Humanitarian crisis in Gaza

[Woodchopper]

Primer on the case brought by South Africa: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-ga ... -1.7079001

[Woodchopper]

Starvation as a Method of Warfare
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/january ... of-warfare

Looks at the use of famine in Gaza.

(Was open for me)

[Tristan]

Interesting post on the (lack of) merits of the SA case by a lawyer. https://x.com/cptallenhistory/status/17 ... iksLglQFYQ

[veravista]

And an interesting post on why Israel are attempting genocide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhsWyBWGoCU

[Tristan]

Well it’s about time they brought those cancer doctors down a peg or two. They’ve been genociding and getting away with it for far too long! https://twitter.com/joe_roberts01/statu ... F7Rx-dA58Y

[Fishnut]

I've been having a really sh.t time recently, which is why I haven't been posting, but it's nothing compared to what's going on in Gaza right now.

OCHA flash update 93 (15/1/24)

As always, paragraphs starting with a "-" are direct quotes. Where this is absent I am summarising information from the update. Other sources are linked in the text.

Hostilities and casualties
- Between 7 October 2023 and 12:00 on 15 January 2024, at least 24,100 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 60,834 Palestinians were injured, according to the MoH. [my emphasis]

The Committee to Protect Journalists has confirmed that 82 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023. They have called for an investigation into the deaths of Hamza Al Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya after they were killed by drone strike due to concerns that they were targetted.

“Israel says it does not target journalists. It needs to explain whether it used one of its drones for a precision attack on these two journalists and why it launched strikes on those like Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, who was clearly wearing press insignia and away from direct fighting,” said [CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif] Mansour.

Displacement
- On 12 January, UNRWA reported that the average number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in UNRWA shelters south of Wadi Gaza was over 12,000 per shelter. This is more than four times their capacity. [my emphasis]

- As of 11 January, according to UNRWA, 1.9 million people, or nearly 85 per cent of Gaza’s population, were estimated to be internally displaced, including many who have been displaced multiple times, as families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety.

According to the Times of Israel (in Hebrew, Google Translate used for English translations), Israel is in talks with Rwanda and Chad to take Palestinians.

Israel is in talks with Rwanda and Chad about taking in tens of thousands of Palestinian immigrants from Gaza. Both countries expressed a basic agreement to the continuation of the discussion, in contrast to other countries that refused in principle and were not approached again. This is what a very senior political official told The Times of Israel.

According to the same source, the negotiations are underway at the Mossad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs these days. "The business is very complex," the source told The Times of Israel yesterday. "We must promote this channel, but be very careful of the reactions in the world and also of the fear that it will be interpreted as a transfer and not a voluntary migration. That's why we work with close legal advice."

A couple of days prior, the same paper reported that 'voluntary immigration' is now becoming the government's preferred approach to dealing with Gaza,

The voluntary immigration policy of Gaza residents is slowly becoming the leading and official policy of the government and the coalition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the go-ahead, and ministers and Knesset members from all coalition factions are following his lead.
...
Minister of Intelligence Gila Gamaliel told The Times of Israel yesterday that "voluntary immigration is the best and most realistic plan for the day after the fighting."
...
Yesterday, the US State Department condemned the statements of Smotrich and Ben Gvir about immigration from Gaza, calling them "inflammatory and irresponsible". Netanyahu clarified in response that "statements of this type are not the government's policy" - despite and contrary to his statement from last week.

In practice, everyone is working diligently to realize the idea. The Times of Israel has learned that the main country with which secret negotiations are currently being conducted to accept thousands of immigrants from Gaza is the Congo. According to a senior official in the political-security cabinet, "Congo will be ready to receive immigrants, and we are in negotiations with other countries."

Electricity
There has been no electricity since 11 October 2023.

Water
- As of 15 January, only one of the three water pipelines from Israel is currently functioning. The Middle Area water pipleine, with a production capacity of close to 17,000 cubic metres of water per day), urgently needs repairs. Water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH) partners have estimated that this could take up to four weeks with sustained access and the necessary supplies. [my emphasis]

Telecommunications
- As of 15 January, telecommunication services in Gaza have remained shut down for the third consecutive day, since 12 January. This is the seventh time that communications have stopped working since 7 October. The absence of telecommunications deprives people from accessing life-saving information, while also detrimental for the operation of first responders and other humanitarian actors. On 13 January, a telecommunications company vehicle was reportedly struck in central Khan Younis, although the crew was on a repair mission having had coordinated their security in advance. Two staff were reportedly killed. [my emphasis]

Humanitarian Access
- In the first two weeks of January, humanitarian agencies planned 29 missions to deliver lifesaving supplies to the north of Wadi Gaza. Only 7 of the 29 (24 per cent) were accomplished, either fully or partially. The access of the rest of the missions was denied by the Israeli authorities. [my emphasis]

- The denials over the first half of January denotes a stark deterioration from the previous months (October-December), when only 14 per cent (6 out of 43) of missions planned to the north were denied, while the remaining 86 per cent (37 out of 43 missions) were facilitated. The denials prevent scale-up and have a paralyzing opportunity cost to the overall response. Any planned missions that are denied to the north of Wadi Gaza are opportunities missed for planned missions to other parts of the Gaza Strip.

