Concerned governments should impose targeted sanctions and suspend arms transfers to press the Israeli government to ensure access to humanitarian aid and basic services in Gaza, in accordance with Israel’s obligations under international law and the recent International Court of Justice order in South Africa’s genocide case.

“The Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon of war has proven deadly for children in Gaza,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “Israel needs to end this war crime, stop this suffering, and allow humanitarian aid to reach all of Gaza unhindered.”

A United Nations-coordinated partnership of 15 international organizations and UN agencies investigating the hunger crisis in Gaza reported on March 18, 2024, that “all evidence points towards a major acceleration of death and malnutrition.” The partnership said that in northern Gaza, where 70 percent of the population is estimated to be experiencing catastrophic hunger, famine could occur anytime between mid-March and May.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported as of April 1, that 32 people, including 28 children, had died of malnutrition and dehydration at hospitals in northern Gaza. Save the Children confirmed on April 2 the deaths from starvation and disease of 27 children. Earlier in March, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials found “children dying of starvation” in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals. In southern Gaza, where aid is more accessible but still grossly inadequate, UN agencies in mid-February said that 5 percent of children under age 2 were found to be acutely malnourished.

Human Rights Watch in March interviewed a doctor in northern Gaza, a volunteer doctor who has since left Gaza, the parents of two infants who doctors said died of starvation-related complications in both mother and child, and the parents of four other children suffering from malnutrition and dehydration.

Human Rights Watch reviewed the death certificate for one of the children, and photos of two of the children in critical condition that showed signs of emaciation. All had been treated at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

Human Rights Watch health advisers also reviewed verified pictures and videos online of three other evidently emaciated children who died and four others in critical condition who also showed signs of emaciation.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who heads Kamal Adwan hospital’s pediatrics unit, told Human Rights Watch on April 4 that 26 children had died after experiencing starvation-related complications in his hospital alone. He said that at least 16 of the children who died were under 5 months old, at least 10 were between 1 and 8 years old, and that a 73-year-old man suffering from malnutrition had also died. 

Dr. Safiya said one of the infants died at just two days old after being born severely dehydrated, apparently exacerbated by his mother’s poor health: “[She] had no milk to give him.”

Nour al-Huda, an 11-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis, was admitted to Kamal Adwan hospital on March 15. Doctors there told her mother that Nour was suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, and an infection in her lungs, and administered her oxygen and a saline solution. “Nour al-Huda now weighs 18 kilograms [about 40 pounds],” her mother told Human Rights Watch. “I can see her chest bones sticking out.”

International humanitarian law prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies,” is a war crime.

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, the Israeli government has deliberately blocked the delivery of aid, food, and fuel into Gaza, while impeding humanitarian assistance and depriving civilians of the means to survive. Israeli officials ordering or carrying out these actions are committing collective punishment against the civilian population and the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, both of which are war crimes.

Israeli government actions that undermine the ability of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to carry out its recognized role in distributing aid in Gaza have exacerbated the effects of the restrictions.

A doctor who volunteered at the European hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza for two weeks in late January said that medical staff were forced to treat patients with limited medical supplies. He described the difficulty of treating malnutrition and dehydration, lacking essential items such as glucose, electrolytes, and feeding tubes. He said that one patient’s mother, desperate for solutions, resorted to crushing potatoes to create a makeshift liquid for tube feeding. Despite its nutritional inadequacy, the doctor said, “I ended up telling my other patients to find potatoes and do the same.”

On January 26, the International Court of Justice, in a case brought by South Africa, ordered provisional measures, including requiring Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid” and other actions to comply with the 1948 Genocide Convention. On March 28, the court indicated that Israel had not complied with this order and imposed a more detailed provisional measure requiring the government to ensure the unimpeded provision of basic services and aid in full cooperation with the UN, while noting that “famine is setting in.”

MSNBC Video added by IC: “Death by starvation is slow and cruel’: famine is projected to take hold of Gaza within weeks”

Governments should impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against officials and individuals responsible for the continued commission of the war crimes of collective punishment, deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid and using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.

Several countries have responded to the Israeli government’s unlawful restrictions on assistance by airdropping aid. The United States also pledged to build a temporary seaport in Gaza. However, aid groups and UN officials have said such efforts are inadequate to prevent a famine. Another attempt to deliver aid by sea was halted after an Israeli attack on aid workers on April 1.

On April 4, the Israeli cabinet agreed to several measures to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza, apparently following pressure from the US government.

“Governments outraged by the Israeli government starving civilians in Gaza should not be looking for band-aid solutions to this humanitarian crisis,” Shakir said. “Israel’s announcement that it will increase aid shows that outside pressure works. Israel’s allies like the US, UK, France, and Germany need to press for full-throttle aid delivery by immediately suspending their arms transfers.”

Starvation in Gaza

Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gaza’s then-2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and over 80 percent were reliant on humanitarian aid. Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including over the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, and the population registry. This leaves Gaza’s population, whom Israel has subjected to an unlawful closure for more than 16 years, almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to fuel, electricity, medicine, food, and other essential commodities.

Nonetheless, before October 7, large amounts of humanitarian assistance reached the population. “Before this crisis, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Malnutrition was a rare occurrence. Now, people are dying, and many more are sick.”

The WHO reported that the number of children under age 5 who are acutely malnourished has jumped from 0.8 percent before the hostilities in Gaza to between 12.4 and 16.5 percent in northern Gaza. Oxfam said on April 3 that since January, people in northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day, “less than a can of fava beans.”

According to a nutrition vulnerability analysis conducted in March by the Global Nutrition Cluster, a network of humanitarian organizations chaired by UNICEF, 90 percent of children ages 6-23 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women across Gaza faced “severe food poverty,” eating two or fewer food groups each day.

Children with preexisting health conditions are particularly vulnerable to the devastating effects of malnutrition, which significantly weakens immunity. And starvation, even for survivors, leads to lasting harm, especially in children, causing stunted growth, cognitive issues, and developmental delays.

Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on March 8 that about 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza suffered from malnutrition, dehydration and inadequate health care. Poor nutrition during pregnancy harms both the baby and the mother, increasing the risk of miscarriages, fetal deaths, compromised immune system development, growth impacts, and maternal mortality.

Older people are also at particular risk of malnutrition, which increases mortality among those with acute or chronic illnesses. HelpAge International reported that even before October, 45 percent of older people in Gaza were going to bed hungry at least once a week, with 6 percent hungry every night.

