Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of blocking aid to Palestinians despite UN court order

Israel has failed to comply with an order from the United Nations’ highest court to urgently provide aid to desperate people in the Gaza Stripas he said on Monday Human Rights Watch, a month after a historic verdict in The Hague that ordered Israel to exercise more restraint in its war.

In a preliminary response to the South African petition accusing Israel of genocide, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. He stopped short of ordering the end of his military offensive, which has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe in the small Palestinian enclave. Israel flatly rejects the charges against it and says it is waging a war of self-defense.

A month later and after almost five months of war, Israel is preparing to expand its ground operation in Rafah, the southernmost town in Gaza, next to the border with Egypt and where 1.4 million Palestinians have taken refuge in search of safety.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, Benjamin Netanyahu, said early Monday that the army had presented to the war cabinet its operation plan for Rafah and plans to evacuate civilians from combat zones. He did not give further details.

The situation in Rafah, where populous tent camps have been set up to house the displaced, has sparked international concern, and Israel’s allies have warned that it must protect civilians in its fight against Hamas.

Also on Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh announced the resignation of his government. The initiative, which still must be approved by President Mahmoud Abbas, could open the door to US-backed reforms in the Palestinian Authority. Washington wants a reformed Palestinian Authority to govern the Gaza Strip once the war is over.

In its ruling last month, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to follow six provisional measures, including “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse living conditions faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

Under those orders, Israel must also submit a report on what it is doing to comply with the measures within a period of one month. Although Monday marked one month since the court issued its decision, it was initially unclear whether Israel had submitted that report. The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.

HRW said Israel is not complying with the court’s order on aid, citing a 30% drop in the average daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza in the weeks since the court ruled. The group added that Israel is not adequately facilitating fuel deliveries to battered northern Gaza and accused Israel of preventing aid from reaching the north, where the World Food Program had to suspend aid deliveries last week due to a surge of chaos in that isolated area of ​​the territory.

“The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s decision, and in some respects has even intensified its repression, including blocking further vital aid.”said Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel and Palestine director.

In a similar statement, the Association of International Development Agencies, a coalition of more than 70 humanitarian organizations working in Gaza and the West Bank, said aid deliveries have slowed since the court ruling, with almost no aid reaching areas of Gaza north of Rafah.

Israel denies that it is restricting the entry of aid and has instead blamed humanitarian organizations operating inside Gaza, claiming that hundreds of trucks full of material are sitting idle on the Palestinian side of the main border crossing. The UN He says he can’t always reach the trucks at the pass because sometimes it’s too dangerous.

Netanyahu’s office also said Monday that his war cabinet has approved a plan to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza safely and in a way that can “prevent cases of looting.” He did not reveal any further details.

The war, launched after Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel in an attack that left 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians, and about 250 taken hostage, has brought unimaginable devastation across the country. Loop.

Nearly 30,000 people have been killed in the territory, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel claims to have killed 10,000 militants, without presenting evidence.

The fighting has destroyed large swaths of Gaza’s urban landscape and displaced around 80% of its 2.3 million people, who have crowded into increasingly smaller spaces in search of elusive safety.

The crisis has put a quarter of the population at risk of starvation and raised fears of famine, especially in the north of the territory, which was the first target of the Israeli ground invasion and where starving residents have been forced to eat animal feed and search for food in demolished buildings.

“I wish death for the children because I cannot get them bread. I can’t feed them. I cannot feed my own children,” cried Naim Abouseido in anguish as he waited to get help in Gaza City. “What have we done to deserve this?”.

Bushra Khalidi of the British humanitarian organization Oxfam told The Associated Press that she has verified reports of children dying of starvation in the north in recent weeks, something she said indicates aid is not increasing despite the court ruling. .

Israel He said 245 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, less than half that entered the territory daily before the war.

But HRW, which cited data from the UN, said that between January 27 and February 21, the average number of trucks entering was 93, compared to 147 trucks daily in the three weeks before the international court’s decision. The daily average fell further, to 57, between February 9 and 21, according to the figures.

Aid groups say deliveries remain stymied by security concerns. French organizations Doctors of the World and Doctors Without Borders said their respective facilities had been attacked by Israeli forces in the weeks following the court order.

United Nations agencies and aid groups say hostilities, the Israeli military’s refusal to facilitate deliveries and the breakdown of order inside Gaza are making it increasingly difficult to get vital aid to much of the coastal enclave. In some cases, crowds of desperate Palestinians have surrounded trucks and snatched supplies.

The United Nations has called on Israel to open more crossings, also in the north, and improve the coordination process.