gaza
'Shocking': UNRWA Chief Decries Israel's Destruction of Agency Headquarters
"Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law," said the commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees expressed horror Monday over Israeli forces' destruction of the key aid organization's headquarters in Gaza City, which Israel's military recently attacked and left in ruins.
"Shocking," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), wrote in a social media post, which included photos of the bombed-out headquarters complex.
"UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened," Lazzarini continued. "Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law. United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting purposes. Every war has rules. Gaza is no exception."
Shocking. @UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza, turned into a battlefield & now flattened 👇
Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting… pic.twitter.com/XVOm5UjJeM
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 15, 2024
Photos of UNRWA's destroyed headquarters emerged following a deadly weekend of Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip that were overshadowed in the media by the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday.
More than 140 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded on Saturday and Sunday, including in Israeli airstrikes on a so-called "safe zone" in southern Gaza.
Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA's head of external relations, told Al Jazeera on Monday that "the last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war started."
"The images coming out of the UNRWA headquarters are really shocking," said Alrifai. "What I saw today in the footage is unrecognizable."
While U.S. media blacked out coverage for Palestine: "The headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been destroyed."
"The last week has been the worst violence since the war started," said Tamara al-Rafai, Head of External Relations. https://t.co/Jh228UYexc pic.twitter.com/jVHcqIpd2e
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) July 15, 2024
UNRWA and its infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, have been major targets of Israel's far-right government since its latest assault on the Palestinian enclave began in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed—without providing evidence—that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.
Nearly 200 UNRWA facilities in Gaza, most of which have been serving as shelters for displaced people, have been damaged during Israel's war on the besieged territory, Alrifai noted Monday. Around 500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on UNRWA facilities, according to Alrifai.
"It speaks volumes to the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law," she said.
Israel's aerial and ground attacks on Gaza continued Monday as much of the territory's population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Since the start of the assault, Israel has dramatically restricted the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, depriving Palestinians of food, medicine, clean water, and other basic necessities.
Reutersreported that Israel "struck the southern and central Gaza Strip" on Monday and "blew up several homes."
"Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose," the news agency added. "The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp."
Palestinians and the 2024 Democratic Party Platform
Amid the unimaginable suffering in both Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, here's what I told the Platform Committee.
This week, I submitted testimony on Israel/Palestine to the Democratic Party’s Platform Committee. This is my 11th convention and the ninth time I’ve been engaged in discussions regarding the platform, either as a member of the drafting committee, negotiating language with the campaigns, or simply presenting testimony, as I am doing this year.
During these many interventions, I’ve seen some changes made, but all too few on how the platforms address the issue of Palestinian rights. Friends often ask me why I keep coming back—like Sisyphus.
I do so for two reasons. In the first place, it is because Palestinian rights continue to be ignored. Despite the language in our last platform regarding the equal worth of Israeli and Palestinian lives, we continue to demonstrate that we do not see them as equal at all—and so their suffering continues.
Secondly, it is because I want Democrats to win. And what I am seeing is that unless Democrats change direction in the way they deal with Palestinian rights, they are risking losing a sufficient enough number of their voters that it could cost them victory in November.
It is important to consider today’s fraught political environment. The magnitude of the suffering Israel has inflicted on Gaza is horrifying: 38,000 dead, 70% of buildings demolished, infrastructure and medical facilities gone, famine looming, and an entire generation of children traumatized.
We are also seeing mass intersectional mobilization of what are largely Democratic voters who are deeply opposed to the Biden administration’s policies on this issue—this includes a substantial number of Arab Americans and a not inconsequential number of young people, progressive Jews, Blacks, Asians, and Latinos.
Most Americans, and actually most Democrats, never read the platform. However, this year the constituent groups noted above will be watching what language the party puts forward in the platform. In this context it is vitally important to consider their concerns and the consequences of failing to do so.
With this as a backdrop and knowing the process as I do, I offered a few recommendations for language changes as guidance for the platform drafters:
I’m sure the platform will speak about our ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and will be passionate in our condemnation of Hamas terror. But you will fail if you do not passionately acknowledge the immense suffering experienced by Palestinians and our role in fostering Israel’s sense of impunity as they continue to grind up Palestinian hopes and lives and property.
I urge you to recognize the urgency of the moment and the rawness of the feelings of those deeply pained by this tragedy, I ask you to avoid language that seeks to placate without substance—in other words, don’t say things you don’t mean, as you did in 2020 when you included the following quotes in the platform:
- Democrats recognize the worth of every Israeli and Palestinian,’ or
- ‘We support a negotiated two-state solution,’ or
- ‘We oppose any unilateral steps by either side’ (including annexation and settlement expansion).
The same platform that said these things went on to support Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel (when it has been annexed and is a unilateral action; is home to over 200,000 settlers; and is the site in which there continues to be confiscation and demolition, and blocks the creation of a viable Palestinian state).