The impact on Gaza’s population of the Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon of war is compounded by the near-total collapse of the healthcare system. Out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only 10 are operational, none of them fully, both as a result of the Israeli military’s repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport, as well as the severe restrictions on the entry of fuel and other supplies.

Accounts from Gaza

On March 19, Andrea De Domenico, head of OCHA in the occupied Palestinian territory, visited Kamal Adwan hospital, where he said about 15 malnourished children arrive daily due to shortages in food, water, and proper sanitation. He described dire conditions at the hospital, noting damage to certain areas and its reliance on a single generator.

Among the cases that Human Rights Watch investigated:

• A man from Beit Lahia said his infant son, Abdelaziz, died just hours after his severely malnourished mother gave birth to him in Kamal Adwan hospital on February 24. He shared Abdelaziz’s death certificate with Human Rights Watch, which said that Abdelaziz was born premature. His father said that the hospital staff hooked Abdelaziz up to a ventilator because he was having trouble breathing, but that the ventilator stopped working after the hospital ran out of the necessary fuel a few hours later. “Abdelaziz died immediately,” he said. He expressed concern for his wife, who had been surviving on legumes and canned food, emphasizing their ongoing struggle to access adequate nourishment.
• The father of newborn twin girls said that one of his babies, Joud, died at Kamal Adwan hospital on March 2 after suffering from malnutrition, eight days after she was born. He said that he struggled to feed his family prior to the girls’ birth, but that they only had bread to eat, without meat or protein. He said that after the twins’ birth, his wife could not produce milk to breastfeed the girls and that store-bought milk was scarce. He described Joud’s deteriorating condition, saying that her “limbs became very cold, and she was breathing very slowly.” His mother-in-law accompanied Joud to the hospital, where she later passed away. The father expressed concern for the health of the surviving twin.
• Fadi, a 6-year-old boy from al-Nasser neighborhood in Gaza City, has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that causes damage to the lungs. Fadi’s mother said that because of the Israeli blockade, she struggled to obtain the necessary medication and provide adequate nourishment. By mid-January, Fadi’s health had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer walk, prompting his hospitalization. “Fadi weighed 30 kilograms [about 66 pounds] before the war, now he is 12 [about 26 pounds],” she said. Fadi was evacuated from Kamal Adwan hospital on March 23 and was receiving treatment at a hospital in Cairo, a relative said on March 28.
• Wissam Hammad, the uncle of 5-year-old Muhammad, who has cerebral palsy and is lactose and gluten-intolerant and can only eat blended food, had great difficulties in securing food for him:

Most of his food should be fruit and vegetables, which is what I try to buy. But all I can find and afford are oranges. The problem is that he cannot chew, so we need to break down the food for him. Everything is very expensive.

• Dr. Ahmed Shahin, a pediatrician, said that before he could leave Gaza on November 16, Osman, his 14-year-old son with cerebral palsy, who uses a gastrostomy feeding tube, had lost seven kilograms (about 15 pounds) since the beginning of the hostilities because they lacked access to both the specific food he needed—such as vegetables—and electricity to blend his food.

Obstacles to Aid Delivery

Ongoing Israeli bombardment and ground operations, lack of security assurances from Israel, widespread infrastructure damage, and communications disruptions make it difficult to distribute the little aid that does get into Gaza. Humanitarian organizations have reported that Israeli forces have attacked their aid convoys and workers. Israeli forces have also shot at and shelled people congregating to collect aid, killing and injuring hundreds.

An Israeli government spokesperson stated on March 18 that aid entering Gaza faced no limits apart from security concerns. Other officials have blamed the UN for distribution delays and accused Hamas of aid diversion or the Gaza police of failing to secure convoys. On March 29, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s body governing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, disputed the March 18 UN-supported humanitarian report warning of an imminent famine, and said that it “does not reflect the full situation.” COGAT denied that the Israeli government was purposely starving Gaza’s civilian population. Human Rights Watch wrote to COGAT on April 2 seeking comment on our findings, but did not receive a response as of the time of publication.

However, OCHA reported on April 8 that only one of four food aid missions that require coordination in Gaza were facilitated by Israeli authorities in March. Only nine World Food Programme aid shipments have made it to the north since January 1, the most recent of which was 18 truckloads on March 17. The World Food Programme said at least 300 trucks are needed every day for the north alone.

The United States has resorted to airdropping food into Gaza and plans to build a floating pier at sea to deliver aid, a proposal criticized by 26 nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, as “risky, expensive, and ineffective.” UN Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick has stressed that road transport is the only viable solution for increasing aid flow.

The restrictions on aid delivery make accessing food for people requiring a specific diet particularly difficult. Several representatives of humanitarian organizations said that they have been unable to provide food for children on special diets or to reach them. A Palestine Children’s Relief Fund staff member said they could only provide baby formula and could not respond to the needs of children with specific diet requirements. Medical Aid for Palestine said the special food items they had in storage ran out quickly, and since then, they have been unable to find and provide those in need with specialized food items:

Assistance is barely coming in: a quarter of the population is at risk of famine. Under these circumstances, people with disabilities and [people in vulnerable situations] suffer the most. When you speak about food, it’s hard to support people who need a specific diet and medical assistance.

Following an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza on April 1, 2024, which hit three marked vehicles from the international food organization World Central Kitchen and killed seven aid workers from several countries, Cyprus announced that ships carrying around 240 tons of aid for Gaza would turn back. World Central Kitchen, Project Hope, and ANERA, all providers of food aid, suspended their Gaza operations in light of the attack, and the United Arab Emirates paused its involvement in a maritime aid corridor.

Via Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – (New York, March 15, 2024) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to alert the Security Council in the coming days that Sudan has entered a downward spiral of extreme conflict-induced hunger, Human Rights Watch said today. The council should immediately take action, including by adopting targeted sanctions against individuals responsible for obstructing aid access in Darfur.

“The Security Council will be formally put on notice that the conflict in Sudan risks spurring the world’s largest hunger crisis,” said Akshaya Kumar, crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Council just broke months of silence by adopting a resolution on Sudan last week, and should build on that momentum by imposing consequences on those responsible for preventing aid from getting to people who need it.”

The alert will be sent to the Council as a so called “white note,” drafted by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in accordance with its mandate under Security Council resolution 2417 to ring the alarm about “the risk of conflict-induced famine and wide-spread food insecurity.” OCHA’s alert follows warnings by international aid experts, Sudanese civil society leaders, and Sudanese emergency responders that people across Sudan are dying of hunger. It also comes on the heels of Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) brazenly escalating its efforts to restrict the movement of humanitarian aid.

