Al-Shifa Hospital has been under attack by Israeli forces for a week now. Today, the assault increased a as two more hospitals came under attack. Lauren Izso, Abeer Salman and Tim Lister (CNN) report:
Israeli forces have surrounded two more hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said, describing intense shelling and heavy gunfire.
Months into the conflict, fighting is still raging across Gaza, despite international pressure on Israel and ongoing efforts for a ceasefire and hostage deal.
The PRCS said Sunday that Al-Amal Hospital and Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza were both encircled.
“All our teams are in extreme danger at the moment and are unable to move at all. They are also unable to bury the body of our colleague Amir Abu Aisha inside the hospital courtyard.”
THE NEW ArAB notes, "The UN humanitarian office OCHA said 'health workers have been among those reported arrested and detained'." Australia's ABC adds, "The reported hospital battles came as the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said that Israel had informed the UN that it will no longer approve UNRWA food convoys to the north of Gaza." ALJAZEERA reports:
Martin Griffiths, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the UN, says he repeatedly urged Israel to lift all its restrictions on aid to Gaza, but it has now done the exact opposite.
“UNRWA is the beating heart of the humanitarian response in Gaza,” he said about the UN organisation for Palestinian refugees, which has now been told by Israel that its food convoys to northern Gaza will be blocked entirely despite the humanitarian disaster there.
“The decision to block its food convoys to the north only pushes thousands closer to famine. It must be revoked.”
At TRUTHOUT, Sophie Hurwitz reports:
Hasan*, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, has spent all but one of his 24 years of life in the United Kingdom. He does not speak Hebrew or Arabic fluently, and depends on British medical care. In 2019, Hasan was informed that he was to be deported to Israel, separating him from his family in the U.K., so he filed an asylum claim. In 2022, that claim was denied, forcing him to appeal. In the years since then — and in recent months, as Israel’s post-October 7 incursion into Gaza has brought Palestinians’ human rights into the international spotlight — Hasan has waited. His appeal hearing was scheduled for March 12 of this year.
If Hasan were to be returned to Israel, his lawyers wrote that he’d face “likely persecution” because he is Palestinian, because he is Muslim, and because of “his anti-Zionist, anti-apartheid and pro-Palestinian political opinion.” But in a surprising reversal March 11, Hasan was told that he’d be allowed to stay — without having to go to court. His lawyers say this is a precedent-setting recognition by the British state of the Israeli government’s persecution of Palestinians.
“This is a victory not just for me but for all Palestinians living under the apartheid Israeli regime,” Hasan wrote in a statement. “Without even having to step into court, the U.K. government has now accepted that the Palestinian struggle for freedom should not just be limited to Gaza and the West Bank but to all parts of historic Palestine under Israeli rule.”
[. . .]
Hasan’s barrister, Franck Magennis, called the decision “completely unprecedented,” and said that it amounted to an acknowledgment that even Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are likely to experience violence and harm at the hands of the Israeli state. “It amounts to admission by the British state that there’s a real risk that Israel persecutes at least some of its own Palestinian citizens, whether because they’re anti-Zionist or simply because they’re Palestinian.”
This may be the first case in which a Palestinian citizen of Israel has successfully won asylum in the U.K. on the argument that an apartheid system of racial domination systematically oppresses Palestinian citizens. On a page set up to crowdfund his legal support, Hasan stated that he particularly wanted to underscore apartheid in his case. “My previous solicitors dropped my case because they were nervous that I wanted to put the spotlight on Israeli apartheid as part of my asylum case,” he wrote. His new lawyers built his case around the 1951 Refugee Convention, and highlighted several nongovernmental organization- and United Nations-affiliated reports demonstrating that Palestinians, even those who are not among the million actively under starvation and bombardment in Gaza, are being prohibited from leading a full and equitable life within the Israeli state.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 170 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NEW ARAB notes, "The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said another 84 people had been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the total death toll in the nearly six-month-old war to 32,226." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
And ALJAZEERA reports:
As accounts of sexual violence against Palestinian women in Gaza are coming out, two women special rapporteurs of the UN say the issue is underreported and undervalued.
Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said in a post on X that it is “abhorrent” that reports of rape by Israeli forces keep coming out without any consequences.
“Rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide! It must stop!”
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said, “I lost count of how many renowned journalists interviewed me on the alleged mistreatment of/sexual abuse against Palestinian women by Israeli forces, and never published any article on this”.
The following sites updated:
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