CrossFireArabia
Activists in New York City have started a hunger strike for Gaza outside the United Nations in solidarity with hunger strikers in Jordan.
Organizers say that the strike will continue until the siege on Gaza is lifted.
The action follows a call for solidarity from a group of Jordanian hunger strikers pressing for an end to their country’s complicity in the siege on Gaza.
CrossFireArabia
“Drones would come down and pick off civilians, children”
British surgeon Nizam Mamode, retired NHS doctor who recently returned after working at Nasser Hospital, broke down in UK Parliament as he described Israeli occupation quadcopters deliberately shooting Palestinian children.
He said at least once or twice daily, there were “mass casualty incidents,” meaning that 10 to 20 people were killed and up to 40 seriously injured, estimating that at least 60 percent of the people treated at these times were women and children.
“This is not an occasional thing. This was day after day after day operating on children who would say, ‘I was lying on the ground after a bomb dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me’,” Mamode said.
CrossFireArabia
There must be “due reckoning” for horrific violations and possible atrocity crimes in Gaza, the UN human rights chief said on Friday following the release of a new report outlining actions taken by Israeli forces during the ongoing war with Hamas.
The report details the horrific reality faced by both the people of Israel and Gaza since 7 October 2023, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk stressing the imperative for Israel to fully and immediately comply with its obligations under international law and the rules of war.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” he said.
The UN High Commissioner said this is even more critical and urgent, given the totality of conduct set out in the report and taking into account most recent events, including Israel’s ongoing operations in northern Gaza and its adoption of legislation affecting the activities of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
The detailed analysis of violations covers the six-month period from November 2023 to April 2024, and broadly examines the killing of civilians and breaches of international law that in many instances could amount to war crimes.
If committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, further to a State or organizational policy, these violations may constitute crimes against humanity, according to the report.
The report warned that if those violations were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, they may also constitute genocide.
“The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its series of orders on provisional measures, underscored the international obligations of Israel to prevent, protect against and punish acts of genocide and associated prohibited conduct,” according to the report.
Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians, according to the report.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militants committed serious violations of international law on a wide scale, the report stated, including attacks directed against Israeli and foreign civilians, killing and mistreatment of civilians, sexual violence, destruction of civilian objects and taking of hostages.
These acts could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the report, which noted that following 7 October, Hamas and other armed groups celebrated those attacks and violations, which was both “deeply troubling and totally unacceptable”.
Mr. Türk recalled States’s obligations to act to prevent atrocity crimes, urging them to support the work of accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the current conflict.
The report also pointed to repeated statements from Israeli officials positing the end of the conflict as contingent upon Gaza’s entire destruction and the exodus of the Palestinian people.
In addition, it documented efforts to rationalise discrimination, hostility and violence towards, and even the elimination of, Palestinians.
The report showed how civilians have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial “complete siege” of Gaza by Israeli forces, as well as the Israel Government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, destruction of civilian infrastructure and repeated mass displacement.
This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease, the report stated.
The UN rights office, OHCHR, has been verifying the personal details of those killed in Gaza by strikes, shelling and other conduct of hostilities, finding close to 70 per cent to be children and women, which indicated a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.
The continuation of these attacks, killing evenly across the population, “demonstrates an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare selected”, the report stated.
The most represented of verified fatalities are children.
CrossFireArabia
About 300,000 children have fled from Lebanon to Syria in the past seven weeks to seek safety from the worsening conflict, only to arrive in a country where humanitarian needs have never been higher, Save the Children organisation said.
Many children are travelling alone, separated from parents or families, and are at risk of abuse, food shortages and illness as winter looms.
The UN estimates that approximately 60 per cent of the people being displaced from Lebanon to Syria are children and adolescents with many arriving in desperate need of medical care, shelter, food and water.
CrossFireArabia
The Lebanese group Hezbollah launched approximately 100 rockets toward Haifa and the Krayot region in northern Israel, Israeli media reported.
Israeli reports indicate that this was the heaviest barrage of rockets and the most intense shelling in that specific area since the start of the war.
The rockets were reportedly launched from border sites, areas that the Israeli army previously claimed were under its control.
Direct casualties were reported in the Krayot area, with ambulance crews dispatched following initial reports.
According to the Times of Israel, at least three people were wounded in Bi’ina.
The heavy missile barrage also targeted Haifa, as well as Route 22 in Kiryat Bialik and Kiryat Ata.
Sirens sounded across Haifa, the Krayot, the central Galilee, and the industrial zone between Acre and the Krayot.
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav told Channel 12 that the scale of the attack was among the largest since Hezbollah began shelling northern towns on October 8.
Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that the latest missile salvos toward northern Israel included two ballistic missiles, signaling a shift to higher-grade weaponry.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility, stating they targeted “a training base for the Paratroopers Brigade in the Karmiel settlement.”
The attack comes only one day following statements by the newly-appointed Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, claiming that “Israel has defeated Hezbollah”.
“Now it is our job to continue to put pressure in order to bring about the fruits of that victory,” Katz said during a ceremony at Israel’s foreign ministry on Sunday.
Northern Front
Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, on October 7, 2023, the Lebanese movement Hezbollah has engaged directly, but relatively in a limited way in the war against the Israeli occupation.
Israel escalated its aggression with the cyber-terror attacks on September 17 and 18, which claimed the lives of at least 37 people including children, and injured around 3000 others.
This went hand in hand with a series of assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, including that of the Secretary-General of the resistance party Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.
These developments coincided with unprecedented bombings and airstrikes by Israel’s army on different cities across Lebanon particularly in the south, Bekaa and the southern district of Beirut.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced on November 10 that 3,189 Lebanese were killed and 14,078 were injured since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon.
(PC, Al-Mayadeen)