Sudan war may spark world’s largest hunger crisis, says aid organisation | BBC News Video added by IC

In a 2023 presidential statement, the Security Council reiterated its “strong intention to give its full attention” to information provided by the secretary-general when it is alerted to situations involving conflict induced food insecurity. The council should honor that commitment and convene an open meeting to discuss OCHA’s findings. That could pave the way for decisive action, including sanctions on individuals responsible for obstructing aid delivery, Human Rights Watch said.

Since conflict broke out between Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, both warring parties have restricted aid delivery, access, and distribution. Ninety percent of people in Sudan facing emergency levels of hunger are in areas that are “largely inaccessible” to the World Food Programme. “Communities (in Sudan) are on the brink of famine because we are prevented from reaching many of the children, women and families in need,” according to UNICEF executive director, Catherine Russell.

In February, Sudan’s military leader, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said the authorities would no longer allow aid to reach areas under RSF control. Aid organizations have repeatedly said that the SAF is obstructing their delivery of aid to RSF-controlled areas. Aid groups face a maze of bureaucratic impediments, including delays, arbitrary restrictions on movement, harassment, and outright bans on some supplies.

On March 4, Sudan’s foreign affairs minister added to the restrictions, announcing that the government opposed cross-border aid delivery from Chad to areas under RSF control. On March 6, Sudanese authorities informed the UN that they would allow limited cross-border movement exclusively through specific crossings under the control of forces allied to the military. Sudanese authorities have also blocked cross-line aid movement to RSF-controlled territory, which has put Khartoum under a de facto aid blockade since November 2023 at least, aid groups told Human Rights Watch.

The UN welcomed the Sudanese authorities’ announcement identifying aid crossings. The medical charity, Doctors Without Borders, however, raised concerns that this would leave “vast areas in Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum and Jazeera states still inaccessible.”  

Aid operations have also been choked by limited funding. As of the end of February, the UN’s appeal was 5 percent funded. That gap is exacerbated by widespread looting of warehouses, including a December 2023 incident in which Rapid Support Forces fighters looted stocks in a World Food Programme warehouse in Wad Madani that would have been used to feed 1.5 million hungry people and attacked an MSF compound, forcing the organization to evacuate its team. There have been widespread attacks on aid workers, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, including killings, injuries and detentions.

The Security Council’s latest resolution 2724 on Sudan calls “on all parties to ensure the removal of any obstructions to the delivery of aid and to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access, including cross-border and cross-line, and to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that “the apparently deliberate denial of safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian agencies within Sudan itself constitutes a serious violation of international law, and may amount to a war crime.”

The Security Council’s Sudan Sanctions Committee met in February, announcing that it “wishes to remind the parties that those who commit violations of international humanitarian law and other atrocities may be subject to targeted sanctions measures in accordance with paragraph 3 (c) of resolution 1591 (2005).”

The World Food Programme and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization found in a recent report that food security in Sudan had significantly deteriorated even faster than anticipated, and that there is a risk of “catastrophic conditions” hitting the states of West and Central Darfur “during the lean season in early 2024,” roughly from April to July.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a US government-funded group that monitors food insecurity, said in February that the “worst-affected populations … in Omdurman (in Khartoum state) and El Geneina (in West Darfur state)” were expected to soon see “Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) outcomes.” Under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, a globally recognized scale used to classify food insecurity and malnutrition, catastrophic conditions are the fifth and worst phase. The program determines that famine is occurring when over 20 percent of an area’s population are facing extreme food gaps, and children’s acute malnutrition and mortality exceed emergency rates.

According to new figures released by the Nutrition Cluster in Sudan, nearly 230,000 children, pregnant women, and new mothers could die in the coming months due to hunger.

In Darfur, civil society and local leaders have repeatedly sounded the alarm about hunger among displaced people living in camps in areas under RSF control. Leaders shared that their communities have resorted to eating ants, tree bark, and animal feed. People currently in West Darfur include survivors of waves of attacks by the RSF and their allied militias, which Human Rights Watch has described as “having all the hallmarks of an organized campaign of atrocities against Massalit civilians.” A local government official reported in early March that 22 children had died of hunger in Murnei, a town in West Darfur that was the site of horrific RSF attacks in June 2023.

In January, Doctors Without Borders raised the alarm on malnutrition in Zamzam camp in North Darfur, warning that “an estimated one child is dying every two hours.” A camp leader from Kalma camp in Nyala (South Darfur) told Human Rights Watch that 500 to 600 children and at least 80 older people have died in the camp since the start of the conflict because of what he believed was the result of lack of food and medical supplies. “People [are] dying every day,” he said. He said that the RSF has also been limiting the amount of food supplies entering the camp since it took control of the city in October.

In Khartoum, a communications blackout has forced hundreds of communal kitchens run by Sudanese emergency response rooms, a grassroots mutual aid network, to pause operations, leaving many people without food, and reports of people dying alone in their homes of hunger. “The shutdown has a significant impact on food access and distribution,” a member of one of the emergency response rooms in Khartoum told Human Rights Watch in mid-February, “it is happening while we are facing growing food insecurity and risk of famine in the capital.”

This is the first time Sudan has been spotlighted in this kind of an alert from the secretary-general to the Security Council. Guyana, Switzerland, the US, and other Security Council members have pledged to make combating food insecurity a priority for the UN’s most powerful body. 

“Council members should show leadership by holding open discussions to develop a plan that averts the risk of mass starvation in Sudan and imposing targeted sanctions on the individuals responsible for obstructing aid,” Kumar said. “The people of Sudan need more than words. They need food.”

Via Human Rights Watch

Failing to Ensure Basic Services, Aid

( Human Rights Watch ) – (The Hague, February 26, 2024) – The Israeli government has failed to comply with at least one measure in the legally binding order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in South Africa’s genocide case, Human Rights Watch said today. Citing warnings about “catastrophic conditions” in Gaza, the court ordered Israel on January 26, 2024, to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid,” and to report back on its compliance to the specific measures “within one month.”

One month later, however, Israel continues to obstruct the provision of basic services and the entry and distribution within Gaza of fuel and lifesaving aid, acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the several weeks since the ruling than in the weeks preceding it, according to United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The Israeli government is starving Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court’s binding order,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid.”

