Gaza: Israeli war tactics condemned as aid still blocked from reaching north

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Intense Israeli military operations have continued in Gaza as UN humanitarians reported that multiple attempts to deliver lifesaving aid to besieged areas in the north of the enclave had been either “denied or impeded”.

An update from the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said that in the last two days alone, “six attempts to deliver lifesaving assistance to besieged areas in North Gaza governorate were blocked”.

The missions on Tuesday and Wednesday had aimed to bring food and water to Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, along with protection and psychosocial support for children deeply traumatised by 13 months of bombardment.

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“People are trapped in residential buildings, they are hiding from the ongoing military operations around them, they are running out of food,” said Louise Wateridge, senior emergency officer with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

In comments to the media, Ms. Wateridge relayed testimonies from staff and people in the north who described seeing dead bodies in the streets and a near total absence of emergency healthcare provision which had forced people to use donkey carts to reach barely functioning hospitals.

Almost all of Gaza forced to move

According to OCHA, approximately 79 per cent of the Gaza Strip remains under active evacuation orders. “Palestinians continue to be directed to areas in and around Al Mawasi, in southern Gaza, that lack basic infrastructure and essential services,” the UN aid agency said.

Latest data from the Gazan health authorities indicated that at least 43,736 people have been killed and 103,370 wounded in Israeli military attacks since 7 October 2023, with 24 Palestinians killed and 112 wounded in the last 24 hours.

Equivalent to two nuclear bombs

The development came as a UN General Assembly special panel condemned the Israeli military’s tactics in Gaza since war erupted, following the “horrific” Hamas-led terror attacks on 7 October on multiple Israeli targets that killed some 1,250 people and left more than 250 taken hostage.

Covering the period from October 2023 to July this year, a report from the panel maintained that Gaza had been hit by some 25,000 tonnes of explosives – equivalent to two nuclear bombs – by early 2024.

The massive destruction that has been the result – along with the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation and toxic pollution – are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide” and will have an impact on the health of Gazans for generations, insisted the report’s authors.

“The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” said the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.

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‘Starvation as a method of war’

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the Committee maintained.

Palestinian women mocked and shamed

On the ground in Gaza, Israeli soldiers were also found to have engaged in “dehumanising, cruel and humiliating behaviour towards Palestinians, including women and children”, the committee said, alleging that troops had shared photos on social media of Palestinian women “aimed at mocking, shaming and humiliating them”.

The panel was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1968 to examine the human rights situation in the occupied Syrian Golan, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The Committee’s Member States – Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka – called on Israel and Palestinian armed groups “to urgently agree to a lasting ceasefire, release all hostages as well as detainees held arbitrarily”. provide unfettered ICRC access to those in detention and open all border crossings to allow life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza at scale.

End ‘smear campaign’ against UNRWA

The panel also condemned the “ongoing smear campaign” against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and expressed concern at the “deliberate silencing of reporting” on the conflict in Gaza. It said that “escalating media censorship” by Israel and the “suppression of dissent and targeting of journalists” were “deliberate efforts to block global access to information”.

The Committee also insisted that social media companies had “disproportionately removed ‘pro-Palestinian content’, in comparison with posts inciting violence against Palestinians”. Its report will be presented to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on 18 November 2024.