Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1516608
NEWS 12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 28 FEBRUARY 2024 ONE month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered "immediate and effective measures" to protect Palestini- ans in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient hu- manitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Israel has failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. The order to provide aid was one of six provisional measures ordered by the Court on 26 January and Israel was given one month to report back on its compliance with the measures. Over that period Israel has continued to dis- regard its obligation as the occupying power to ensure the basic needs of Pal- estinians in Gaza are met. Israeli authorities have failed to ensure sufficient life-saving goods and servic- es are reaching a population at risk of genocide and on the brink of famine due to Israel's relentless bombardment and the tightening of its 16-year-long il- legal blockade. They have also failed to lift restrictions on the entry of life-sav- ing goods, or open additional aid access points and crossings or put in place an effective system to protect humanitari- ans from attack. "Not only has Israel created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, but it is also displaying a callous indif- ference to the fate of Gaza's population by creating conditions which the ICJ has said places them at imminent risk of genocide. Time and time again, Isra- el has failed to take the bare minimum steps humanitarians have desperately pleaded for that are clearly within its power to alleviate the suffering of Pales- tinian civilians in Gaza," said Heba Mo- rayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty In- ternational. "As the occupying power, under inter- national law, Israel has a clear obligation to ensure the basic needs of Gaza's pop- ulation are met. Israel has not only woe- fully failed to provide for Gazans' basic needs, but it has also been blocking and impeding the passage of sufficient aid into the Gaza Strip, in particular to the north which is virtually inaccessible, in a clear show of contempt for the ICJ ruling and in flagrant violation of its obligation to prevent genocide." "The scale and gravity of the humani- tarian catastrophe caused by Israel's re- lentless bombardment, destruction and suffocating siege puts more than two million Palestinians of Gaza at risk of irreparable harm." The supplies entering Gaza before the ICJ order have been a drop in the ocean compared to the needs for the last 16 years. Yet, in the three weeks following the ICJ order, the number of trucks en- tering Gaza decreased by about a third, from an average of 146 a day in the three weeks prior, to an average of 105 a day over the subsequent three weeks. Before 7 October, on average, about 500 trucks entered Gaza every day, carrying aid and commercial goods, including things like food, water, animal fodder, medical supplies and fuel. Even that quantity fell far short of meeting people's needs. In the three weeks after the ICJ ruling, smaller quantities of fuel, which Israel tightly controls, made it into Gaza. The only crossings that Israel has allowed to open were also opened on fewer days, further demonstrating Israel's disre- gard for the provisional measures. Aid workers reported multiple challenges, but said that Israel was refusing to take obvious steps to improve the situation. In the case it submitted to the ICJ, South Africa argued that Israel's de- liberate denial of humanitarian aid to Palestinians could constitute one of the prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention by "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculat- ed to bring about its physical destruc- tion in whole or in part." "Now even the fodder is becoming scarce" Across the Gaza Strip, the engineered humanitarian disaster grows more hor- rifying each day. On 19 February, hu- manitarian agencies reported that acute malnutrition was surging in Gaza and threatening children's lives, with 15.6% of children under two years acutely malnourished in northern Gaza and 5% of children under two years in Rafah in the south. The speed and severity of the decline in the population's nutrition- al status within just three months was "unprecedented globally". Hamza, a resident of northern Gaza, whose wife Kawthar gave birth to their fourth child on 17 February, told Am- nesty International on 20 February that his family of six was barely able to se- cure half a meal per day amid severe shortages of food and water. After flour and corn supplies ran out, they resort- ed to grinding barley and animal feed to make bread. "Now even the [animal] fodder is becoming scarce," he said. His wife gave birth at the already no-longer-operational Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia. She had no breast milk after delivery and has struggled to feed her newborn baby. "After an anxious search around the hospital, a woman gave us a small quantity of milk which we fed the baby through a syringe. My aunt managed to find us some milk today, I don't know how, and she didn't say how much it cost her. There is no rice, no meat. I went to the market yesterday to look for food and came back home empty hand- ed: no meat, no chickpeas, nothing." The looming threat of a full-scale ground assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, where over 1.2 million civilians are currently sheltering, would have further devastating consequences for the humanitarian situation. The limited supplies trickling into Gaza are entering through two cross- ings along the perimeter with Israel and on the border with Egypt. The two op- erational crossings – Rafah, on the bor- der with Egypt, and Karem Abu Salem, on the perimeter with Israel – are both in southern Gaza. A ground operation in the area near where the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings let trucks into southern Gaza risks cutting off the flow of aid entirely and destroying the last remaining vestiges of the aid sys- tem. "All around me people are broken" Amnesty International spoke to ten workers from five humanitarian agencies or organizations in mid and late-February who described horrifying conditions in Gaza, as well as ongoing, severe access restrictions. All said their ability to get aid into and around Gaza had either remained the same or gotten worse since the ICJ ruling. Humanitarians highlighted Israel's failure to take obvious steps, such as opening all available access points and crossings to enable them to transfer aid more rapidly and on a larger scale to areas in need or to ensure that human- itarian operations did not come under military attack. A UN Security Council resolution passed in December 2023 demanded that parties "allow and facilitate the use of all available routes to and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including border crossings" to ensure vital assistance reaches civilians "through the most di- rect routes." Despite this legally binding resolution, Israel has refused to open further crossings to facilitate humani- tarian access. Fathia, a mental health support prac- titioner, told Amnesty International of the challenges she faces with her family and work. She described the difficulty of trying to get her 78-year-old mother who has developed a form of dementia since they were displaced to understand Israel defying ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by failing