Israel using starvation as ‘war weapon’: HRW
70% of Gaza victims women, children
The Palestinian Health Ministry says women and children comprise 70 percent of the nearly 19,500 people killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s bloody aggression against the besieged territory.
In a statement on Sunday, the Ramallah-based ministry said the death toll covers a period of 70 days between October 7, 2023, and December 15, 2023, Press TV reported.
More than 300 health sector workers, 86 journalists, 135 employees of the UN agency for the Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), and approximately 35 civil defense workers are among the death toll, it added.
The ministry also said that over 51,100 Palestinians have been wounded in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, with scores of other people unaccounted for.
It further noted that only eight out of 36 Gaza hospitals are partially functional, and that occupancy rates have soared to 206 percent in inpatient departments and 250 percent in intensive care units.
Meanwhile, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini raised the alarm at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
“By any account, I haven’t seen anything of this scale,” he said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday.
“Everything is absolutely unprecedented and staggering… In 40 days, more women and children were killed than the number of civilians in the Ukraine war.”
The UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs says he has seen no evidence that Israel’s assault on southern Gaza is more precise than that carried out in the north.
“I’ve been disappointed… We were promised this. The Americans did a lot of diplomacy on this. The truth of the matter is that we have not seen it at all in the south. On the contrary, we’ve seen it grow more,” Martin Griffiths told the Financial Times.
HRW confirms Israel’s starvation tactic
A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Israel has been using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
Omar Shakir, the group’s Israel and Palestine director, said there are at least five pieces of evidence that Israel is deliberately starving people in the densely populated territory.
“One is two-plus months of blocking entry of food and water. The second is the blocking of all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. This has been documented for more than two months,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Then, you add to it some of the additional evidence that we looked at. One is the apparent razing of agricultural lands, large percentages of the green agricultural lands turned brown and desolate.”
“Fourth, the report looks at the intentional destruction of objects necessary for survival — I am talking about the wheat mills, hospitals, water, and sanitation facilities,” Shakir said.
“Then, you put together the last piece, which is the statements of the Israeli officials spelling out in clear terms that their strategy or policy is to starve civilians as a tool of leverage to achieve political outcomes,”
Putting it all together, Shakir added, there is “the clear conclusion that the Israeli government is using starvation as a tool, which is an abhorrent war crime”.
Qatar proposed new prisoner swap deal
Qatar has stepped forward with new proposals to reinstate a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas as a high-level Qatari delegation has been actively engaging in exploratory discussions with Israeli officials, according to a Palestinian source speaking to the Xinhua news agency.
The unannounced meetings, which commenced on December 16 in Norway, are part of Qatar’s concerted efforts, in coordination with Egypt, to revive the swap deal between Israel and Hamas.
CIA Director Bill Burns was set to meet Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, according to two US and Israeli officials quoted by the Axios news website.
The talks have primarily focused on the exchange of the remaining Israeli captives held by Hamas. In return, Hamas is demanding several days of humanitarian truce in Gaza, coupled with the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli captivity.
This renewed diplomatic push by Qatar comes after three Israeli captives were accidentally killed by the Israeli army in Gaza. This has exponentially increased the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially in Tel Aviv.
The EU’s top diplomat said Monday that Israel’s military is showing “an appalling lack of distinction” in its targeting in Gaza, highlighting the deaths of Israeli captives, worshippers, and other Palestinian civilians.
“This must stop. A humanitarian pause is urgently needed,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell posted on social media.