NEW YORK CITY: Israel has failed to meet critical Gaza-related humanitarian demands set by the US government, according to a report published jointly by eight major humanitarian organizations.
The failure comes “at an enormous human cost for Palestinian civilians” in the enclave, where the humanitarian situation “is now at its worst point” since the war began in October 2023, they said.
Their assessment comes a month after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to Israeli officials demanding the implementation of concrete measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days.
This deadline passed on Tuesday with no significant signs of progress. Instead, Israeli forces have accelerated their efforts “to bombard, depopulate, deprive and erase the Palestinian population of the North Gaza governorate,” said Abby Maxman, the president of Oxfam America.
“We are witnessing a campaign of ethnic cleansing,” she added. “Oxfam and partner organizations are unable to provide any support to the remaining civilians in the North Gaza governorate, where people are dying every day.
“Access to the rest of Gaza is also severely restricted, with civilians facing starvation and relentless violence. The US must finally make this overdue call to suspend deadly arms sales to Israel or be complicit in the horrific atrocities unfolding before our eyes.”
The aid organizations that contributed to the report, which also include Refugees International, Save the Children and MedGlobal, called on Washington to make an “immediate determination” that Israel is in violation of its assurances under US and international law, and to suspend arms sales and impose restrictions on security cooperation, as required by US law.
The report also urges the American government to press for immediate humanitarian pauses in military operations, the opening of more routes for deliveries of aid, and efforts to ensure civilians and medical facilities are protected.
“With experts again projecting imminent famine in northern Gaza, there is no time to lose,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. The report “clearly demonstrates that the Israeli government is violating its obligations (to) facilitate humanitarian relief for suffering Palestinians in Gaza,” he added.
Zaher Sahloul, the president and co-founder of MedGlobal, said the organization’s local medical teams and international volunteers in Gaza have personally witnessed “the complete failure by the Israeli authorities to ensure the delivery of critical supplies, including food, water and medicines, and to protect civilians and medical spaces.”
He added: “Our teams are living through the relentless bombing of hospitals, and our medics continue to treat wounded women and children every day. These are egregious violations of the cornerstone principle of international humanitarian law, which protects civilians in time of war.”
Sahloul called on the Biden administration to “do everything possible to push for the full provision of aid to Gaza’s desperate people.”
In addition to the medical crisis, the blockade of Gaza has severely limited the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver aid. The report says convoys are still often blocked, delayed or looted, and access to key parts of the territory, especially in the north, remains severely restricted.
“I witnessed during my visit to Gaza last week the deliberate starvation of almost 2 million civilians, while the bombardment continues,” said Jan Egelan, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“There is barely any aid crossing into Gaza. The little that does get through is often looted, as the occupying power has obliterated the Palestinian police and refuses to secure, or provide secure access routes to, places where humanitarian organizations could distribute aid to a starving population.”
Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the CEO of Mercy Corps, said the US government must do “everything in its power to ensure the unfettered provision of essential aid to people in desperate need.”
The report highlights the dire food insecurity among the population of Gaza. Janti Soeripto, the president of Save the Children, said: “Systemic impediments to the humanitarian system are making a deadly conflict even deadlier.
“Enough is enough. The facts are there. Adults have been failing children for over a year. What more will it take?”
With winter and famine looming, the organizations warned that children in particular are at imminent risk, with many of them already suffering the effects of malnutrition.
Sean Carroll, the president and CEO of American Near East Refugee Aid, said the organization’s “humanitarian workers in Gaza have spent the past year expending superhuman effort in subhuman conditions to provide assistance to civilians.”
He added: “In the past month, we’ve seen families throughout Gaza, and particularly in the north, subjected to increasingly horrific conditions. This is a damning indictment of Israel’s failure to follow international humanitarian law and to respond to the critical and reasonable demands of its greatest ally, the United States. The consequences will be more innocent lives ended and destroyed.
“They should also include restrictions on Israel’s ability to continue prosecution of this war in a manner that is increasingly being seen as consistent with ethnic cleansing.”
The report warns that with more than 2 million civilians in Gaza facing starvation, daily bombardments and lack of access to the basic necessities of life, the humanitarian situation in the territory is on the brink of catastrophe.
“There is no time to lose,” it concludes.
Humanitarian chiefs say Israel failed to meet US deadline for allowing aid into Gaza
https://arab.news/9yc4w
Humanitarian chiefs say Israel failed to meet US deadline for allowing aid into Gaza
- Aid organizations call on Washington to suspend arms sales to Israel and impose security restrictions, as required by US law
- Oxfam America accuses Israeli authorities of a ‘campaign of ethnic cleansing’ in northern Gaza
Three brothers arrested over US embassy blast in Oslo
- The brothers, who were Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin, had been arrested in Oslo and police were investigating the motive
- While none of the brother were previously known to police, Hatlo said investigators were not ruling out links to “criminal networks“
OSLO: Norwegian police said Wednesday three brothers had been arrested on suspicion of a “terrorist bombing” over a weekend explosion at the US embassy in Oslo, which caused minor damage but no injuries.
Police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told a press conference the brothers, who were Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin, had been arrested in Oslo and that police were investigating the motive.
“We are still working from several hypotheses. One of them is whether this is an order from a government entity,” Hatlo said.
“This is quite natural given the target — the US embassy — and the security situation the world is in today,” he said.
Hatlo said the investigation would seek to clarify exactly what roles the brothers, who were in their 20s, had played.
“We believe that one of them is the person who placed the bomb outside the embassy and that the other two were complicit in the act,” Hatlo told reporters.
Oystein Storrvik, a lawyer for one of the suspects, told broadcaster TV 2 that his client had admitted “to being involved in the case.”
“He admits that he placed the bomb there,” Storrvik told the broadcaster.
Storrvik added that his client had been questioned by police.
“He has explained what happened, and I have no further comments at this time,” he said.
- ‘Proxy actors’ -
While none of the brother were previously known to police, Hatlo said investigators were not ruling out links to “criminal networks.”
In its annual threat assessment, Norwegian security service PST said last month that Iran, which it considers one of the main threats to the country, could rely on “proxy actors,” including “criminal networks,” to commit acts.
On Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador in Oslo denied any involvement by his country in the embassy explosion.
“It is unacceptable that we are being singled out,” Alireza Jahangiri told Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang.
According to police, the perpetrators of the bombing, described as “powerful,” may also have acted out of their own motives.
US embassies have been placed on high alert in the Middle East due to American strikes on Iran. Several have faced attacks as Tehran responds by targeting industrial and diplomatic facilities.
The blast took place at around 1:00 am (0000 GMT) on Sunday at the entrance to the embassy’s consular section.
On Monday, two images were released from surveillance camera footage showing a suspect dressed in dark clothing with a hood over his head and wearing a backpack.
Roughly at the time the incident occurred, a video had been uploaded to the Google Maps page for the US embassy.
The video, which has since been taken down, appeared to show Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli strikes in Iran.
According to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, the person who uploaded the video wrote in Persian: “God is great. We are victorious.”
Police have also opened an investigation into this.
