Israeli military has committed violations against children, UN chief rules

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 08 June 2024

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THE UNITED NATIONS - The Israeli military has been added to a global list of offenders who have committed violations against children, according to the country’s United Nations envoy, who branded the decision “shameful”.

The list is part of a report on children and armed conflict that is due to be submitted to the UN Security Council next Friday.

“I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision of the secretary general,” said envoy Gilad Erdan.

“Israel’s army is the most moral army in the world, so this immoral decision will only aid the terrorists and reward Hamas.”

Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for secretary general Antonio Guterres, who took the decision, declined to comment.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the UN had “added itself to the black list of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers”.

And foreign minister Israel Katz said it would affect the country’s relations with the UN.

Mr Guterres’s annual report to the 15-member Security Council covers the killing, maiming, sexual abuse, abduction or recruitment of children, denial of aid access and targeting of schools and hospitals.

The list is split into two: parties that have put in place measures to protect children and parties that have not. Mr Erdan said he was told Israel had been included on the latter.

The list aims to shame parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children.

A spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the decision was “a step closer to holding Israel accountable for its crimes”.

Israel is retaliating against Hamas, which rules Gaza, over the 7 October attack by its militants.

More than 1,200 people were killed and at least 250 taken hostage by Hamas, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages are believed to be still captive in Gaza.

Separately, analysis of Gaza health ministry data has found the proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the war appears to have declined sharply.

The findings, by the Associated Press, comes after Israel changed battlefield tactics. In October, when the war began, the death rate for women and children was above 60 per cent. For April, it was below 40 per cent.

Israel’s assault on the blockaded Palestinian territory has killed more than 36,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.

Israel’s military blames Hamas for Gaza’s high civilian death toll, accusing it of operating within densely populated neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals, something it denies.

UN and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force, which it denies.

Pressure grows on Benjamin Netanyahu to back Gaza ceasefire plan

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Category: MENA

Published: 05 June 2024

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LONDON - Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing growing pressure at home and internationally to support a new ceasefire plan for Gaza, a move he is resisting over fears it will collapse his government, according to the London-based Guardian.

Far-right members of the prime minister’s coalition have threatened to quit the coalition if Israel “surrenders” before “total victory” over Hamas, while his leading rival, the centrist Benny Gantz, has said he will resign from the emergency unity government if Netanyahu does not commit to a deal and “day after” plan for Gaza by 8 June.

Staying in office is Netanyahu’s best chance of evading prosecution for corruption on charges he denies. But the longtime leader was forced into a corner on Friday, when Joe Biden unveiled a new truce and hostage release plan, which he said was an Israeli proposal.

In the unexpected announcement, Biden urged Hamas to come to the table – but the speech, which was not coordinated in advance with Israeli officials, is widely believed to have been aimed at reluctant elements of the Israeli leadership, too.

Netanyahu almost immediately undermined the US president, on Saturday calling the plan a “non-starter”. He has since begrudgingly acknowledged the new proposal, which has been relayed to Hamas, but also reportedly reassured his political partners that “the war would not end and the chances of reaching a deal were very low”.

After several failed rounds of talks, a second ceasefire following a week-long truce that collapsed in November is still far from certain. Qatar, a mediator, said on Tuesday that it was still waiting for a “clear position” from Israel, while a Hamas spokesperson said the group could not agree to a deal in which Israel did not commit to a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal from Gaza.

“We haven’t seen any statements on both sides that give us a lot of confidence,” said the Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari, who also noted that “the process is progressing and we have been working with both sides on proposals on the table”.

But there is a growing sense in Israel – not for the first time – that Netanyahu is running out of options.

“He is world champion at stalling, making all sides sick of him and ultimately evading paying the bill when it comes due,” the commentator Ben Caspit wrote in the centrist Israeli daily Ma’ariv on Tuesday. But even a political master such as Netanyahu couldn’t hold off much longer on making a decision on a deal, Caspit said. “He has to make a real decision. Not a sort-of decision, not a pretend decision, not an on-condition decision and not a temporary decision. A decision.”

During Saturday night’s now-weekly protest in Tel Aviv led by the families of hostages held by Hamas, thousands of people called on the government to act on the new proposal, as well as for new elections.

On Tuesday, the Shas party, Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partner, came out in favour of the deal, adding to pressure from the leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, who has promised that his centrist party will help a deal pass in the Knesset even if rightwing government factions rebel.

And after months of increasing international isolation and souring relations with the US, Israel’s most important ally, Biden has for the first time appeared to accuse the Israeli leader of prolonging the war effort in Gaza for his own political survival. Asked in an interview with Time magazine, published on Tuesday, whether the Israeli leader was stalling for political reasons, Biden said: “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

An editorial in the leftwing daily Haaretz on Tuesday speculated that the prime minister, faced with nothing but unpalatable choices, could play a card he has used several times in the recent past: dissolving parliament and taking his chances in new elections.