Al Jazeera English Video: “What happened in Gaza while Israel was meant to act to stop genocide | Al Jazeera Newsfeed “

Other countries should use all forms of leverage, including sanctions and embargoes, to press the Israeli government to comply with the court’s binding orders in the genocide case, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch found in December 2023 that Israeli authorities are using starvation as a weapon of war. Pursuant a policy set out by Israeli officials and carried out by Israeli forces, the Israeli authorities are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival.

Israeli authorities have kept its supply of electricity for Gaza shut off since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks. After initially cutting the entire supply of water that Israel provides to Gaza via three pipelines, Israel resumed piping on two of its three lines. However, due to the cuts and widespread destruction to water infrastructure amid unrelenting Israeli air and ground operations, only one of those lines remained operational at only 47 percent capacity as of February 20. Officials at the Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility told Human Rights Watch on February 20 that Israeli authorities have obstructed efforts to repair the water infrastructure.

According to data published by OCHA and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza with food, aid, and medicine dropped by more than a third in the weeks following the ICJ ruling: 93 trucks between January 27 and February 21, 2024, compared to 147 trucks between January 1 and 26, and only 57 between February 9 and 21. A survey of impediments to the entry of aid faced by 24 humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza between January 26 and February 15 pointed to a lack of transparency around how aid trucks can enter Gaza, delays and denials at Israeli crossings and inspection points, and concerns about safety of trucks.

By comparison, an average of 500 trucks of food and goods entered Gaza each day before the escalation in hostilities in October, during which time 1.2 million people in Gaza were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and 80 percent of Gaza’s population were reliant on humanitarian aid amid Israel’s more than 16-year-long unlawful closure.

High-ranking Israeli officials have articulated a policy to deprive civilians of food, water, and fuel, as Human Rights Watch has documented. The Israeli government spokesperson said more recently that there are “no limits” to aid entering Gaza, outside of security. Some Israeli officials blame the UN for distribution delays and accuse Hamas of diverting aid or Gaza police for failing to secure convoys.

The Israeli government cannot shift blame to evade responsibility, Human Rights Watch said. As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to provide for the welfare of the occupied population and ensure that the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s population are met. The Israeli human rights group Gisha challenged the Israeli government’s claims that it is not obstructing entry or distribution of aid and also found that it is not complying with the ICJ order.

Israeli authorities have also obstructed the aid that enters Gaza from reaching areas in the north. The survey of humanitarian organizations found that “almost no aid is distributed beyond Rafah,” Gaza’s southernmost governorate. On February 20, the World Food Programme paused deliveries of lifesaving food to the north, citing lack of safety and security. Israeli forces struck a food convoy on February 5, the UN said and CNN documented.

Between February 1 and 15, Israeli authorities only facilitated 2 of 21 planned missions to deliver fuel to the north of the Wadi Gaza area in central Gaza and none of the 16 planned fuel delivery or assessment missions to water and wastewater pumping stations in the north. Fewer than 20 percent of planned missions to deliver fuel and undertake assessments north of Wadi Gaza have been facilitated between January 1 and February 15, as compared with 86 percent of missions planned between October and December, according to OCHA.

“Israel’s ground forces are able to reach all parts of Gaza, so Israeli authorities clearly have the capacity to ensure that aid reaches all of Gaza,” Shakir said.

Since the ICJ order, Israeli authorities have also apparently destroyed the offices of at least two humanitarian organizations in Gaza and taken steps to undermine the work of UNRWA, the largest provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, which more than half of other humanitarian organizations rely on to facilitate their operations. The head of UNWRA, Philippe Lazarini, said in a February 22 letter to the UN General Assembly president that the agency has reached a “breaking point” due to multiple government suspensions of funding and Israel’s campaign to shut the agency down.

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on February 13 that he had blocked a US-funded flour shipment to Gaza, because it was going to UNRWA. Israel has alleged that at least 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees participated in the October 7 attacks, which the UN is investigating.

In late December, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a multi-partner initiative that regularly publishes information on the scale and severity of food insecurity and malnutrition globally, concluded that over 90 percent of Gaza’s population is at crisis level of acute food insecurity or worse. The IPC said that virtually all Palestinians in Gaza are skipping meals every day while many adults go hungry so children can eat, and that the population faced famine if current conditions persisted. “This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country,” the group said.

On February 19, The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that 90 percent of children under age 2 and 95 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women face “severe food poverty.” On February 22, Save the Children said families in Gaza “are forced to forage for scraps of food left by rats and eating leaves out of desperation to survive,” noting that “all 1.1 million children in Gaza [are] facing starvation.”

In response to a request by South Africa for additional provisional measures following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order for Israeli authorities to explore a possible plan to evacuate Rafah ahead of a ground incursion, the ICJ said that the “perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures” throughout Gaza – but not new measures – and highlighted Israel’s duty to ensure “the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Beyond enabling the provision of basic services and aid, the measures in the ICJ’s binding order require Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide. The ICJ issued these measures “to protect the rights claimed by South Africa that the Court has found to be plausible,” including “the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide.” Although South Africa asked the court in its oral arguments during January hearings on the provisional measures to make any report it ordered public, the court did not indicate that it has done so.

Between January 26 and February 23, more than 3,400 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry compiled by OCHA.

South Africa’s case against Israel for genocide is distinct from the proceedings on the legal consequences of Israel’s 57-year-occupation, which began at the ICJ on February 19.

“Israel’s blatant disregard for the World Court’s order poses a direct challenge to the rules-based international order,” Shakir said. “Failure to ensure Israel’s compliance puts the lives of millions of Palestinians at risk and threatens to undermine the institutions charged with ensuring respect for international law and the system that ensures civilian protection worldwide.”

Human Rights Watch

52 Countries to Take Part in Hearings on Occupied Palestinian

Human Rights Watch – (The Hague) – An unprecedented number of countries and international organizations are expected to participate in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) oral hearings on Israel’s occupation beginning February 19, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. Fifty-two countries and three international organizations will participate in the oral proceedings, more than in any other case since the world’s highest court began functioning in 1946.

The broad participation in the hearings and the many written submissions reflect growing global momentum to address the decades-long failure to ensure respect for international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“The International Court of Justice is set for the first time to broadly consider the legal consequences of Israel’s nearly six-decades-long occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian people,” said Clive Baldwin, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. “Governments that are presenting their arguments to the court should seize these landmark hearings to highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

The oral proceedings stem from a December 2022 request by the United Nations General Assembly for an advisory opinion by the court on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The court has the opportunity to address the prolonged occupation, to consider Israel’s practices and policies violating international legal prohibitions against racial discrimination, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, and to appraise the legal responsibilities of other countries and the UN to address violations of international law arising from the occupation.