- Since the escalation of hostilities, humanitarian missions have reported two instances where convoy members were being detained by Israeli forces, and two instances of attacks on convoys. Additionally, reluctance by the Israeli authorities to open main supply routes and facilitate timely crossing through the Israeli military-controlled checkpoint has exposed humanitarian actors to security risks. Furthermore, the capacity of humanitarian agencies to operate safely and effectively remains heavily compromised by restrictions applied by the Israeli authorities on the import of critical humanitarian equipment. [my emphasis]

Health care
- According to WHO, 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional; nine in the south and six in the north. In Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, three hospitals – Al Aqsa, Nasser, and Gaza European – are at risk of closure due to the issuance of evacuation orders in adjacent areas and the ongoing conduct of hostilities nearby. Hospitals in the north have been offering limited maternity, trauma, and emergency care services. However, they face challenges such as a shortage of medical staff, including specialized surgeons, neurosurgeons, and intensive care staff, as well as a lack of medical supplies, and have an urgent need for fuel, food, and drinking water. The nine partially functional hospitals in the south are operating at three times their capacity, while facing critical shortages of basic supplies and fuel. According to the MoH in Gaza, occupancy rates are reaching 206 per cent in inpatient departments and 250 per cent in intensive care units. [my emphasis]

- On 13 January, WHO, UNFPA and OCHA visited Al Aqsa hospital and Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis to assess the needs due to ongoing hostilities and evacuations orders in the neighbourhoods surrounding the two hospitals. Since the withdrawal of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Medical Aid Palestine and the International Rescue Commitee (IRC) from the Al Aqsa hospital on 6 and 7 January, only 12 health workers remain, including two doctors, representing 10 per cent of the total hospital workforce pre-crisis. About 140 patients are at the hospital, while 1,500 IDPs are sheltering there. UNRWA has provided over 24,000 litres of fuel to sustain emergency services but much more is needed. WHO is planning to facilitate the deployment of an emergency medical team to support surgeries and the emergency department. [my emphasis]

Save the Children are reporting that, on average, more than 10 children a day are having one or both legs amputated, many without anaesthetic.

Food security
- According to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC):

• 2.2 million people are at imminent risk of famine.

• 378,000 people at Phase 5 (catastrophic levels) Phase 5 refers to extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.

• 939,000 people at Phase 4 (emergency levels).

[my emphasis]

- Given the current stock and funding situation, Nutrition partners can only meet 25 per cent of the nutritional needs for malnourished children and vulnerable mothers in the next two months. Without immediate funding and an expanded response, 375,000 individuals are at risk of severe undernourishment. Urgent action is crucial to prevent this life-threatening situation.

At the beginning of the month, The New Yorker interviewed Arif Hussain, chief economist at the United Nations World Food Program. It's well worth a read in full but it ends with this incredibly sobering statistic,

If you look globally, worldwide, right now, there are about a hundred and twenty-nine thousand people who are in I.P.C. Phase 5, meaning a catastrophic type of hunger. A hundred and twenty-nine thousand. In Gaza, there are five hundred and seventy-seven thousand. If you add these two numbers together, you can say that you have about seven hundred thousand people in the world who are in I.P.C. Phase 5, of which five hundred and seventy-seven thousand are in Gaza. That means that eighty per cent of the people, or four out of five people, in famine or a catastrophic type of hunger are in Gaza right now. This is also what makes it unprecedented. [my emphasis]

[Woodchopper]

The ICJ to issue a ruling on the case brought by South Africa at 1300 CET on Friday.

[Woodchopper]

The ICJ hasn't ordered an immediate ceasefire.

It has though instructed Israel to prevent its soldiers from committing acts of genocide. This though appears to be a pretty weak measure as the threshold would be an intent to wipe out all or a significant part of the population, and Israel could argue that they don't have that intent. Killing thousands of people isn't necessarily genocide.

The court has also ordered Israel to prevent incitement to genocide and to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza [ETA and to provide basic services].

[Woodchopper]

The Court has identified the Palestinian people as being at risk of genocide.

It has also required that Israel provide a report within a month on its activities in order to implement the order, and that Israel prevent the destruction of evidence.

Overall, IMHO Israel has been given a warning. It is expected to carry out the war in a different way. But it hasn't been ordered to stop the war.

[Woodchopper]

Here is the full text of the order: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/f ... -00-en.pdf

[dyqik]

One key thing is that this is an interim order. No judgement on the main issues has been made, yet.

[Woodchopper]

One key thing is that this is an interim order. No judgement on the main issues has been made, yet.

Certainly. The full case will probably take years, and the court has started a process by which it will stay involved. This order was the start and not the end.

[Tristan]

This interim judgement is much weaker than it could have been and the bar for SA winning the case will rightly be much higher for the full judgement.

[tenchboy]

Deleted

[Fishnut]

OCHA flash update 110 (4/2/24)

As always, paragraphs starting with a "-" are direct quotes. Where this is absent I am summarising information from the update. Other sources are linked in the text.

Hostilities and casualties
- Between 7 October 2023 and 13:30 on 4 February 2024, at least 27,365 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 66,630 Palestinians were injured, according to the MoH. [my emphasis]. By my calculations that's over 1% of the population killed and almost 3% injured.

An opinion piece in Haaretz decries the killing of an estimated 11,500 children over the last four months.

No explanation, no justification or excuse could ever cover up this horror. It would be best if Israel's propaganda machine didn't even try to. No stories of "Hamas is responsible for it all," and no excuses pointing to Hamas hiding among civilians. Horror of this scope has no explanation other than the existence of an army and government lacking any boundaries set by law or morality.
...
The clichés are hackneyed and pathetic: "They started," "there is no choice," "what would you have us do?" "The IDF is doing everything it can to avoid the killing of innocent people." The truth is that Israel doesn't care, it doesn't even take any interest.

Haaretz has also reported that the IDF psychological warfare unit has been running a Telegram channel sharing extremely graphic content of dead Palestinians alongside dehumanising language,

An October 11 post read: "Burning their mother… You won't believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch. We'll post it right away, get ready." Photos of Palestinian men captured by the IDF in the Strip and the bodies of terrorists were captioned: "Exterminating the roaches… exterminating the Hamas rats… Share this beauty." A video of a soldier allegedly dipping machine gun bullets in pork fat is captioned: "What a man!!!!! Greases bullets with lard. You won't get your virgins." Another caption was: "Garbage juice!!!! Another dead terrorist!! You have to watch it with the sound, you'll die laughing."