As head of a transition government, he could go ahead with the hostage and ceasefire deal without the fear of losing his far-right partners’ support. Getting back in Washington’s good books would reopen the pathway to a potential legacy-defining normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia. It would also delay decisions on another politically explosive issue dividing Netanyahu’s current coalition: ultra-Orthodox conscription.

If, as expected, elections are held sooner than the scheduled date of 2026, it is not impossible that Netanyahu could again cobble together a coalition.

The prime minister has recovered in the polls since 7 October. One survey, conducted a few weeks afterwards, found just 4% of Israel’s Jewish public trusted him. Most polling shows that while the majority of Israelis support the war effort, they also blame him for security failures during the Hamas attack. However, new survey data released this week by Israel’s public broadcaster found the gap with Gantz, his centrist rival, is closing, with Netanyahu now eight points behind.

“Bibi knows he will face elections at some point in the near future, so maybe he will calculate it’s better for him to be in control of the process so he can create the best possible conditions and situation for himself going into an election,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, using Netanyahu’s well-known moniker.

A Ramadan ceasefire that Biden said was “very close” did not materialise, and some progress towards a new truce last month was scuppered by the launch of Israel’s invasion of Rafah, the last pocket of Gaza to have been spared ground fighting.

There is one substantial difference between the new plan and previous proposals. The first phase, a six-week ceasefire in which a limited number of Israeli hostages would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, would be indefinitely extendable while negotiators thrash out the next stage, so an impasse would not necessarily trigger a return to hostilities.

Gaza children starving amid persistent aid access obstacles, warn UN agencies

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Category: MENA

Published: 02 June 2024

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GENEVA - Far too little aid is reaching people in Gaza to the extent that children are now starving, UN humanitarians said on Friday, in a renewed appeal to Israel to respect international law regarding the safe passage of lifesaving relief in the war-shattered enclave.

The alert from the World Health Organization (WHO) follows the finding that more than four in five children “did not eat for a whole day at least once in the three days” ahead of a food insecurity survey.

Hunger snapshot

“These are children under five who are not getting food all day,” said WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris. “So, you ask, ‘Are the supplies getting through?’ No, children are starving.”

Additional worrying data from the food insecurity snapshot survey indicated that almost all of the youngsters surveyed in Gaza now eat just two different food groups per day, when the WHO recommendation is at least five.

According to an update this week from the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, since mid-January, more than 93,400 children under five have been screened for malnutrition in Gaza; 7,280 were found to have acute malnutrition, including 5,604 with moderate acute malnutrition and 1,676 with severe acute malnutrition.

Preventable horrors

Echoing those concerns, OCHA highlighted the risk of deadly malnutrition and famine among Gaza’s most vulnerable individuals.

“I would say they are certainly not getting the amount that they desperately need to prevent a famine, to prevent all kind of horrors that we see. It’s very, very little that is going around at the moment,” said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.

Responding to questions about aid access obstacles, he reiterated that the Israeli authorities’ obligations under international humanitarian law to facilitate the delivery of aid “does not stop at the border. It does not stop when you drop off just a few metres across the border and then drive away and then leave it to humanitarians to drive through active combat zones - which they cannot do - to pick it up. So, to answer your question, no, the aid that is getting in, is not getting to the people.”

Amid ongoing reports of deadly Israeli bombardment across Gaza on Friday, humanitarians continued to stress that land crossings for aid convoys remain “the only way to get (aid) in at scale and at speed…We need more of these land crossings and we need them open and we need them safe for use to pick up the aid when it’s dropped off,” the OCHA spokesperson said.

Floating dock setback

Asked about the US military-built floating dock moored off Gaza’s coastline that has reportedly partially broken up in high seas, Mr. Laerke noted that “any and all ways of getting aid in is welcome, so when that reality is not working, that’s of course bad news…It was never realistic to be a major or the major pipeline of aid in. It could have been an addition, and we keep emphasising that.”

As part of its ongoing efforts to prevent life-threatening hunger in Gaza, the WHO reported that alongside partners and the local health authority, it continues to offer stabilization services for children suffering from the most life-threatening form of malnutrition.

To date, 68 children have received treatment, it said, but owing to the recent escalation of hostilities, the nutrition stabilization centre in Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza is out of service.

Since 1 May, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and partners reported that they had reached around 60,000 children under the age of five and 22,820 pregnant and breastfeeding women with 15 days’ worth of nutrient supplements to help stave off malnutrition.