JERUSALEM: Israel said Wednesday it would keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, where a relentless military offensive has turned the Palestinian territory into a “mass grave,” a medical charity reported.
Air and ground attacks resumed across the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas that had largely halted hostilities in the territory.
However, Israel has halted the entry of aid into Gaza since March 2, as the humanitarian crisis continues to grow amid ongoing military assaults which rescuers said killed at least 11 people Wednesday.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people.
“Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” Katz said in a statement Wednesday.
“No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”
Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have cited military pressure as the only way to secure the release of the 58 hostages held in Gaza.
“Hamas will continue to suffer blow after blow. We insist that they release our hostages, and we insist on achieving all of our war objectives,” Netanyahu told troops in northern Gaza Tuesday.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry denounced his Gaza visit, calling it a “provocative intrusion intended to prolong and intensify the crimes of genocide and forced displacement” of Gazans.
Medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Israeli military operations and the blockage of aid had transformed Gaza into a graveyard for Palestinians and those who help them.
“Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance,” said MSF coordinator Amande Bazerolle.
“With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care,” she said.
The UN had warned on Monday that Gaza is facing its most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began in October 2023.
“The humanitarian situation is now likely the worst it has been in the 18 months since the outbreak of hostilities,” said the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
In a statement, OCHA said no supplies had reached the territory for a month and a half, and medical supplies, fuel, water and other essentials are in short supply.
Israel firmly controls the entry of vital international aid to Gaza.
On April 28, the International Court of Justice is set to open hearings on Israel’s humanitarian obligations toward Palestinians.
The UN General Assembly approved a resolution in December requesting that The Hague-based top court give an advisory opinion on the matter.
It calls on the ICJ to clarify what Israel is required to do to “ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population.”
Although ICJ decisions are legally binding, the court has no concrete way of enforcing them. They increase the diplomatic pressure, however.
Israel continued to pound Gaza on Wednesday.
A pre-dawn air strike in Gaza City killed 11 people, including women and children, the civil defense agency said.
The renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,652 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported.
The Gaza war erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Since then at least 51,025 people, the majority of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli offensive, the territory’s health ministry said.
The military also announced it had killed a Hezbollah militant in south Lebanon, despite a ceasefire between the two sides.
Israel says no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza
https://arab.news/nmgu3
Israel says no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza
- Katz said Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people
- “Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza“
Syria transition ‘fragile’, one year on: UN investigators
- The commission said moving beyond the legacy of war and destruction would take “great strength, patience and support”
GENEVA: Syria’s transition is fragile, one year on from the overthrow of ruler Bashar Assad, and the country’s cycles of vengeance and reprisal need to end, United Nations investigators said Sunday.
Syrians have been marking the first anniversary since Islamist-led forces pressed a lightning offensive to topple Assad on December 8, 2024 after nearly 14 years of war.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria investigates and records all international human rights law violations since March 2011 in the country.
The panel congratulated Syria on the steps it has taken so far to address the crimes and abuses inflicted during previous decades.
But it said violent events since Assad’s downfall had caused renewed displacement and polarization, “raising worries about the future direction of the country.”
The commission said the “horrific catalogue” of abuse inflicted by Assad’s regime “amounted to industrial criminal violence” against Syria’s people.
“The cycles of vengeance and reprisal must be brought to an end, so that Syria can continue to move toward a future as a state that guarantees full respect for the human rights of all its people, with equality, the rule of law, peace and security for all in name and in deed,” the commission said.
“Syria’s transition is fragile. While many across the country will celebrate this anniversary, others are fearing for their present security, and many will sleep in tents again this winter. The unknown fate of many thousands who were forcibly disappeared remains an open wound.”
The commission said moving beyond the legacy of war and destruction would take “great strength, patience and support.”
“The Syrian people deserve to live in peace, with full respect for rights long denied, and we have no doubt they are up to the task,” it said.
The three-person commission is tasked with establishing facts with a view to ensuring that the perpetrators of violations are ultimately held accountable.
The UN Human Rights Council extended its mandate for a further year in April.