On October 14, alongside the caption "Exclusive video of a good night, don't forget to share and repost" was a video of an Israeli vehicle repeatedly driving over the body of a terrorist. "Very good, Gershon!!! Run him over run him over!!!! Screw the bastards! Flatten them," the accompanying text read.

After originally denying their involvement, the IDF later admitted it was operated by members of the Influencing Department but claim it was unauthorised.

During the original investigation, sources told Haaretz that members of the unit, which is in charge of psychological warfare targeting the enemy and foreign audiences, created 72 Virgins – Uncensored on October 9, two days after the war began, without official approval and without being authorized to do so. Furthermore, the channel was directed at an Israeli audience.

- On 2 February, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) expressed their shock at the recent killing of three members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Gaza. One staff member and one volunteer were killed near the gate of the Al Amal Hospital on 31 January and another staff member was killed on 2 February at the PRCS headquarters, in the same compound as the Al-Amal hospital. The deaths followed several days of shelling and fighting around the hospital, which hindered access to the facility and created panic and distress among patients and thousands of displaced people.

- On 2 February, the organization Humanity and Inclusion (HI) reported that its office located in Gaza city, has been destroyed in a bomb strike on 31 January 2024. No alert or warning was given to HI and no staff were present at the time. The coordinates of the building had been communicated to the notification system put in place by the UN and Israeli forces to avoid the inadvertent targeting of humanitarian premises.

Al Jazeera has video from the Sheikh Hamad hospital following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area. It's only a couple of minutes long but I highly recommend watching.

Displacement
- Some 75 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people, more than half of whom are children, are displaced according to UNRWA’s estimates. They face acute shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine. Intense fighting around Khan Younis continues to drive thousands of people into the southern town of Rafah, which is already hosting over half of Gaza’s population. Most are living in makeshift structures, tents, or out in the open, according to UNRWA.

The Guardian has a visual investigation into the destruction of infrastructure in Gaza. It's well worth reading as the images really do speak a thousand words.

Using satellite imagery and open-source evidence, the investigation found damage to more than 250 residential buildings, 17 schools and universities, 16 mosques, three hospitals, three cemeteries and 150 agricultural greenhouses.

Entire buildings have been levelled, fields flattened and places of worship wiped off the map in the course of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza...

Swathes of agricultural land [around the north-eastern city of Beit Hanoun] have been erased, visible in satellite imagery from Planet Labs taken on 30 November. Most of the agricultural greenhouses have been destroyed and new paths from armoured vehicles are now strewn across the growing area. An analysis by UNOSAT in December found that 39% of agricultural land in north Gaza had been damaged.

An entire residential neighbourhood of more than 150 buildings has been flattened. Also destroyed were schools, including one run by the UN that was blown up by Israeli forces in mid-December.
...
The Guardian analysis found a cemetery bulldozed and mosques damaged or destroyed. Among them is the Umm al-Nasr mosque, parts of which date back to 1239, which is damaged.
...
At the heart of al-Zahra sit three universities, mostly damaged and surrounded by craters.

Of them, Israa University was blown up by Israeli forces this month, after being used as a military base. After footage of the explosion prompted the Biden administration to ask the IDF for clarification, they announced a probe into its circumstances...

The al-Zahra tower blocks, reportedly home to more than 3,000 people, were flattened by Israeli bombing.

The BBC are reporting that more than half of Gaza's buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The article, like the Guardian article above, has satellite photos showing before and after which are simply shocking in the level of destruction.

Humanitarian Access
- In January, ten of the 61 humanitarian aid missions planned for the north of Wadi Gaza (16 per cent) were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, two (3 per cent) were partially facilitated, 34 missions (56 per cent) were denied access, and six (10 per cent) were postponed by aid organizations due to internal operational constraints. In an emerging pattern, the access of an additional nine missions (15 per cent) was initially facilitated, but subsequently impeded as routes designated by the Israeli military proved to be unpassable, or due to the imposition of excessive delays prior to the departure of the missions or at checkpoints en route. Facilitated missions primarily involved food distribution, while the access of missions to support critical hospitals and facilities providing water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services remained largely denied. [my emphasis]

Israeli protesters have been blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza. The Times of Israel reports that the blockade has been going on for more than a week at the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Among the organizers of the protests is the Tikvah Forum, a group composed of families of Israeli hostages who favor a more hardline response to Hamas...

The group is to the right of the main hostage families’ organization, which favors a deal to free the captives.

A group of Israeli military reservists is also participating in the protest.

The marchers’ public demands reflect the outlook of some members of the ruling coalition. Among their proposed policies are an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, encouraging Palestinians to leave the territory, and a credo that places “our warriors above all” — a nod to the idea that Israel should use means that put Palestinian civilians at risk in order to protect the lives of soldiers.

[Fishnut]

It's been a while. It's just so f.cking depressing. It's a genocide. Israel is trying to wipe Gaza off the map. And it's succeeding.

OCHA flash update 122 (20/2/24)

As always, paragraphs starting with a "-" are direct quotes. Where this is absent I am summarising information from the update. Other sources are linked in the text.

Hostilities and casualties
- Between 7 October 2023 and noon on 20 February 2024, at least 29,195 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 69,170 Palestinians were injured, according to MoH in Gaza.

- Incidents of the targeting of people as they wait for humanitarian aid convoys continue to be reported in Gaza city.

The BBC is reporting that the Israeli military is bombing parts of Rafah, in some cases only 130m away from rows of tents sheltering displaced people.

The latest satellite images also show how close the strikes were to areas filled with temporary structures housing people who have been forced from their homes.

Israel has repeatedly told Palestinians living in north and central Gaza to move south for their own safety - but fighting has now come to these very areas.