Although ICJ advisory opinions are non-binding, they can carry great moral and legal authority and can ultimately become part of customary international law, which is legally binding on states.

These proceedings, which will last six days, are distinct from the case brought by South Africa to the same court alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention amid the hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups that escalated following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks.

The General Assembly first asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion related to the Occupied Palestinian Territory in December 2003. In July 2004, the ICJ’s advisory opinion found that the route of Israel’s separation barrier violated international law and that it should be dismantled.

The December 2022 request to the court is wider in scope. The General Assembly asked the court to give its opinion on the “legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation” of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including “its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures,” and on the legal consequences of the occupation and Israel’s practices for all states and the UN.

The request provides the court the opportunity to evaluate the situation two decades after its last advisory opinion on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and provide guidance on the law, including the continued application of international humanitarian law and human rights law. The court could also assess Israel’s conduct under international human rights law, including prohibitions on racial discrimination, and international criminal law, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

The ICJ adjudicates disputes between states and issues advisory opinions on international law. It lacks jurisdiction over the conduct of non-state armed groups like Hamas. The International Criminal Court (ICC), by contrast, addresses serious international crimes allegedly committed by individuals, including members of armed groups. The ICC prosecutor confirmed that since March 2021 his office has been conducting an investigation into alleged atrocity crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank since 2014, and that the court has jurisdiction over international crimes committed by all parties in the current hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups.

AJ+ Video added by IC: “Israeli Settlers Are Terrorizing Palestinians In Record Numbers”

Human Rights Watch has documented that Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians. Given that the responsibilities of an occupying power toward the rights of the occupied population increase over time, Human Rights Watch has also called for Israel to provide Palestinians in the occupied territory with rights at least equal to those it grants its own citizens, in addition to the protections of international humanitarian law.

The ICJ is composed of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms. Fifty-seven states and international organizations had filed a written statement in the proceedings in July 2023, before the October escalation in hostilities. Fifteen states and international organizations filed additional written comments in October and November 2023. Among those participating in the oral proceedings are Palestine, South Africa, Belgium, Brazil, the United States, Russia, France, China, Namibia, Pakistan, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the African Union. Israel submitted a written statement and chose not to participate in the oral hearings.

The ICJ will issue its legal opinion at a date to be determined. Past practice suggests that the opinion will be issued before the end of 2024.

Human Rights Watch

With a pre-war population of 280,000, Rafah is now housing the majority of Gaza’s population, including most of the 1.7 million displaced Palestinians. Conditions are increasingly desperate, with people sheltering in makeshift camps—tents built with flimsy materials—and in overcrowded apartment buildings. Many have been displaced multiple times amid intense Israeli airstrikes and ground operations, as well as the continued blockade.

International humanitarian law prohibits the forced displacement of civilians except when temporarily required for their security or imperative military reasons. During the hostilities in Gaza, Human Rights Watch has warned that forced displacement, a war crime, is becoming more of a risk. Any forced displacement of the population would not relieve Israeli forces of their responsibility to take all feasible measures to protect the civilian population. Civilians who do not evacuate following warnings are still fully protected by international humanitarian law. Many civilians may be unable to heed a warning to evacuate for reasons of health, disability, fear, or lack of any place else to go. 

Aljazeera English Video added by IC: “Hunger on the rise: Palestinians living in desperate conditions”

On January 26, the International Court of Justice ordered provisional measures in South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention, which require Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance, and prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide.

The following statement can be attributed to Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences. There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. The international community should take action to prevent further atrocities.”

Via Human Rights Watch

Continue Funding as UN Agency Staff Is Investigated

Human Rights Watch – (New York) – Governments should continue funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), given its vital role in averting a humanitarian catastrophe and the risk of famine in the Gaza Strip, while the agency investigates allegations that 12 of its staff were involved in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel, Human Rights Watch said today.

UNRWA, the largest relief organization in Gaza, has cautioned that, unless funding is resumed, it “will not be able to continue” operations in Gaza, the West Bank, or the three other countries in the region it operates in “beyond the end of February.” After Israeli authorities provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several of its employees in the October 7 attacks, UNRWA announced that it had “immediately terminated” the contracts of the employees identified and opened an investigation to “establish the truth without delay.” The UN Secretary-General later confirmed the independence of the UN inquiry into the allegations, noting that the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) was immediately activated.

“The allegations against UNRWA staff are serious and the UN appears to be addressing them seriously. But withholding funds from the UN agency most able to provide immediate lifesaving food, water, and medicine to the more than 2.3 million people of Gaza shows callous indifference to what the world’s leading experts have warned is the looming risk of famine,” said Akshaya Kumar, crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including children, people with disabilities, and those who are pregnant, rely heavily on UNRWA services and have nothing to do with the allegations against individual employees.”  

As of January 31, 2024, 18 governments, whose contributions have historically accounted for over three quarters of the agency budget, had frozen their contributions in response to the allegations. Over 1 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza are taking shelter in or around the agency’s shelters amid the current hostilities, and a large number rely on the agency for vital humanitarian aid.  

Australia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States announced that they are indefinitely pausing payments to UNRWA in response to the allegations that a dozen agency staff members were involved in the October 7 attacks. By contrast, the governments of Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Spain, and Norway rightly issued statements confirming their continued financial support to UNRWA, while also underlining the importance of an investigation into the allegations.

NBC News Video: “Rain adds to the misery of displaced families living around Gaza City”

Instead of withholding critical funds, the European Union and France issued statements clarifying that they intend to “review the matter in light of the outcome of the investigation announced by the UN and the actions it will take” and “decide when the time comes.” Contributions by governments to UNRWA are voluntary and discretionary, Human Rights Watch said. 

On October 7, Hamas-led gunmen from the Gaza Strip carried out an attack in southern Israel, deliberately killing civilians, firing into crowds, gunning people down in their homes, and taking hostages back to Gaza, including older people and children, acts that amount to war crimes. According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since October 7, and 136 remained hostages as of January 30. 

Shortly after the October 7 attack, Israeli authorities cut off essential services, including water and electricity, to Gaza’s population and blocked the entry of all but a trickle of fuel and critical humanitarian aid, acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes. Human Rights Watch has also found that Israeli authorities are using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. They are doing so by deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival under a policy set out by Israeli officials and carried out by Israeli forces. 

