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UN OCHR: The war in Gaza must end

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Written by Martin Griffiths Martin Griffiths
Published: 05 January 2024 05 January 2024

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

The war in Gaza must end

Statement by Martin Griffiths,
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator 
 
 

(New York, 5 January 2024) Three months since the horrific 7 October attacks, Gaza has become a place of death and despair.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured. Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety.

A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner.

For children in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.

Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on.

The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than 2 million people, even as its own staff are being killed and displaced, as communication blackouts continue, as roads are damaged and convoys are shot at, and as commercial supplies vital to survival are almost non-existent.

Meanwhile, rocket attacks on Israel continue, more than 120 people are still held hostage in Gaza, tensions in the West Bank are boiling, and the specter of further regional spillover of the war is looming dangerously close.

Hope has never been more elusive.

Gaza has shown us the worst of humanity, as well as moments of great heroism.

We have seen how violence cannot resolve differences, but only inflame passions and build new generations of danger and insecurity.

We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.

It is time for the parties to meet all their obligations under international law, including to protect civilians and meet their essential needs, and to release all hostages immediately.

It is time for the international community to use all its influence to make this happen.

This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.

US Advocated Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

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Written by Richard Silverstein Richard Silverstein
Published: 05 January 2024 05 January 2024

Biden administration promoted Israeli plan to "voluntarily relocate" 2.5-million Gazans to Sinai

The media has buried one of the most shameful stories regarding Biden ministration collaboration with Israel in a scheme for ethnically-cleansing Gaza. Harvard professor Sara Roy writes in the NY Review of Books:

” In November a USAID official approached a colleague of mine and asked about the feasibility of building a tent city in the Sinai, which would be followed by a more permanent arrangement somewhere in the northern part of the peninsula”

Rashid Khalidi has also said in a Foreign Policy video interview:

“At the outset of this war, the President sent Secretary Blinken to convey to the Egyptians and the Jordanians a request that they allow Palestinians to be expelled into their territory. That is disgraceful. That is direct American participation in the ethnic cleansing of part of Palestine, what is historic Palestine. They immediately pulled back on that when the Egyptians and the Jordanians slapped them in the face and said, “under no circumstances.” And explained why under no circumstances would they allow that to happen.

I think that’s one of the most disgraceful chapters in American diplomacy. That the United States would, for the first time in its history, be willing to participate in forcing Palestinians out of Palestine.

Read more at https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2024/01/03/us-advocated-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tikun-olam-new-posts-daily-digest_1

Watch the new film Israelism

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Written by Co-Directors Erin Axelman & Sam Eilertsen Co-Directors Erin Axelman & Sam Eilertsen
Published: 05 January 2024 05 January 2024

https://kinema.com/events/israelism-worldwide-rental-tdqdt3

When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the brutal way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns. They join a movement of young American Jews battling the old guard to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.

 

Watch Q&A with Co-Directors Erin Axelman & Sam Eilertsen, along with Rabbi Miriam Grossman and Unsettled podcast producer Ilana Levinson: https://youtu.be/6RMEQYNBytM

Watch Q&A with main film subject Simone Zimmerman, along with Judaism Unbound podcast host Rabbi Lex Rofeberg: https://youtu.be/owg8iRvjse8

Netanyahu's Latest Poison Pill

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Written by Gilbert Schramm Gilbert Schramm
Published: 30 December 2023 30 December 2023

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu recently posted an op-ed laying out his three prerequisites for “peace.” I place the word peace in quotes because his plan is basically a poison pill to avoid any serious move towards a just peace which acknowledges the rightful aspirations of the Palestinian people. It is, like many other previous Israeli offers, a cynical ploy meant to short circuit any serious negotiations. It is an “offer” designed to guarantee rejection by Palestinians. That way Israel can once again claim that it is Palestinian obstinance that stands in the way of peace. The facts belie this notion.

Netanyahu’s three prerequisites are: 1. The total destruction of Hamas, 2. total demilitarization of Gaza, and 3. the “deradicalization” of the population there.
In other words, an unconditional surrender by Palestinians (after which any negotiations would be total irrelevant). I would say they are all impossible to achieve, but the final one is really puzzling. Is Israel going to brainwash the population of Gaza? Is it going to put the people there into reeducation camps? Just what does “deradicalization” mean and how do we know when it is achieved? Thought police? The Spanish Inquisition?

Read more: Netanyahu's Latest Poison Pill

It’s not just bullets and bombs. I have never seen health organisations as worried as they are about disease in Gaza

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Written by Devi Sridhar Devi Sridhar
Published: 30 December 2023 30 December 2023

Ultimately, unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population - close to half- a million human beings - dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes and the collapse of the medical system. It’s a crude estimate, but one that is data-driven, using the terrifyingly real numbers of deaths in previous and comparable conflicts.

Read more on The Guardian

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  1. Palestine New Year: The Roots of the Problem 
  2. Gaza’s health crisis ‘catastrophic,’ say Palestinian experts
  3. Human Rights Watch: Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza
  4. The U.S. Must Change Course on Gaza Today
  5. URGENT: Stop genocide against Palestinians in Gaza (call now)

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