The article has before and after photos allowing you to see how many people have fled to the area, only to be bombed once again.

- The Committee to Protect Journalists has confirmed the deaths of 88 journalists and media workers as of today, and is investigating numerous reports of journalists being killed, injured, missing, detailed or threatened.

Displacement
- As of 17 February, up to 1.7 million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip, many multiple times, according to UNRWA. Following intense Israeli bombardment and fighting in Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, a significant number of Palestinians has moved to Rafah, where the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) has overwhelmed the capacity of health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to meet the needs of the population. According to a recent assessment of satellite data by UNOSAT, it is estimated that over one million IDPs are currently residing in makeshift shelters, the majority in Rafah. On 20 February, the Israeli military announced an order for residents of two specific areas of Gaza city to evacuate to Al Mawasi area in Khan Younis. Since 7 October 2023, about 67 per cent of the Gaza Strip have been placed under evacuation orders. [my emphasis]

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli army is expanding a road across central Gaza in order to facilitate its military operations,

The gravel-paved road is one of a number of Israeli efforts to reshape the topography of the Gaza Strip—and give its military freedom of movement and a tighter grasp on the territory...

The building and expansion of the road comes as the Israeli military is also building a roughly 1 kilometer buffer zone just inside Gaza’s border with Israel, where Palestinians would be barred from entry.

U.S. officials have warned Israel repeatedly against altering Gaza’s borders or carving up its territory. They have publicly voiced opposition to the creation of a buffer zone.
...
The revamped road also could effectively create a militarized belt across Gaza that could aid in preventing the return of around 1 million Gazans who fled to the south amid Israeli bombardment and calls for evacuations in the early months of the war, according to analysts. The route will be guarded by Israeli troops to prevent militant attacks, one of the military officials said.
...
Israeli combat engineers are planning to destroy houses and other structures along the road’s flanks and are already laying a new base of gravel to widen the corridor and make it more militarily useful, according to footage aired on Israel’s Channel 14 on Saturday. A military spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Humanitarian Access
Thomas White, Director of UNRWA Affairs reported on 5 February that a food convoy was hit by Israeli navel gunfire. This was the third time that a humanitarian convoy had been hit.

- Between 1 January and 15 February, humanitarian partners planned 77 missions to deliver aid and undertake assessments to areas to the north of Wadi Gaza. Of these, 12 were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, three were partially facilitated, 14 were impeded, 39 were denied access, and nine were postponed. Facilitated missions primarily involved food distribution, while the access of missions to support hospitals and facilities providing water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) services remained among those overwhelmingly denied. [my emphasis]

The Washington Times has more on the blockades of aid by protesters,

The teens, and a smattering of people in their 20s, have come from all over Israel. They say that humanitarian aid to Gaza helps Hamas, and they’ll block it even if it means innocents starve.

Ben Shabat argues sugar and flour can be used to make bombs. “When you mix flour with potassium nitrate you get an explosive for a warhead,” he says. “Every pound of sugar and flour that goes into Gaza from Israel, we will get it back by the way of a rocket that will kill our children.”

The tactic is also about starvation. “When a soldier is hungry, he’s not fighting so well.”

And the children? “Nobody can say children are bad,” he says. But “the children from the past were murdering and raping and kidnapping” on Oct. 7.
...
Every explosion in Gaza raises a cheer.

“Dead, dead, dead Arabs,” one camper shouts at a roaring volley of outgoing fire. Then she notes the presence of a reporter. “Hamas,” she corrects herself.
...
The IDF referred questions on why the protesters were allowed to remain at the crossing to COGAT, the Defense Ministry agency that oversees Palestinian civil affairs and crossing points. COGAT did not respond to requests for comment. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it could not provide data on how many trucks have been disrupted at the crossing. The office does not have a presence at the border point.

Health care
- The situation in Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis continues to be critical, following a 29-day siege by the Israeli military. On 19 February, PRCS reported that the water desalination station at the facility is no longer functional after being hit by Israeli forces, and that available drinking water is only sufficient for three days. The facility already faces a lack of fuel reserves to generate electricity for high-risk patients and a near exhaustion of food supplies and has reportedly sustained damage due to recent artillery shelling.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has been tweeting about the ongoing attacks.

The UN Human Rights Office has spoken out about the repeated sieges and raids on hospitals in southern Gaza.

The raid [on the Nasser Medical Complex] appears to be part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential life-saving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals. Our Office has documented similar raids in Gaza City, North Gaza, Middle Gaza and in Khan Younis, with serious consequences for the safety of patients, medical and other staff, as well as civilians sheltering in these facilities.

CNN has more on the raid,

Israeli forces shelled the hospital early Thursday [1 February 2024], killing and injuring an “undetermined number of people,” according to Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Since the attack, one of their colleagues remains unaccounted for.
...
The news came after doctors and medical officials in southern Gaza said Israeli snipers had shot dead a number of people as they tried to flee the Nasser hospital. An eyewitness to the shootings, who is a trauma surgeon at the hospital, said at least two people were killed by snipers on Tuesday, with more shot and injured.
...
Video filmed on Tuesday at the hospital shows columns of smoke at its perimeter, an Israeli bulldozer destroying a hospital perimeter wall, and an armored vehicle entering the hospital grounds. The sound of gunfire can be heard throughout.

Sewage water is flooding the emergency ward and electrical generators will stop within 72 hours if the Israeli bombardment persists, Dr. Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Wednesday.

The LA Times has a piece by a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who went to volunteer in Gaza in late January.