Israeli air strikes have incessantly pounded Gaza, hitting schools and hospitals, reducing large parts of neighborhoods to rubble, leaving 60 percent of Gaza’s housing units destroyed or damaged, including in attacks that were apparently unlawful. Israeli authorities also ordered everyone in northern Gaza to leave the area, which has displaced 1.7 million people, the vast majority of Gaza’s population, as of January 30. According to the agency, 152 UNRWA employees have been killed since October 7 and 141 UNRWA facilities damaged in 252 “incidents” related to the conduct of hostilities.

Human Rights Watch has urged Israel’s key allies—including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany—to suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit, with impunity, widespread and serious abuses amounting to war crimes against Palestinian civilians. In contrast to their swift suspension of funding to UNRWA even as an investigation is ongoing, although serious allegations of likely war crimes have been brought to their attention, the US, UK, Canada, and Germany continue to provide arms and military assistance to Israel amid mounting evidence of grave abuses, Human Rights Watch said.

Aid groups have highlighted the vital need for and value of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza. In a joint statement, 21 humanitarian organizations said they were “shocked by the reckless decision to cut a lifeline for an entire population by some of the very countries that had called for aid in Gaza to be stepped up and for humanitarians to be protected while doing their job.” The director-general of the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders also echoed calls to donors not to suspend their UNRWA funding.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a multi-partner initiative that regularly publishes information on the scale and severity of food insecurity and malnutrition globally, issued a report published at the end of December concluding that the entire population of Gaza is at crisis level of acute food insecurity or worse. The IPC said that virtually all Palestinians in Gaza are skipping meals every day while many adults go hungry so children can eat, and that the population faced famine if current conditions persisted. It added: “this is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.”

UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to serve Palestinian refugees. It has 30,000 employees and provides direct humanitarian assistance, human development, and protection programming for more than 5.9 million Palestinian refugees registered with the agency and living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. More than half of the agency’s regular budget is devoted to education. The agency is also sheltering over 1 million displaced Palestinians in 150 facilities within Gaza, including its schools. At least 357 people sheltering within the agency’s premises have been killed and 1,255 have been injured since October 7. 

Some Israeli officials and members of the US Congress have referenced the recent allegations in order to further a longstanding campaign against UNRWA. In the wake of the most recent allegations being made public, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, highlighted on January 27 his government’s longstanding opposition to UNRWA, claiming among other things that the UN agency “perpetuates the refugee issue,” and disclosed that “under his leadership,” the Israeli government intends to “work to garner bipartisan support in the US, the European Union, and other nations globally for this policy aimed at halting UNRWA’s activities in Gaza.”

According to the Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, “no other entity has the capacity to deliver the scale and breadth of assistance that 2.2 million people in Gaza urgently need.” Janti Soeripto, president and CEO of Save the Children, called it “magical thinking” for governments to think other aid groups can replace UNRWA in Gaza. The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council has said that other humanitarian groups combined “are not even close to being what UNRWA is for the people of Gaza.”

As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to ensure that the humanitarian needs of the population of Gaza are met. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered provisional measures on January 26 as part of South Africa’s case against Israel alleging violations of the Genocide Convention. The court adopted binding orders that include requiring Israel to take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The court ordered Israel to report back on its compliance with the orders in one month. 

“Despite mounting risks of famine and a binding order by the World Court in a case about genocide, Israel’s foreign minister has now announced that he will lead a brazen effort to shut down the UN agency most responsible for delivering lifesaving aid,” Kumar said. “Unless governments reverse their decisions to suspend aid to UNRWA, the main humanitarian channel into Gaza, they risk contributing to the current catastrophe.” 

Human Rights Watch

@saribashi | –

( Human Rights Watch ) – It has been almost four months since Israel began its strikes on Gaza, following the massacre of hundreds of civilians by Hamas-led gunmen in the country’s south. Roughly 80 percent of the Strip’s 2.2 million residents have been internally displaced, more than a million of whom are sheltering in Rafah, on the Egyptian border. Over 26,000 people have been killed, including at least 10,000 children, according to local authorities.

Even as the hostilities continue, attention is turning to what to do when the fighting subsides. The US government has said that Gaza’s internally displaced residents should be allowed to return to their homes, a right safeguarded by international law. But many will not have homes to return to. The UN has reported that more than 60 percent of the Strip’s housing units have been damaged or destroyed. The electricity grid, water and sewage system, health system, mills, agricultural lands, and other civilian infrastructure have also been badly damaged. Most people in Gaza, moreover, are already refugees or descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled from territory that became part of the state of Israel. To which homes, then, do Palestinians in Gaza have a right to return?

Aljazeera English Video: “Overnight Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip kill dozens of Palestinians”

I’m an Israeli American Jew, married to a Palestinian refugee from Gaza. Our family histories suggest an answer to that question. The first time the Israeli military drove my mother-in-law from her home, she was about five years old (she has no birth certificate). In 1948, as Israeli soldiers neared her village in what is now the southern coast of Israel, her family fled to Gaza, among more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled in the war that led to the creation of the state of Israel. (Palestinians call that mass displacement the Nakba, or catastrophe.) They lived in a tent in a refugee camp before moving into a small concrete house with an asbestos roof. In the camp she married a man from her village, which the Israeli authorities eventually demolished. They had five children together.

The second time the Israeli military destroyed her house, she was a single mother in her thirties, raising the children on her own – her husband had fled to Egypt during the 1967 Israeli conquest of the Gaza Strip. The occupying Israeli military demolished her home in the1970s, presumably to provide more space for military maneuvering through the overcrowded refugee camp. She and her children then lived with relatives. In the 1990s, after Israel turned over much of Gaza’s land management to the Palestinian Authority, she was allocated a place in the camp on which to build a family complex of three apartments, one for herself and one each for two sons and their families.

She was eighty when the Israeli military forced her from her home a third time. This past October she fled to Rafah with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, after the Israeli military ordered northern Gaza’s one million inhabitants to flee south. Soon after they fled, my brother-in-law got a call from an Israeli military official warning him to evacuate the family home, which was going to be bombed in ten minutes. “I’m not leaving,” he replied, even though he was already in Rafah. My brother-in-law has a resilient sense of humor.