If you oppose something, it’s important that you mean it. And if you state that something mustn’t be done, there should be consequences when it happens. When red lines are crossed, settlements get built, hospitals get bombed, humanitarian aid is blocked, and our response is nil, we look weak and insincere.
And if we say we want aid to reach Palestinians but then block aid to UNWRA, the only entity that can efficiently administer, protect, and deliver the aid—then we have failed.
With all this in mind, here are some suggestions: be firm in calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire, but add real consequences if either party violates its terms; demand the unimpeded delivery of aid to Gaza; demand an end to settlement expansion, and an immediate end to settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with consequences if they continue; and if you are going to condemn Palestinian incitement and terror, you must also condemn Israeli incitement and terror— whether perpetrated by individuals or the state.
One final note: I first engaged in these platform discussions 40 years ago. At that time, I was warned that the “P” word (meaning Palestinians) couldn’t be in the platform. During the next three decades I tried to get opposition to settlements in the platform.
Well, the “P” word made it a decade later and the 2020 platform for the first-time mentioned our opposition to settlements.
So here’s my challenge for 2024’s platform: call for an end to the occupation; for the adoption of President Clinton’s language “the right of the Palestinian people to live free and independent on their own land”; and make clear that there will be consequences for Israel’s continued violations of Palestinian human rights and international law and conventions.
Those were my suggestions. The ball is now in their court.
World 'Cannot Remain Silent in the Face of This Endless Massacre,' Says Lula
"The Israeli government continues to sabotage the peace process and the cease-fire in the Middle East," said the Brazilian president after a deadly weekend of bombings.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned the Israeli government on Sunday after bombings across the Gaza Strip killed more than 140 people and wounded hundreds more, adding to the gruesome death toll and worsening the enclave's humanitarian emergency as cease-fire talks continue.
Lula specifically decried Israel's Saturday attack on al-Mawasi, an overcrowded town on Gaza's southern coast to which Israeli forces previously ordered Palestinians to flee. Israel claimed to be targeting Hamas' military chief in the attack; Hamas said Sunday that the commander was not harmed in the strikes, which killed around 90 people—including children.
The New York Timesreported that one of the Israeli strikes "exploded directly in front of two vehicles clearly marked as belonging to Gaza Civil Defense, an emergency services agency, spraying them with shrapnel and apparently killing and injuring first responders."
Lula said Sunday that "the Israeli government continues to sabotage the peace process and the cease-fire [negotiations] in the Middle East" with its relentless bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, which has been utterly decimated by Israel's assault—a military campaign fueled by billions of dollars of weaponry from the United States, Germany, and other major countries.
"It is appalling that they continue to collectively punish the Palestinian people," Brazil's president said. "There have already been tens of thousands of deaths in consecutive attacks since last year, many of them in delimited humanitarian zones that should be protected."
"We, the political leaders of the democratic world, cannot remain silent in the face of this endless massacre," he added. "The cease-fire and peace in the region need to be priorities on the international agenda. All our efforts must be focused on securing the release of the Israeli hostages and ending the attacks on the Gaza Strip."
Brazil under Lula's leadership has backed the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and been a vocal supporter of a permanent cease-fire and an end to Israel's decadeslong occupation of Palestinian territory.
"I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment, and others separated from their parents."
Israel's weekend onslaught in Gaza came as "Hamas and Israel appear closer to some form of a Gaza cease-fire deal than at any time since the brief truce last November," as Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill put it late last week.
"Hamas is considering an approach that would not immediately require a commitment to a permanent cease-fire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as a precondition to move forward in phased negotiations," Scahill reported. "This would mark a significant concession by Hamas, which has long insisted any agreement must include defined steps that end Israel's war. Instead, Hamas officials said, they would consider entering an initial six-week phase that would include a conditional cease-fire and an exchange of Israeli civilian and female soldiers held in Gaza in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinians."
The Associated Pressreported Sunday that Hamas—which led the deadly October 7 attack on Israel—intends to keep participating in cease-fire talks in the face of incessant Israeli airstrikes, though a spokesperson for the group said there is "no doubt that the horrific massacres will impact any efforts in the negotiations."
Scott Anderson, the United Nations' deputy humanitarian coordinator, described the appalling scene he witnessed over the weekend at Nasser Hospital, the overwhelmed medical facility in southern Gaza where many wounded Palestinians were taken following Israel's Saturday attack on al-Mawasi.
"With not enough beds, hygiene equipment, sheeting, or scrubs, many patients were treated on the ground without disinfectants," said Anderson. "Ventilation systems were switched off due to a lack of electricity and fuel, and the air was filled with the smell of blood. I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment, and others separated from their parents. I also saw mothers and fathers who were unsure if their children were alive. Parents told me in despair that they had moved into the 'so-called humanitarian zone' in the hope that their children would be safe there."
"Impediments to humanitarian operations prevent us from supporting people anywhere near the scale necessary," Anderson continued. "Civilians must be protected at all times. We urgently need a cease-fire, the release of all remaining hostages, respite for the people of Gaza, and a meaningful opportunity for healing to begin."