I have worked in other war zones. But what I witnessed during the next 10 days in Gaza was not war — it was annihilation.
...
Entering southern Gaza on Jan. 29, where many have fled from the north, felt like the first pages of a dystopian novel. Our ears were numb with the constant humming of what I was told were the surveillance drones that circled constantly. Our noses were consumed with the stench of 1 million displaced humans living in close proximity without adequate sanitation. Our eyes got lost in the sea of tents. We stayed at a guest house in Rafah. Our first night was cold, and many of us couldn’t sleep. We stood on the balcony listening to the bombs, and seeing the smoke rise from Khan Yunis.
...
I began work immediately, performing 10 to 12 surgeries a day, working 14 to 16 hours at a time. The operating room would often shake from the incessant bombings, sometimes as frequent as every 30 seconds. We operated in unsterile settings that would’ve been unthinkable in the United States. We had limited access to critical medical equipment: We performed amputations of arms and legs daily, using a Gigli saw, a Civil War-era tool, essentially a segment of barbed wire. Many amputations could’ve been avoided if we’d had access to standard medical equipment. It was a struggle trying to care for all the injured within the constructs of a healthcare system that has utterly collapsed.

I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on. After surgery they would be filed somewhere in the hospital, I’m unsure of who will take care of them or how they will survive. On one occasion, a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head. These families were returning to their homes in Khan Yunis, about 2.5 miles away from the hospital, after Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind. None of these children survived.
[my emphasis]

Food security
There is a steep rise in malnutrition. The Global Nutrition Cluster reports that in the Northern Gaza Strip 15.6% of children under the age of 2 are acutely malnourished [my emphasis].

Of these, almost 3 per cent suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, which puts young children at highest risk of medical complications and death unless they receive urgent treatment. As the data were collected in January, the situation is likely to be even graver today.

According to that report, in the Southern Gaza strip, 5% of children under the age of 2 are acutely malnourished.

Before the recent months’ hostilities, wasting in the Gaza Strip was rare with just 0.8 per cent of children under 5 years of age acutely malnourished. The rate of 15.6 percent of wasting among children under 2 in Northern Gaza suggests a serious and rapid decline. Such a decline in a population’s nutritional status in three months is unprecedented globally. [my emphasis]

The report found that,
- 95% of households are limiting meals and portion sizes
- 64% of households have only one meal a day
- more than 95% of households have adults restricting their food in order for children to eat
- 90% of children under the age of 2 and 95% of pregnant/breastfeeding women face severe food poverty
- on average, households have less than 1 litre of safe water per person per day - the minimum amount needed in an emergency is 3 litres, and standard is 15 litres.
- more than 90% of children under 5 have at least one infectious disease. 70% had diarrhoea in the 2 weeks prior to the survey. [my emphasis]

Cultural Destruction
Librarians and Archivists with Palestine have compiled a preliminary report of the libraries, archives and museums that have been destroyed, damaged or looted since 7/10/23. Just a couple of examples to give you a sense of what has been lost,

Al-Israa University Library and National Museum (near Gaza City)
Description of damage: Destroyed by controlled detonation by the Israeli military, including the library and National Museum which contained over 3,000 archeological artifacts. The museum was looted prior to destruction.

Al-Qarara Cultural Museum, also known as the Khan Younis Museum (Khan Younis)
Description of damage: Heavily damaged, including complete destruction of the pottery collection. Museum contains 3,500 archaeological and historical artifacts, dating back to as far as 4,000 BC.

[tenchboy]

It's been a while. It's just so f.cking depressing. It's a genocide. Israel is trying to wipe Gaza off the map. And it's succeeding.

It is indeed; but no-one dares say anything against it for fear of terrible things.

edit to fix quotefuck

[discovolante]

It's been a while. It's just so f.cking depressing. It's a genocide. Israel is trying to wipe Gaza off the map. And it's succeeding.

It is indeed; but no-one dares say anything against it for fear of terrible things.

edit to fix quotefuck

It's painful that this issue has such a tendency to attract the worst characters, from all sides, and for it to be turned into a kind of political football.

On the whole I try to keep my opinions on this to myself (or at least, not make them public) because the underlying problem is such a complex issue I don't feel qualified to comment on it. But it's a really alarming situation and I think that focusing on what is actually happening to people in Gaza is important.

[Trinucleus]

Meanwhile our worthy MPs are arguing over the correct wording for not killing people

[Sciolus]

It's been a while. It's just so f.cking depressing. It's a genocide. Israel is trying to wipe Gaza off the map. And it's succeeding.

It's been clear for a while that this, the total obliteration of Gaza, is their intention. Why else would you systematically demolish schools and other civil infrastructure even after you've taken full military control of them?

[Martin_B]

It's been a while. It's just so f.cking depressing. It's a genocide. Israel is trying to wipe Gaza off the map. And it's succeeding.

It's been clear for a while that this, the total obliteration of Gaza, is their intention. Why else would you systematically demolish schools and other civil infrastructure even after you've taken full military control of them?

The Israeli leadership has not been smart over this. Even if they were waiting for an excuse to obliterate Gaza, and there is some evidence that they knew Hamas was planning *something*, and then Hamas go and give them the perfect excuse to retaliate, doing so with such sledgehammer-like tactics was always going to swing world-wide public opinion against them.

They started with a fairly sensible (if you are Israeli) response of a swift military hit, then withdrawal of services and attempting to starve Hamas out, but then rather than letting the UN take over aid channels (provided with IDF support, no doubt, which would have eventually reduced Hamas's power base) they doubled down on the military response. I know that Netanyahu has to placate the hard-liners in his coalition, but he appears more extreme even than them.

[Fishnut]

The situation is getting worse. I keep meaning to post more frequently but honestly, gathering the stories and then summarising them here is something I can only do sporadically. It's awful enough just reading about the situation, I can't imagine how horrendous it must be to live it.

OCHA flash update 131 (4/3/24)

As always, paragraphs starting with a "-" are direct quotes. Where this is absent I am summarising information from the update. Other sources are linked in the text. Bolded sections are my emphasis.