Since October, the rest of my mother-in-law’s children and grandchildren have either witnessed their homes destroyed or received similar telephone warnings. We fear that she and they are among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who are newly homeless. Meanwhile, statements by Israeli officials telling residents of Gaza to leave the Strip raise the specter of forcible displacement, a war crime. They also feed into intergenerational trauma, for my mother-in-law and about 1.7 million refugees living in Gaza – 77 percent of the population. For seventy-five years, the Israeli government has refused to allow them to return to the places they left behind – one of the serious violations of international human rights law fueling the current escalation of hostilities.

My mother-in-law has a right to choose where to return – to the home she lost in October or to where she lost her home in 1948. If US policymakers want to hew closely to international human rights law, they should not only oppose forcible displacement from northern Gaza, as they have appropriately done, but also support the right of refugees to decide for themselves where to return and rebuild, including in areas that are now part of Israel. That’s because the right of return – enshrined in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – persists even when sovereignty over a territory has changed hands, as long as refugees and their descendants, regardless of where they were born, have maintained enough links with the area that it would be considered their “own country.” That right can’t be negotiated away.

The other side of my family also has a collective experience of displacement. Five years after my mother-in-law lost her home in1948, my father lost his home in Baghdad, after the Iraqi government there made life all but impossible for Jews in the aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel. As a condition of letting him and his parents leave, the Iraqi government stripped him of citizenship. He found refuge in Israel, where he became a citizen. For my father and many other Israeli Jews, the prospect of Palestinian refugees returning to Israel ignites fears of losing both the safe haven that the country represents for them and the Jewish majority they want to maintain.

Many Israeli Jews carry intergenerational memories of the Holocaust in Europe – which was made still deadlier by the refusal of countries around the world to admit European Jews as refugees – and of having to flee Arab countries after 1948. For many Jews, the October 7 war crimes against Israeli civilians exacerbated this trauma. Everyone has a right to a safe haven, and international human rights law gives the Israeli government broad latitude both to set immigration policies – including promoting Jewish immigration – and to take measures to protect its citizens and residents. But no safe haven, it stipulates, should come at the expense of violating Palestinians’ right to safety and other fundamental rights, including the right to return.

What should be done? Absent radical changes in the policies of the Israeli and US governments, my mother-in-law is not going to be able to rebuild the home she lost as a child anytime soon. I’ll be relieved if my in-laws are merely allowed to return to northern Gaza and receive support to rebuild a house there. If the Israeli government won’t let Palestinian refugees in Gaza return to their original homes, it should at least not forcibly displace them from the refugee camps where they built new lives. But if we want to put an end not just to the current violence but also to the cycle of repression engulfing Israel-Palestine, we should adopt a consistent, rights-based approach – however uncomfortable or frightening some might find it – which addresses that violence’s root causes. That includes respecting Palestinian refugees’ right to ret

Via Human Rights Watch

Iranian authorities have killed hundreds of protesters, arrested thousands of people, and tortured scores of detainees, including women and children. Human rights groups are investigating the killing of more than 500 people, including 69 children, during the protests. The authorities have refused to open transparent investigations into security forces’ use of excessive and lethal force, torture, sexual assault, and other serious abuses, and have instead pressured families of victims to not hold public memorial services.

“For many, everyday life in Iran feels like a battle with a corrupt, autocratic government that has brought down the full force of its repressive machinery to quash dissent,” said Michael Page, Middle East deputy director. “Iranian authorities should know that anything short of fundamental change will only deepen public anger and frustration against their mismanagement and brutality.”

In the 740-page World Report 2024, its 34th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In her introductory essay, Executive Director Tirana Hassan says that 2023 was a consequential year not only for human rights suppression and wartime atrocities but also for selective government outrage and transactional diplomacy that carried profound costs for the rights of those not in on the deal. But she says there were also signs of hope, showing the possibility of a different path, and calls on governments to consistently uphold their human rights obligations.   

Scores of human rights defenders, journalists, members of ethnic and religious minorities, and dissidents are serving lengthy sentences after being convicted of national security charges in grossly unfair trials. Detained protesters have died in suspicious circumstances.

In the months leading up to the protest anniversary, Iranian authorities increased their crackdown on peaceful dissent through intimidation, arrests, prosecutions, and trials of activists, artists, dissidents, lawyers, academics, students, and family members of those who were killed during the 2022 protests.

Iranian authorities substantially increased the rates of executions in 2023. During the 2022 protests, judicial authorities drastically increased the use of vaguely defined national security charges that could carry the death penalty against protesters, including for allegedly injuring others and destroying public property. Following grossly unfair trials in which many defendants did not have access to the lawyer of their choice, Iranian authorities issued 25 death sentences in connection to the protests. As of September 20, the authorities executed seven people, though the Supreme Court overturned 11 other cases.

Vice News Video: “Inside Iran: What Happened to Iran’s Women-led Uprising?”

Iranian authorities intensified efforts to enforce compulsory hijab laws. They prosecuted women and girls, including actors, who refuse to wear the hijab in public, issued traffic citations for passengers without the hijab, and temporarily closed businesses that do not comply with hijab laws. In recent cases, the judiciary mandated psychological treatment for at least two actresses convicted of not complying with hijab laws, a move Iranian mental health associations protested. 

On September 21, the Iranian parliament approved a draft Hijab and Chastity Bill with 70 articles proposing additional penalties, such as fines, increased prison terms up to 10 years for expressing opposition to hijab regulations, and restrictions on job and educational opportunities for hijab violations. The law also expands the authority of intelligence and law enforcement agencies in enforcing the compulsory hijab.

The authorities also intensified pressure on the Bahai religious minority community, arresting and resentencing several prominent members of the community.

Human Rights Watch documented far harsher use of repressive tactics, including arbitrary arrests and excessive use of force, in ethnic and religious minority areas of Kurdistan province and Sistan and Baluchistan province, which have played leading roles during the protests. Over the past year, the authorities have imposed several localized internet shutdowns, particularly in Sistan and Baluchistan province during mass protests.

“With rampant systemic impunity inside Iran, the UN Human Rights Council member states should ensure that independent investigations into serious allegations of abuse continue at the UN level,” Page said.

Via Human Rights Watch

Release Information on Detained Gaza Workers

( Human Rights Watch) – (Jerusalem) – Israeli authorities held thousands of workers from Gaza in incommunicado detention for several weeks following the October 7 attacks, subjecting at least some of them to inhumane and degrading conditions, Human Rights Watch said. Thousands more remain stranded in the occupied West Bank without valid legal status and vulnerable to arrest.

