(UN News)* —The scenes of devastation witnessed in the aftermath of Israel’s military operation to release hostages from the Nuseirat refugee camp proves that each day the war continues “it only grows more horrific” the UN’s top humanitarian official said on Sunday [].
According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 270 people including children and other non-combatants were killed during intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in and around the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday [8 June 2024], in the middle area of the war-torn enclave. More than 600 were reportedly injured with hospitals overwhelmed.
The war has caused unprecedented devastation to the Palestinian labour market and the wider economy, according to new data and analysis by the ILO and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Since hostilities erupted in October 2023, the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip has reached a staggering 79.1 per cent. In the West Bank, which has also been severely impacted by the crisis, unemployment has reached 32 per cent.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 2024 (IPS)* –The Biden administration, which is frantically attempting to finalize a shaky peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, is being stymied by at least two far right-wing politicians in Netanyahu’s cabinet—Foreign Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir—and also by the Israeli Prime Minister himself who wants to totally eradicate Hamas before he agrees to a cease-fire.
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Destruction in Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh
But peace or no peace, the charges against Israel, including genocide, war crimes, starvation as a weapon of war, and the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, and churches, will continue to linger.
(UN News)* — Aid corridors in southern Gaza must be fully opened to allow the entry of food, fuel and other desperately needed relief items, a senior official with the World Food Programme (WFP) said on .
Matthew Hollingsworth, WFP Country Director in Palestine, warned that with limited access to the south “we will no doubt see what we saw happen in the north in the first months of the war”.
Mr. Hollingsworth recently spent 10 days in Gaza. Speaking from Jerusalem, he told journalists in New York that people in the enclave “really are at their wits’ end”.
A horrific ‘exodus’
He said the “exodus” from Rafah over the past 20 days “has been an awesome and horrific experience for many, many people.”
(UN News)* — 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.
(UN News)* —With no let up in reported street battles and Israeli bombardment across Gaza on Thursday [], UN humanitarians warned that the flow of vital lifesaving aid into the enclave has fallen by more than two thirds since the Israeli military stepped up its campaign in Rafah and seized the key aid conduit.
UN News/Ziad Taleb | Conditions at Al Mawasi camp in southwest Gaza remain unsuitable for the hundreds of thousands of Gazans uprooted by the latest escalation of violence in nearby Rafah and elsewhere across the Gaza Strip.
“Humanitarian facilities in Rafah are forced to close one after another…The flow of humanitarian aid supplies into Gaza, already insufficient to meet the soaring needs, has dropped by 67 per cent since 7 May,” reported the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, amid reports that kitchens, clinics and hospitals are shutting down.
GENEVA (UN Human Rights) – UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Monday [27 May 2024] voiced his horror at the further loss of civilian life in Gaza, after Israeli air strikes on Sunday hit a camp for displaced people in the southern city of Rafah.
“The images from the camp are horrific and point to no apparent change in the methods and means of warfare used by Israel that have already led to so many civilian deaths,” said Türk.
“Sunday’s strike underscores once again that there is literally no safe place in Gaza.”
Media update from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on the latest situation in Gaza, Thursday 23 May 2024. An update from Suze van Meegen, NRC’s head of operations in Gaza:
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“The city of Rafah is now comprised of three entirely different worlds: the east is an archetypal war zone, the middle is a ghost town, and the west is a congested mass of people living in deplorable conditions.
“People have no choice but to put their faith in so-called ‘humanitarian safe zones’ designated by the forces that have killed their family members and destroyed their homes.
“They have dragged their families and few possessions onward to new locations for the seventh, eighth, ninth time in seven months of war. But as far as we can see, there is nothing ‘humanitarian’ about these areas.
(UN News)* —The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday [] issued new provisional measures that order Israel to immediately end military operations in Rafah in southern Gaza and to open the governate’s border crossing for urgent aid deliveries.
This follows a request from South Africa in a pending case accusing Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
Reading the new provisional measures in an open session at the court in The Hague, ICJ Justice Nawaf Salam announced that Israel must abide by its obligations under the Genocide Convention to “immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governate which may inflict upon the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that would bring about its physical destruction in whole and in part”.
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 2024 (IPS)* – The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to seek warrants on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has triggered a strong backlash both from the Biden administration and a group of pro-Israeli Senators in the US Congress.
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Streets in Rafah are emptying as families continue to flee in search of safety. Credit: UNRWA
The names in the ICC arrest warrants also include Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh—all leaders of Hamas.
Photo credit: UNICEF. \ 
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 