Some of the information is now being provided in Situation Reports. The latest is Report #85 (4/3/24). Paragraphs from here will begin --.

Hostilities and casualties
- Between 7 October 2023 and 10:30 on 4 March 2024, at least 30,534 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 71,920 Palestinians were injured, according to MoH in Gaza.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Humanitarian Health and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine released a report that attempts to project how many people will die in Gaza in the next six months. If the Israeli military continues to do what it's been doing, they predict between 58,260 and 66,720 excess deaths. Even if there was an immediate ceasefire they predict between 6,500 and 11,580 excess deaths as a result of people succumbing to injuries and starvation. The New Yorker has an interview with one of the report's authors about how they did the research that's well worth a read.

On Thursday 29 February 2024 around 4.30am local time, people gathered at Harun al-Rashid Street to await aid trucks. From Al-Jazeera,

As people gathered in large groups waiting for much-needed aid, they were shot at by all kinds of military equipment...

After the first round of shooting stopped, people returned to the trucks, only for the soldiers to open fire once more.

“After opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies,” Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul said, reporting from the scene.

- According to MoH in Gaza, the death toll... has risen to 118, and tens of the 760 injured people remain in critical condition due to the lack of capacity to save their lives.

Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith said the Israeli military “initially tried to pin the blame on the crowd”, saying that dozens were hurt as a consequence of being crushed and trampled in a stampede when aid trucks arrived.

“And then, after some pushing, the Israelis went on to say that their troops felt threatened, that hundreds of troops approached their troops in a way they posed a threat to them so they responded by opening fire,” Smith added. But they didn’t explain how those people posed a threat.

Witnesses insisted that the stampede happened only after Israeli troops started firing at people looking for food.

This attack was not an aberration,
- On 1 March, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) strongly deplored the incident, noting that since mid-January “the Office has recorded at least 14 incidents involving shooting and shelling of people gathered to receive desperately needed supplies at … two entrances to Gaza city - with a majority of these incidents resulting in casualties.” On 2 March, one Palestinian was reportedly killed and more than 20 injured by gunfire while people were gathering in anticipation of a humanitarian aid delivery on Rashid Road in Gaza city. Tens of casualties were also reported on 3 March, as people gathered to receive aid supplies at the Kuwaiti roundabout in Gaza city, according to MoH in Gaza.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has confirmed the deaths of 94 journalists and media workers as of 4 March 2024.

Haaretz has an article on the daily presence of death in Gaza, including interviews with four people.

"Death is everywhere. Not all the dead can be buried, not all the bodies can be extricated." That's how Maha, a 36-year-old mother of three who fled Gaza City for Rafah, describes the situation in the Strip.

"Sometimes, when they can't find and remove all the bodies that were buried during a shelling, they ask the neighbors or relatives and write the names of the dead on the wall of the house, if there's still a wall. They write that they're there, under the ruins. Maybe at some point they'll be able to extricate them."

Manal is a 35 year old elementary school teacher. She's married with three children and lived in Gaza City before the war. She described the bombings and the decision to flee to the south.

"There were bodies on the sides of the road. The highway that connects the northern and southern Strip was an area full of life before the war. Now it was like testimony to our suffering: Death and destruction were everywhere, with the horrifying smell of flowing sewage and rotting bodies with flies and other insects above them.

"We walked quietly; most of the people walking marched in silence without looking right or left. You try to protect the children so they won't look. At a certain point my older son, Yazan, asked: 'Mommy, what's that smell?' That tore me up. He's 11. How can you explain the rotting bodies, all that death, to him?"

Mohammad, 31, is a gym teacher who lives in Rafah. He started volunteering with the Red Cross and describes a bombing on 4 December 2023,

You walk slowly among the ruins, like on eggshells, so as not to step on a body. The equipment we work with is very basic, we don't have bulldozers or vehicles for removing debris. Every time the team found a limb under the ruins – a foot, an arm, a head. And that's how they found more bodies and were able to remove some of them.

Aisha, 28, is an emergency room nurse at Kuwait Hospital in Rafah,

"Two weeks ago there were bombings in Rafah and a girl arrived by herself, maybe 6 years old. She was covered in blood with a serious head wound. The Red Crescent team said she had been wounded in the bombing and they didn't find her parents. I went out to the corridors and went to all the rooms. I said that there was a wounded little girl, without parents, maybe somebody knew her. Nobody knew her.

"She didn't survive. I wrapped her body in a plastic sheet, I didn't know what to write, what her name was. I went out again to check, maybe people saw something on social media, maybe somebody was looking for a little girl. Nothing.

"I think that this case was the hardest for me. Not the death itself, but its cruelty. A little girl died and was buried alone, without anybody knowing who she was and that she was gone."

Displacement
Palestinians are being squeezed into an ever-smaller area. Despite initially telling people to seek refuge in Rafah, the Israeli military has begun bombing it and has an offensive planned. Rafah's population was around 172,000 but has swelled to around 1.4 million (around half the Palestinian population) since the conflict began.

Foreign Policy reports that Egypt is building a walled enclosure in its North Sinai province leading to speculation that it is to contain refugees from Rafah. Egypt rejected this speculation, saying it was just border maintenance.

In January, ministers and members of Israel's parliament attended a conference calling for Israeli settlement of the Gaza strip and 'voluntary migration' of the Palestinian population. According to the Guardian,

Participants, who included influential rabbis, settlement leaders and families of soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip, were presented with maps and detailed preparations for the re-establishment of a Jewish presence in the areas inside what is considered internationally as the borders of a would-be Palestinian state.
...
It was attended by approximately 1,000 people, including 11 cabinet ministers and 15 members of the Knesset, some of them members of the prime minister’s Likud party.

