CrossFireArabia
U.S. and Israeli officials say that President Trump does not oppose Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to launch a new military operation to occupy the entire Gaza Strip. Trump decided not to intervene and to let the Israeli government make its own decisions. When asked about a possible Israeli full occupation of Gaza, Trump said: “I really can’t say. It is going to be pretty much up to Israel.”
CrossFireArabia
A group of UN experts* decried Israel’s escalation of its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza, while calling on the international community to end its complicity in the face of Israeli atrocities as ceasefire talks continue without progress.
“Displacement orders from the Israeli authorities have targeted the last vestiges of the international humanitarian response in Gaza, as have direct attacks like the recent deadly airstrike on the Palestine Red Crescent Society,” the experts said, Thursday.
“This comes as the people of Gaza – above all, children – are dying en masse of starvation coupled with a lack of access to food, water, healthcare and shelter,” they said. “So-called ‘humanitarian pauses’ and airdrops are insufficient to address a crisis of this scale. Unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance must be allowed into Gaza.”
The experts stressed that Israel’s illegal restrictions on humanitarian aid have inflicted conditions of life on the people of Gaza that are currently bringing about their physical destruction. They recalled this constitutes an act punishable under international law as genocide, as does the mass killing and maiming of Palestinians in Gaza.
“Israel is exterminating the people of Gaza by any and all means,” the experts said. “Over a thousand Palestinians have been slaughtered by Israeli forces as they line up for humanitarian assistance.”
Seventy per cent of these killings have taken place at sites established by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the United States and Israel. These deaths add to the more than 59,000 Palestinians killed and 140,000 injured during Israel’s indiscriminate assault on Gaza.
The experts warned that displacement orders have confined Gaza’s entire surviving population to a mere 12 per cent of the Strip’s territory.
“Israeli proposals to further forcibly transfer Gaza’s population to a so-called ‘humanitarian city’ on the border with Egypt can only be seen as an attempt to create a concentration camp with conditions so dire that Gazans will ultimately be forced from their homeland,” they said.
The experts urged the international community to take long-overdue measures to protect Palestinians and hold Israel accountable.
“Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people is enabled by the complicity of States that continue to shield Israel from the political and diplomatic consequences of its actions – choosing instead to suppress the free speech of their own citizens who speak out against these horrendous crimes while continuing to provide Israel with arms, trade, and economic assistance,” they said.
“Furthermore, the United Nations has yet to definitively refer to the situation in Gaza as a genocide, despite irrefutable evidence of Israel committing multiple prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention and public statements from Israel’s leadership calling for the continued starvation of Gaza,” the experts said.
They also noted that the European Union has failed to adopt any measures to sanction Israel for breaching its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
“Without urgent international action, the words ‘never again’ will refer not to the prevention of genocide, but to the existence of Palestinian life in Gaza,” the experts said.
*The experts:
The Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.
Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/
UN Human Rights, country page – https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/israel
For inquiries and media requests, please contact: Krishnan Raghavan, Human Rights Officer ([email protected])
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts please contact Maya Derouaz ([email protected]) or Dharisha Indraguptha ([email protected])
CrossFireArabia
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Friday that Israel’s decision to occupy the Gaza Strip reveals the true nature of its war, “an unjustified campaign against Palestinian civilians.”
In a statement, the ministry condemned the Israeli Security Cabinet’s newly approved plan as a “dangerous and illegal escalation.”
“This decision reveals that the Israeli war was never defensive; it has always been a war of extermination and forced displacement against the people of Gaza,” the ministry said, warning of the “certain death” of civilians remaining in the strip according to Anadolu.
“This development cannot be ignored,” the ministry said.
The ministry announced it is launching a political campaign targeting decision-making centers in the international community, urging governments and institutions to “assume their legal, political, and moral responsibilities” and act to halt Israel’s actions.
The statement came hours after Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have the military take control of Gaza City.
Israel has been facing mounting outrage over its destructive war on Gaza, where more than 61,200 people have been killed since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
CrossFireArabia
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid on Friday sharply criticized the Cabinet’s latest decision on Gaza, calling it “a disaster that will lead to many more disasters.”
In a statement, Lapid accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of capitulating to the extremist demands of far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The criticism from Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, comes after Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan by Netanyahu to take control of Gaza City, according to Anadolu.
“In complete contradiction to the opinion of the military and security ranks, without considering the erosion and exhaustion of the fighting forces, Ben Gvir and Smotrich dragged Netanyahu into a move that will take months,” said Lapid.
He added that this will “lead to the death of the hostages, the killing of many soldiers, cost tens of billions to the Israeli taxpayers, and lead to a political collapse.”
He warned that Israel will be “trapped in the field without a goal, without defining the picture of the day after, in a useless occupation that no one understands where it is leading.”
Israel has been facing mounting outrage over its destructive war on Gaza, where more than 61,200 people have been killed since October 2023.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
CrossFireArabia
In its latest report “Gaza: Israeli School Strikes Magnify Civilian Peril”, Human Rights Watch states that hundreds of Israeli attacks since October 2023 have struck over 500 school buildings through out the Gaza Strip.
These schools, used as shelters for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced since the Israeli war on the enclave, have since become killing fields. Many people living there continued to be killed because of the strikes.
The report stated the Israeli forces’ deadly attacks on schools sheltering Palestinian civilians highlight the absence of safe places for displaced people, the vast majority of Gaza’s population.
Human Rights Watch added the Israeli attacks is sure to contribute to the disruption of access to education for many years, as repair and reconstruction of schools can require significant resources and time.
See: Full Report
