Acting UN relief chief Joyce Msuya says what Israeli forces are doing in the besieged northern Gaza Strip cannot be allowed to continue. In a statement on Saturday, she warned that "the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying". The urgent call and warning come after Israeli troops reportedly stormed one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, and as civilians, including children and the disabled, face increasingly horrific conditions in the war-torn territory.
“Hospitals have been hit and health workers have been detained. Shelters have been emptied and burned down,” Joyce Msuya, Acting UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) said
“First responders have been prevented from saving people from under the rubble. Families have been separated and men and boys are being taken away by the truckload.”
Hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed since Israeli security forces renewed their relentless offensive in northern Gaza earlier this month. Tens of thousands more have been displaced.
“The entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying. Such blatant disregard for basic humanity and for the laws of war must stop,” Msuya added.
Darkest moment of Gaza conflict
On Friday, UN human rights chief Volker TĂĽrk said the darkest moment of the Gaza conflict is unfolding in the north, where the Israeli military is effectively subjecting an entire population to bombing, siege and the risk of starvation, and forcing them to choose between mass displacement and being trapped in an active conflict zone.
“The bombing in North Gaza is non-stop,” he said. “The Israeli military has ordered hundreds of thousands to move, with no guarantees of return. But there is no safe way to leave: the bombs continue to fall; the Israeli military is separating families and detaining many people; and people fleeing have been reportedly shot at.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on world leaders to act, saying states have an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. He also urged world leaders to put the protection of civilians and human rights first, and "not to abandon this minimum of humanity".
“There is extremely limited access to this part of Gaza,” Türk said. “Next to no aid has reached the area in weeks, with unlawful restrictions remaining, and many are now facing starvation.”
He said the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has also been clear on Israel's obligation to ensure the entry and delivery of humanitarian aid, and has issued binding orders to ensure that Israel complies with its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
“Under the Geneva Conventions, states have an obligation to act when a serious violation of international humanitarian law has been committed,” Türk said.
“Under the Genocide Convention, state parties also have the responsibility to act to prevent such a crime, when risk becomes apparent.”
Genocide is widely regarded as one of the most serious international crimes, along with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 1948 Genocide Convention also criminalizes complicity in genocide.
Yet influential countries such as the United States and Germany not only give Israel political support for its actions in Gaza, but also provide weapons that are being used to kill, wound, or maim civilians on an unprecedented scale.
Genocide describes violent crimes committed against a group with the intent to destroy the existence of the group, in whole or in part. Acts that constitute genocide include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, as well as deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
“Unimaginably, the situation is getting worse by the day. The Israeli Government’s policies and practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights stressed.
“The Israeli military is striking hospitals, and staff and patients have been killed and injured or forced to evacuate simultaneously. Shelters, once schools, are struck daily. Communication with the outside world remains extremely limited. Journalists continue to be killed.”
Gaza health officials report that more than 43,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, the majority women and children, have been killed and more than 100,000 injured since Israel began its war in the Palestinian enclave more than a year ago.
Among the dead are at least 318 aid workers, 235 UN personnel, 1047 health workers and 168 journalists. More than 10,000 people - including thousands of children - are missing and presumed dead. Of the 40,000 identified dead, more than 13,000 are children and more than 7,000 are women. In the past year, over 35,000 children have lost one or both parents.
In total, more than 150,000 people, or more than 7 percent of Gaza's population, have been killed, wounded, or reported missing in Israel's attacks on Gaza since October 7. While the world's influential governments sit idly by, the suffering of the people of Gaza continues in all parts of the territory.
“My gravest fear is, given the intensity, breadth, scale and blatant nature of the Israeli operation currently underway in North Gaza, that number will rise dramatically,” Türk said, stressing that the situation is worsening by the day.
Gazans are dying as medical evacuations dry up
Also on Friday, United Nations agencies warned that medical evacuations from Gaza have essentially dried up, putting the lives of thousands of people, including children, with serious illnesses and injuries at risk by denying them the treatment they need.
"Children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at fewer than one child per day. If this lethally slow pace continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care," James Elder, spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) told journalists in Geneva on Friday.
"As a result, children in Gaza are dying," he said, noting that even when "miracles happen" and children survive the bombs, bullets and shells, "they are then prevented from leaving Gaza to receive the urgent care that would save their lives."
