Rights and Accountability 15 November 2024
Palestinians are forced to flee relentless Israeli attacks in Beit Hanoun, the northernmost city in Gaza.
APA imagesThe following is excerpted from the news roundup during the 13 November livestream. Watch the entire episode here.
Israel has slaughtered, starved and forcibly displaced Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip as a complete siege on the area persists into the sixth week.
Israeli forces carried out a recent series of massacres across Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
These massacres included bombing a residential building housing displaced families in Jabaliya on 10 November, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including 15 children.
In Beit Hanoun, the northernmost city in Gaza, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the remaining homes and shelters, with reporters confirming that buildings have been flattened with people still inside, with no advance warning.Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported on Tuesday that there was a surge in attacks on Beit Hanoun “as the Israeli military pushes deeper its armored vehicles and tanks into the areas in an attempt to force people out” of the city.
The network collected testimonies of Palestinians inside Beit Hanoun over the last few days.
One resident said that Israeli soldiers have been “killing in Beit Hanoun all night long; pounding the few buildings still standing, especially those on crossroads. We could not even bury the dead. Many bodies are still buried under the debris. Israeli warplanes, quadcopters and artillery have been bombarding us all night long. Even snipers were deployed and started gunning down civilians.”
Over the weekend, Israel delivered a reported 11 trucks of food, water and medical supplies to the thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza, after more than a month of a complete siege.But another eyewitness in Beit Hanoun told Al Jazeera that “Only two relief aid trucks entered, one carrying flour; the other carrying canned food. The following day, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the area. They filmed the trucks only for their propaganda. As you see, we were forcibly evacuated; humiliated and worn out.”
Ramy Abdu of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stated that on 11 November, Israel allowed a humanitarian aid truck into a shelter in the town of Beit Hanoun, amidst widespread media coverage.
The next day, Abdu adds, Israeli forces stormed the shelter, killed some civilians, forcibly displaced the rest, and set the humanitarian aid on fire.
“You can imagine every form of brutality, but you will never grasp the full extent of what Israel is doing,” Abdu said.Anas al-Sharif and Hossam Shabat, two of the only remaining journalists in northern Gaza who have been put on an assassination list by Israel, confirmed that Palestinians were forced to flee the shelters in Beit Hanoun at gunpoint.
And they keep reporting while their family members are being killed.Hossam Shabat posted this video of him burying his 11 cousins after an Israeli attack in northern Gaza on 10 November.
Further attacks on Kamal Adwan hospital
Israel has continued to attack the remaining hospitals in northern Gaza.
At Kamal Adwan hospital, its director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya – who, as we reported, had to bury his own child in the hospital courtyard just two weeks ago – urgently called for the immediate delivery of essential supplies and ambulance services, in addition to lifting the siege on northern Gaza.
In a statement released by the Gaza government media office on Sunday, Dr. Abu Safiya said: “We have begun to notice the emergence of cases of malnutrition and famine in the area. Northern Gaza is being subjected to a war of extermination, and we are suffering in silence as a result of the crimes committed against us.“Our health system and the rights of our people are under severe threat, and we are in dire need of medical support. The crisis in northern Gaza continues, characterized by a systematic attack on our health system, where lives are being lost every day due to a lack of specialized care and resources,” Abu Safiya said.
“It is very unfortunate to receive distressing calls about people trapped under the rubble, and we are unable to help them. Just yesterday, we received reports of children and women trapped in difficult conditions, and today we mourn their loss as martyrs. This reality is unbearable.”
He added that he and his colleagues “are witnessing alarming cases of malnutrition among children and adults, and we are struggling to provide even one meal a day for hospital workers, amidst a severe shortage of food and medical supplies.”
On 5 November, video showed doctors and hospital staff trying to evacuate injured and sick children from the hospital rooms amid Israeli attacks. Reporter Anas al-Sharif stated that those attacks came after Israel directly targeted children in their hospital beds, burned the pharmacy and destroyed the water tanks.
Ninth attack on tents in central Gaza hospital complex
In central Gaza, Israel carried out repeated attacks in Nuseirat refugee camp. This followed a series of ground and air attacks that killed at least 20 Palestinians on 12 November when Israeli tanks stormed the camp, according to Al Jazeera.
Also on 11 November, Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians in the so-called humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi, the sand dunes on the southern coast of Gaza, bombing a tent that was a gathering place for people in al-Mawasi to have coffee and tea.Tents of displaced people were once again bombed by the Israeli army inside the courtyard of al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah on 9 November. At least two people were killed and more than two dozen injured.