One of the attendees was Orit Strook, Israeli Minister of Settlement and National Missions, who has since given a speech in the Knesset where she said,

“There will never be a Palestinian State in the land of Israel... Every cultured person in the world knows that this land is ours, for the Israeli people and only for us.”

According to the BBC,

Gazan officials warn more than 500,000 people will have no homes to return to, and many more will not be able to return immediately after the conflict because of damage to surrounding infrastructure.
..
The map below - using analysis of satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University - shows which urban areas have sustained concentrated damage since the start of the conflict.

They say at least 150,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have suffered damage. North Gaza and Gaza City have borne the brunt of this, with at least 80% of buildings in the two northern regions believed to have been damaged, but their analysis now suggests up to 64% of buildings in the Khan Younis area have also been damaged.

Source - https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/147CA/production/_132741938_gaza_damage_s1_14feb-2x-nc.png.webp

Gaza.jpg (23.25 KiB) Viewed 808 times

Humanitarian Access
Aid delivery has fallen by half since January, according to UNRWA,

Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini listed some of the obstacles to aid delivery, including lack of political will, the regular closing of the two crossing points into the enclave, as well as insecurity due to military operations and the collapse of civil order.

-- The first two days of March have seen a marginal increase in the number of trucks entering with an average 120 trucks per day entering Gaza, well below the operational capacity of both border crossings. February saw a very low number of trucks entering Gaza with an average of nearly 99 trucks entering per day. The number of trucks entering Gaza remains well below the target of 500 per day, with challenges bringing supplies in through both Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Rafah. UNRWA trucks have struggled to enter the Gaza Strip due to the war and the inconsistent opening of both crossings. Security to manage the crossing has been severely impacted due to the killing of several Palestinian policemen in Israeli airstrikes near the crossings in early February.

Healthcare
There's limited up-to-date information about the state of the healthcare system.
-- As of 26 February, seven (out of 22) UNRWA health centres were operational. Of these, one is in the north, two are in Middle Area, one is in Khan Younis and three are in Rafah.

-- A total of 766 health care staff continue to work in seven operational health centres and on 26 February they provided 13,937 medical consultations.

-- Another 9,714 medical consultations were conducted by 301 staff at shelters, and at the newly established medical points in al-Mawasi area to serve an influx of displaced persons from Khan Younis. The total registered population in al-Mawasi is currently 377,854.

The Telegraph has an interview with Professor Nick Maynard, a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon from Oxford University Hospital who has been visiting Gaza to teach surgery since 2010.

Maynard has worked in Al-Shifa many times over the years and says, “unequivocally”, that he saw no evidence of the hospital being used by Hamas.

“I know many doctors who’ve been there for many years, who I would trust implicitly, who are quite clear that there’s never been any evidence of military activity,” he said.

“There can be certainly no doubt in my mind from what I’ve recently witnessed that [Israel] are directly targeting healthcare structures with a view to completely disabling the healthcare system in Gaza.”
...
He said there were days there was no running water in the operating theatres, so they could only scrub up using alcohol gel.

“The doctors and nurses were wonderful there, but they just simply couldn’t maintain a sterile environment,” he said.

“Sanitation was horrendous. Just appalling infections. There were flies in the operating theatre, flies resting on the open abdomen when we were operating.”

There were several hundred new patients coming into the emergency department every day. The sheer number of admissions was causing “a breakdown of the triage system,” Maynard said.
...
But it was the “huge numbers” of wounded children that he said would “never, ever leave me.”

He saw many malnutrition cases amongst the surgical patients in Al-Aqsa and paediatrician colleagues told him they were seeing around two cases of Kwashiorkor a week.

Kwashiorkor typically affects children in famine hit areas, where a lack of protein causes fluid retention and their bellies to swell.

“I remember one child vividly. He was about eight or nine, and kept coming up to us asking for food because his whole family had been killed and he hadn’t eaten for three days. It was deeply distressing,” Prof Maynard said.

Food security
From a statement by Adele Khodr, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa that was released yesterday,

The child deaths we feared are here, as malnutrition ravages the Gaza Strip.

At least ten children have reportedly died because of dehydration and malnutrition in Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Northern Gaza Strip in recent days. There are likely more children fighting for their lives somewhere in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, and likely even more children in the north unable to obtain care at all.

These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable.

Senior UN Officials warned the UN Security Council on 27 February 2024 that famine was imminent in Gaza,

“Unfortunately, as grim as the picture we see today is, there is every possibility for further deterioration,” observed Ramesh Rajasingham, Director of Coordination at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population – are “one step away from famine”, he reported, adding that food-security experts warn of complete agricultural collapse in northern Gaza by May if conditions persist. Further, practically the entire population of the Strip is left to rely on woefully inadequate humanitarian food assistance to survive.
...
In the ensuing discussion, Council members expressed concern over worsening food insecurity in the Gaza Strip, with many characterizing the situation there as the use of starvation as a method of warfare.

[Grumble]

It’s so completely awful, I cannot begin to comprehend what they are going through. There’s no way this level of war can be justified as self-defence. I get that the hostages haven’t all been returned yet, and that Hamas want to destroy Israel, but I refuse to believe that the answer is to destroy Gaza first.

[Fishnut]

It's been too long and the situation has got so much worse I'm not sure I'm going to be able to cover a fraction of the horrors that are occurring in Gaza right now.

The TL:DR is that people are starving. THIRTY TWO THOUSAND people have been killed since 7 October 2023. Gaza is being razed to the ground and the world is just looking on.

Information is primarily gathered from Flash Update #145 and UNRWA Situation Report #93. Quotes from these sources are indicated by - and -- respectively. Where these are absent I am paraphrasing from these sources or others that will be linked to in the text. Bolded sections are my emphasis.

Hostilities and casualties
- Between 7 October 2023 and 10:30 on 21 March 2024, at least 31,988 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 74,188 Palestinians have been injured, according to MoH in Gaza.