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 15,600 patients need urgent medical evacuation, but only 5,138 have been evacuated so far. Nearly half of them have cancer, 40 percent have war injuries, and 200 have kidney diseases. According to the WHO, only 231 patients have been evacuated since May 7.
Between 12,000 and 14,000 critical patients need to be evacuated outside Gaza, said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), speaking from Gaza, "and we are constantly pushing for that."
"We want medical corridors. What would be needed would be to restore the traditional medical corridor, which is, of course, to the hospitals in East Jerusalem and West Bank, and they are very much ready to receive patients from Gaza," he said.
Peeperkorn said WHO always tries to prioritize children, who make up at least one-third of the patients on a medevac list that then goes through security screening.
"It is really painful to see that many of these patients, which are on this list are not approved, including children," he said, adding there is "no explanation from Israeli authorities on why an evacuation is not granted."
Elder agreed with that assessment, noting that Israeli authorities do not say when applications for medical evacuations are declined, and the Israeli government "does not provide reasons for refusals."
"It is not known how many child patients have been rejected for medevac," he said. "Only a list of approved patients is provided by Israel's COGAT, which controls Gaza's entry and exit points. The status of others is not shared. When a patient is denied, there is nothing that can be done."
Hospitals under attack
Peeperkorn was part of a UN mission on Thursday that managed to reach Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which is under siege by Israeli authorities. He described a scene of " mayhem and chaos" at Kamal Adwan Hospital, where there were more than 200 patients and the emergency wards were overflowing.
He said he had received unconfirmed reports that soldiers were near the hospital, "telling people that they needed to come out and separating people into groups of men, women, and children."
"Hospitals should not be attacked. People should be protected. Hospitals are supposed to be safe places where people could receive treatment and shelter," Peeperkorn said.
According to UN reports, Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surroundings have been subjected to intense military operations by Israeli forces, who stormed the hospital on Friday following the UN mission. After 44 male staff members were detained, only female staff, the hospital director and a male doctor are left to care for nearly 200 patients in desperate need of medical attention.
The medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF) said on Saturday that it was deeply concerned for the safety and whereabouts of Dr. Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopedic surgeon who was sheltering and working at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
MSF reported that it had lost contact with the doctor since Friday afternoon. Donare.info quoted Dr. Obeid in a report earlier this week, in which he spoke about the Israeli attacks on the hospital, the appalling conditions in northern Gaza, and the catastrophic conditions at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Médecins Sans Frontières is trying to contact its colleague and is urgently seeking information about his whereabouts. MSF is calling for his safety and protection, as well as that of all medical staff in Gaza.
Harrowing conditions for Palestinians with disabilities
In a related development, independent UN rights experts said on Friday that the needs of persons with disabilities are being sidelined among those trapped in Gaza. The experts found that multiple evacuation orders completely disregarded people with disabilities, who often have extreme difficulty following or understanding instructions.
“They were in the impossible situation of either leaving their houses and the assistive devices they require to survive or staying behind without their families and caregivers and being exposed to a heightened risk of being killed,” they said.
The independent UN experts warned that women and girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to increased danger and further trauma during evacuation attempts.
“With the health system in Gaza decimated and medical supplies unavailable, Israeli authorities have refused to establish a system for medical evacuations nor allowed life-saving support, so that thousands of persons with disabilities, especially children, can obtain the assistance they desperately need. People with disabilities require specialized medical supplies,” the experts said.
They stressed that many of the more than 100,000 injured Palestinians in Gaza will have long-term disabilities requiring rehabilitation, assistive devices, psychosocial support and other services that are sorely lacking.
WHO estimates that a quarter of the injured in Gaza, or about 25,000 people, will require lifelong specialized rehabilitation and supportive care, including those with severe limb injuries, amputations, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain damage and severe burns.
Further information
Full text: TĂĽrk says world must act as darkest moment of Gaza conflict unfolds, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, press release, published October 25, 2024
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/10/turk-says-world-must-act-darkest-moment-gaza-conflict-unfolds
Full text: A tragedy within a tragedy: UN experts alarmed by harrowing conditions for Palestinians with disabilities trapped in Gaza, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, press release, published October 25, 2024
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/10/tragedy-within-tragedy-un-experts-alarmed-harrowing-conditions-palestinians