Those detained after October 7 were held by Israeli authorities in Israel and the West Bank, some of whom were reportedly interrogated on alleged links to, or knowledge of, the attacks. On November 3, over 3,000 Palestinian workers were released from detention and transferred to Gaza. Israeli authorities have yet to state the total numbers of workers from Gaza in Israel on October 7, or the number of workers who were detained or remain detained. Israeli authorities have not disclosed if any workers from Gaza were charged with any crime.

“Israeli authorities detained thousands of workers for weeks without charge in incommunicado detention, subjecting at least some to humiliating ill-treatment,” said Michelle Randhawa, senior refugee and migrant rights officer at Human Rights Watch. “The search for perpetrators and abettors of the October 7 attacks does not justify abusing workers who had been granted permits to work in Israel.”

The October 7 Hamas-led attacks killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. More than 21,600 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 8,500 children, during the hostilities, according to Gaza authorities.

An estimated 18,500 workers from Gaza had permits to work in Israel on October 7, though it is unclear how many were in Israel that day. To get permits, applicants from Gaza underwent stringent security evaluations.

Aljazeera English: “Palestinian detainees describe horrific torture by Israeli forces”

On December 19 and 21, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Israeli military and Israel Prison Service with its findings asking for comment, but received no response, as of writing.

Human Rights Watch spoke to four workers from Gaza detained by Israeli authorities after October 7. Three workers were part of a small group released to the West Bank before November 3, and one was released on November 3 to Gaza.

One man attempted to go to the West Bank after he realized his work permit was cancelled and deleted from Al Munasiq, the phone app where work permits are stored. He said he was stopped at a checkpoint on the way to the West Bank, blindfolded, hands tightly bound with zip ties, and taken first to Ofer prison, and then to an unknown second location. There, he said, “They [forced me to take] off all my clothes…and they took pictures of me.…They beat me intensely, I was naked during this, it was humiliating. The worst part was when the dogs were attacking [me]. I was blindfolded and cuffed with metal shackles, I didn’t know if the dogs were controlled by someone or just left to attack me, I was terrified.”

He was interrogated and asked to identify his home on an aerial map of Gaza and was also asked about specific people. He was then released on November 3 at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

Another man said Israeli police in Rahat, a city in southern Israel, arrested him and other workers from Gaza after the October 7 attacks and took them to an army base in Ofakim, Israel.

[The Israeli forces] “made us undress,” he said. “[We were] completely naked. They handed us Pampers to wear and thin white overalls…. We stayed blindfolded and cuffed [with zip ties on our hands and feet] for 10 days… We kept asking why we are detained. We never got an answer, only verbal assaults and death threats.”

He said he was beaten for hours, then dragged on gravel face down and attached to a wall or fence by his cuffed hands, and then beaten again: “Every time I fell on the ground I was forced to stand up, and again more beatings and I fell on the ground. With every beating and fall the plastic zip ties on my hands became tighter and more painful.”

He was then transferred to Ofer prison where he spent another four or five days until he was released into the West Bank.

Another man who worked in Rahat said he and other workers were arrested and taken to the Rahat police station on or around October 9. While blindfolded with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, “Israeli forces constantly cursed at us…and threatened to kill us…. We were held for 12 hours. We were not allowed water or [to use] the bathroom.”

Israeli forces also transferred him to Ofer prison, where he said he was interrogated about Hamas in Gaza. On October 22, Israeli authorities released him to Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, who took him by ambulance to the Ramallah Public Hospital, where staff treated his zip tie wounds. Human Rights Watch saw the scars on his wrists.

The Israeli military spokesperson confirmed to Haaretz two Gaza workers, one with cancer, one with diabetes, died in Israeli custody, saying, “The two died due to […]complex medical condition[s] contracted before they arrived at the facilities. An investigation is being conducted into the circumstances of their death.” Both men were arrested after October 7. One of the men Human Rights Watch interviewed said there was a cancer patient with him in Ofer who died after a few days in pain.

The Israeli human rights groups Gisha and HaMoked told Human Rights Watch that families in Gaza contacted them after October 7 when they stopped hearing from relatives with work permits in Israel. Both organizations requested permission to visit the detainees, speak to them by phone, and receive information on their judicial status, yet to no avail.

“We had no contact with the Gaza workers while they were detained,” said Nadya Daqqah, a lawyer from HaMoked. “It can’t get any more incommunicado than this.”

On October 23, six human rights organizations in Israel filed an urgent petition with Israel’s High Court, which stated Israeli authorities had refused to provide any information about where workers were being detained, under what law, and for how long.

On November 2, Gisha and HaMoked submitted a second urgent petition to Israel’s High Court stating that “the detainees were being held…without access to legal representation” and allegedly subjected to “physical violence and psychological abuse, as well as…inhumane conditions.”

On November 2, the Israeli cabinet voted to return “Gaza workers who were in Israel on the day the war broke out” to Gaza. The next day, Israeli authorities released 3,026 Palestinian workers to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing. On November 13, the Court rejected the petition, given the release of workers on November 3.

The released Palestinian workers gave media interviews, describing abuses and degrading conditions in detention, including being subjected to electric shocks, urinated on, attacked by dogs, as well as held for several days without food or water. Human Rights Watch was not able to verify these accounts. Gisha interviewed two brothers who had similar accounts of being blindfolded, beaten, and held without any communication with either their families or lawyers.

On November 9, the Israeli government published an emergency regulation on the “detention and deportation of unlawful residents of [Gaza].” The regulation states that Gaza workers no longer have a legal basis for being in Israel – since Israeli authorities canceled their work permits – and will be held in custody until removal. While the regulation sets time limits on detention, it also allows for extensions based on security needs.

The situation of the thousands of workers from Gaza who fled or were released to the West Bank remains unclear. Many are living in temporary shelters provided by the Palestinian Authority and nongovernmental organizations. There are reports from late November that Israeli Defense Forces have arrested workers from Gaza who had been sheltering in private homes.

On November 10, Israel, in coordination with the Palestinian Authority, transferred another group of 982 workers from Gaza who had been sheltering in the West Bank to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing.

On November 28, Israeli authorities released 300 Palestinian workers to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing. According to Osnat Cohen-Lifshitz, the head of Gisha’s legal department, these workers were released from the Anatot military base.

“Israeli authorities should disclose how many workers from Gaza were in Israel on October 7, how many were detained, whether any remain in detention and the basis for their detention,” Randhawa said. “They should investigate reports of abuse in detention and ensure the humane treatment of all detainees.”

Via Human Rights Watch