Less than a kilometre from Gaza, pallets of food, fuel, water, and medicine are among the hundreds of tonnes of lifesaving aid packed into a long convoy of trucks idling on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, as drivers await Israel’s green light so they can reach 2.3 million besieged Palestinians caught in the crossfire of the ongoing war.
As humanitarians continued to echo the UN Secretary-General’s urgent calls on Israel to open a safe aid delivery corridor, Gaza will soon run out of basic supplies, according to UN agencies on the ground, who raised alarms about a looming unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.
(UN News)* — The UN Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) issued an urgent call on Saturday [] for Israeli Authorities to protect all civilians sheltering in Gaza.
The statement came as the Israeli-imposed deadline for some 1.1 million civilians to leave the northern part of the enclave, ahead of what is expected to be a major advance into Gaza by Israeli ground forces, expired.
IDILIB, SYRIA, Oct 13 2023 (IPS)* – Seven-year-old Salim al-Bakkar was orphaned in the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023.
Earthquake orphans are cared for at the Kuramaa Center in the Idlib Governorate, Northern Syria. Credit: Sonia Al Ali/IPS
Saved by members of the civil defense team who pulled him from the rubble, doctors had to amputate his left leg – which had been crushed in the 7.7 magnitude quake that killed more than 55,000 people and destroyed at least 230,000 buildings.
Salim, from Jenderes, north of Aleppo, Syria, was pulled from the rubble but, suffering from crush syndrome, had his leg amputated.
The shutdown of Gaza’s only power plant will exacerbate an already desperate humanitarian crisis for more than 2.2 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip, amid a massive bombing campaign by Israel that has killed at least 1,350 people and injured more than 6,000 people.
The airstrikes were launched in retaliation to the attack on 7 October by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups from Gaza who fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and injuring more than 2,700 and taking hostages, including many civilians.
13. Oct 2023 — We are alarmed by Israel’s call for over a million Palestinians to leave northern Gaza in less than 24 hours.
Israel must rescind this order immediately. Demands for the population in its entirety to relocate in such an immediate manner put at risk the lives of those forced to flee.
The Government of Israel has not provided any assurances for their safety while in transit or for the safety of civilians remaining in the Gaza Strip as fighting continues.
Humanitarian agencies operating in Gaza are reporting an unfolding humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale.
“Netanyahu made clear with his little map what normalization really seeks: eliminating Palestine… from the region and legitimizing greater Israel, all with the blessing of Arab regimes,” one critic said.
Palestine 1947 Map Palestine Remembered
22 Sep 2023– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and their defenders today after presenting a map of “The New Middle East” without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
7 Oct 2023 – Right now Palestinians, Israelis, and all of us with families on the ground are terrified for our loved ones. We grieve the lives of those already lost and remain committed to a future where every life is precious, and all people live in freedom and safety.
Following 16 years of Israeli military blockade, Palestinian fighters from Gaza launched an unprecedented assault, in which hundreds of Israelis were killed and wounded, and civilians kidnapped.
The Israeli government declared war, launching airstrikes, killing hundreds of Palestinians and wounding thousands, bombing residential buildings and threatening to commit war crimes against besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
“The Israeli military demand that 1.2 million civilians in northern Gaza relocate to its south within 24 hours, absent of any guarantees of safety or return, would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer. It must be reversed.
(Beirut, October 12, 2023) – Israel’s use of white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries, Human Rights Watch said today [12 Octiber 2023] in releasing a question and answer document on white phosphorus.
WHO occupied Palestinian Territory | Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. WHO warns that hospitals in the Gaza Strip are at a breaking point.
(UN News)* — Gaza is on the brink of running out of food, water, electricity and critical supplies, UN humanitarians warned on Thursday 12 October 2023].
No aid can come in from the outside for the 2.3 million residents of the sealed-off enclave, and some 220,000 displaced people are sheltering in schools run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 