The Gaza government media office said that this was the ninth time since October 2023 that tents in the hospital courtyard were targeted.
Starvation deepens in northern Gaza
International experts on famine and starvation have warned, yet again, that starvation is imminent in northern Gaza. Action is needed “within days” to avert a catastrophe, according to the head of OXFAM’s food security and livelihood program.
He told Al Jazeera that people do not have any essentials for survival, and that “The average number of trucks coming in now is below 50. We used to have 500 trucks per day [before 7 October 2023], so you can imagine the huge needs people have compared to what’s coming in.”
A new alert from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) stated this week that aid shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip are now lower than at any time since October 2023.
The report warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”
Access to food continues to deteriorate, with prices of essentials on the black market soaring, the report adds. Cooking gas rose by 2,612 percent, diesel by 1,315 percent and wood by 250 percent, it said.
“Concurrent with the extremely high and increasing prices of essential items has been the total collapse of livelihoods to be able to purchase or barter for food and other basic needs,” IPC stated.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stated on 10 November that “Given that Israel has blocked the entry of goods and aid to the hundreds of thousands of besieged residents in the northern Gaza Strip for more than 50 days now, the relevant international and UN organizations must formally declare famine in the region. Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon is one component of its ongoing genocide in the Strip, which also includes mass killings and forced displacement.”
Such a declaration, Euro-Med says, “would require the international community to fulfill its moral obligations and take all of the necessary legal actions against Israel, such as punishing it with sanctions, preventing it from receiving weapons, and acting quickly to establish a humanitarian corridor and bring in aid and supplies to prevent thousands of Palestinians from starving to death.”
Meanwhile, a coalition of eight international aid organizations have warned the Biden-Harris administration that Israel has failed to meet a set of criteria set out by the US to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The so-called “scorecard” published by the aid groups was released on the 30-day deadline for action that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gave to Israel last month to improve the “deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza” or it would ostensibly be required to invoke a federal law mandating the US to halt assistance to governments restricting US humanitarian aid.
The organizations state that “Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza. That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”
On 12 November, US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that even though the 30-day deadline is up, the US will not in fact limit arms transfers to Israel. “We at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law,” Patel said, adding that the US has assessed that Israel has made steps to improve, but offered no details.
When pressed by reporters, Patel explained that “I would not view it as giving [Israel] a pass.”“We want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress,” he said.
Journalists killed
Israel has killed more journalists this week, bringing the number of media workers killed since October 2023 to nearly 190, according to the Gaza government media office.
On 9 November, siblings Zahra Muhammad Abu Sakhil and Ahmad Muhammad Abu Sakhil, who both worked for the Media News Network, were killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City.
Journalist Khaled Abu Zir, who worked for a local radio broadcaster, and Mohammed Khreis, another reporter, were killed this week. Khreis was killed along with his wife in an Israeli airstrike on a tent west of Nuseirat refugee camp.Attacks expand on Lebanon
Israel has attacked villages in south Lebanon while bombing areas of Beirut.
On 12 November, the Israeli army ordered the residents in 14 south Lebanon villages to flee, and that it intends to launch a military operation in those villages, according to Al Jazeera.The Al-Mayadeen news channel reported on 11 November that Israeli warplanes attacked the southern town of Saksakiyye, killing seven people, while Israeli missile strikes hit the towns of Debbin, Yater, Burj Qalaway, Qana and other villages in the Tyre district. Israeli artillery shelling hit the town of Shebaa.
On 8 November, Israeli airstrikes in Beirut targeted buildings on the Lebanese University campus.
Bassam Badran, the university president, told reporters that the institution “will remain resilient in the face of Israeli war machinery.” He added, “These attacks will not deter it from continuing its mission of education and community service.”
On 10 November, 23 people including 7 children were killed in Israeli attacks on the town of Almat, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
The UN reported over the weekend that of the more than 3,200 people killed in Lebanon since October 2023, more than 200 of them were children.Defiance and resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to share images and videos of people expressing defiance and resilience in the face of Israel’s widening campaign of destruction.
This video shows Palestinian women making clothes for children, using seashells as buttons:
And this video shows women making croissants in the wreckage of their home in Gaza: Finally, our contributor Abubaker Abed uploaded this photo of him interviewing a young boy:
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