped in bandages and wearing oxygen masks.
“I spend most of my time here resuscitating children,” Haj-hassan said ater a recent shit. “What does that tell you about every other hospital in the Gaza Strip?”
A different team of international doctors working at Al Aqsa Martyrs in January stayed at a nearby guesthouse. But because of a recent surge of Israeli Israel strikes nearby, Haj-hassan and her co-workers stayed in the hospital itself.
That gave them a painfully vivid look at the strain the hospital has come under as the number of patients keeps rising, said Arvind Das, the team leader in Gaza for the International Rescue Commitee. His organisation and Medical Aid for Palestinians organised the visit by Haj-hassan and others.
Mustafa Abu Qassim, a nurse from Jordan who was part of the visiting team, said he was shocked by the overcrowding.
“When we look for patients, there are no rooms,” he said. “They are in the corridors on a bed, a matress, or on a blanket on the floor.”
Before the war, the hospital had a capacity of around 160 beds, according to the World Health Organisation. Now there are some 800 patients, yet many of the hospital’s 120 staff members are no longer able to come to work.
Health care workers face the same daily struggle as others in Gaza in finding food for their families and trying to ensure some safety for them. Many bring their children with them to the hospital to keep them close, Abu Qassim said. “It’s just miserable,” he said. Thousands of people driven from their homes by the war are also living in the hospital grounds, hoping it will be safe. Hospitals have special protections under international law, though those protections can be removed if combatants use them for military purposes.
Israel has alleged that hospitals serve as command centres, weapons storage facilities and hideouts for Hamas, but has presented litle visual evidence. Hamas has denied the allegations. Israel has been carrying out a large-scale operation in Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, for the past week.
Israeli troops have not raided or besieged Al Aqsa Martyrs but have atacked surrounding areas, sometimes striking close to the hospital. In January, many doctors, patients, and displaced Palestinians fled the hospital ater a flurry of strikes.