-- About 70 per cent of those killed are reported to be women and children.

-- ISF [Israeli Security Forces] airstrikes continue in heavily populated Rafah in southern Gaza, where UNRWA estimates a total of 1.2 million people are now living, the vast majority in formal and informal shelters.

Displacement
-- As of 20 March, up to 1.7 million people (over 75 per cent of the population) have been displaced across the Gaza Strip, the majority multiple times. Families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety. Following intense Israeli bombardments and fighting in Khan Younis and the Middle Area in recent weeks, a significant number of displaced people have moved further south.

-- UNOSAT satellite imagery analysis showed that approximately one third (or 35 per cent) of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have been either damaged or destroyed. The governorates of Gaza and Khan Younis experienced the highest amount of destruction.

The IDF has built a road across the width of northern Gaza, dividing the north from the south. According to the BBC,

The new route is wider than a typical road in Gaza, excluding Salah al-Din.

Imagery analysis also shows that buildings along the route, which appear to be warehouses, were demolished from the end of December until late January. This includes one building several stories high.
...
Justin Crump, a former British Army officer who runs Sibylline, a risk intelligence company, said the new route was significant.

"It certainly looks like it's part of a longer-term strategy to have at least some form of security intervention and control in the Gaza Strip," said Mr Crump.

Netanyahu has reaffirmed his determination to launch a ground invasion on Rafah in southern Gaza that was originally a safe city where people were told to seek shelter from bombing in the north. Its population has grown from around 172,000 to 1.5 million and is right on the border to Egypt, meaning there is nowhere else to flea to should the IDF invade.

Humanitarian Access
-- Following the announcement that famine is imminent there has been no significant change in the volume of supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north. The first 20 days of March saw an average of 159 aid trucks per day crossing into the Gaza Strip. This remains well below the operational capacity of both border crossings and the target of 500 per day, with challenges at both Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Rafah. Security to manage the crossings has been severely impacted due to the killing of several Palestinian policemen in Israeli airstrikes near the crossings in early February.

-- 349 incidents impacting UNRWA premises and the people inside them have been reported since the beginning of the war (some with multiple incidents impacting the same location), including at least 51 incidents of military use and/or interference at UNRWA premises. 160 different UNRWA installations have been impacted.

Healthcare
-- As of 19 March, eight (out of 24) UNRWA health centres were operational. Of those, one is in the north, two are in the Middle Area, two are in Khan Younis and three are in Rafah.

The Al Shifa Hospital is once again the focus of another IDF offensive. AP reports,

Explosions and shootings shook the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital and surrounding neighborhoods as Israeli forces stormed through the facility for a second day Tuesday. The military said it had killed 50 Hamas militants in the hospital, but it could not be independently confirmed that the dead were combatants.

The raid was a new blow to the Shifa medical complex, which had only partially resumed operations after a destructive Israeli raid in November. Thousands of Palestinian patients, medical staff and displaced people were trapped inside the sprawling complex Tuesday as heavy fighting between troops and Hamas fighters raged in nearby districts.

Food security
-- On 18 March, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership released its latest food security outlook. It concluded that up to 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity. The report highlights the fast-deteriorating food security conditions, including a nearly 80 per cent increase in the number of people facing the highest classification of food insecurity since December, when the initial assessment was conducted. The increase has been triggered by the intensity of hostilities, extremely limited humanitarian access and severe limitations on the supply of goods and basic services. According to UNICEF and UNRWA nutrition screenings in February, the rates of acute malnutrition among children in northern Gaza and Rafah have nearly doubled in just one month. The IPC report also predicts a worsening of malnutrition rates unless aid increases and reaches the most vulnerable and hard to reach populations.

- According to the Water, Hygiene, and Sanitation (WASH) Cluster, water production from all the water sources in Gaza has dropped to only 5.7 per cent of pre-October production levels as of February 2024, with very limited supplies available for drinking and domestic use, including for personal hygiene. In a joint press release on 22 March, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Palestinian Water Authority reported that the average per capita water consumption in the Gaza Strip has dropped from 84.6 litres per day prior to 7 October to 3-15 litres per day. In December 2023, UNICEF had warned that children in southern Gaza were accessing only 1.5 to 2 litres of water per day, well below the recommended requirements for survival. According to humanitarian standards, the minimum amount of water needed in an emergency is 15 litres, which includes water for drinking, washing, and cooking. For survival alone, the estimated minimum is three litres per day.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says that Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians,

Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide.
...
“We have never seen a civilian population made to go so hungry so quickly and so completely, that is the consensus among starvation experts. Israel is not just targeting civilians, it is trying to damn the future of the Palestinian people by harming their children.”

James Elder, a spokesperson with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) visited Gaza this week and was shocked by what he saw,

“As soon as you drive through the north, you get that universal gesture of hunger of people putting their hands to their mouths. A lot of children, women with very gaunt faces. In [the city of] Khan Younis, there is utter annihilation.

“I’ve not seen that level of devastation in 20 years with the UN. People’s coping capacity in the north has been smashed and in the south it is hanging by a thread,”
...
“We are seeing severe malnutrition cases … Children who are on the brink of death, just skin and bones … and these are the ones who have managed to get to hospital. There is a real fear for those that can’t,” Elder said. “This is man-made and preventable.”

Medical staff at the hospital worked 36-hour shifts and then joined their families to search for clean water, food or shelter, Elder said.
...
“As you drive up on the coastal road [from Rafah heading north], you see just hundreds of thousands of people. They are sleeping in the streets, on the beach, on the sand behind the beach, in any available space,” he said.

The Guardian has a visual guide to the man-made obstacles to getting aid to Gaza that's well worth a look.

[discovolante]

It's quite hard not to worry that this will be 'over' very quickly.