العربية
HE
العربية
HE
Press release
Without sufficient access to food, clean drinking water or health services, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza Strip are in immediate danger. On February 20, 2024, four human rights organizations in Israel – Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel – sent an urgent letter to the Israeli Prime Minister, Defense Minister and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories demanding that Israel act immediately, by all means at its disposal, to provide for all the essential needs of the civilian population in the north of the Gaza Strip in keeping with its obligations under international law.
Israel’s unprecedented offensive in Gaza and the restrictions it has imposed on access to goods have wreaked havoc throughout the Strip, especially in the area north of Wadi Gaza, where an estimated 300,000 people remain. Hunger in the Strip is rampant and danger of starvation is especially acute in northern Gaza, where about a third of residents suffer from catastrophic food shortages according to UN assessments and some 15% of children under the age of two are acutely malnourished. According to reports, residents in the north of Gaza have been compelled to forage wild herbs or animal fodder ground into flour, the availability of which is also decreasing, and drink polluted water for lack of other options.
Though Israel claims that it does not limit the amount of aid entering Gaza or hinder its transit, the facts on the ground indicate that it is denying residents in the area adequate access to essential humanitarian aid. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel systematically prevents aid agencies from crossing into areas north of Wadi Gaza and has recently denied access to more than half of aid missions to the area. Israel has also denied access to some 90% of the requests by aid organizations to provide fuel for health and sanitation systems in the north. On February 5, Israel bombed an aid truck loaded with food before it had begun transiting to the north of the Strip.
The difficulty in supplying aid to the civilian population in the north also stems from the extensive damage to roads caused in the offensive so far and the risk to the safety of humanitarian staff. The UN World Food Programme announced this week that it was pausing deliveries until conditions in the north allowed for safe distribution of aid.
In their letter, the organizations emphasized that in preventing the distribution of aid required for the survival of northern Gaza’s residents by humanitarian agencies, Israel stands in blatant violation of its obligations under international law both as an occupying power and as a party to hostilities. As an occupying power, Israel has a positive obligation to ensure the humanitarian needs of the residents under its control and to maintain public order and normal life in the area, meaning Israel itself must provide humanitarian aid to the residents, or, at the very least, ensure it can be safely distributed to the civilian population. The organizations also warned that Israel’s failure to take immediate and effective steps to enable the increased provision of supplies to residents throughout the Strip is a breach of the provisional measure set by the International Court of Justice.
The letter states: “Claims regarding military needs in this case cannot justify the systematic prevention of aid missions that is leading to the catastrophic situation of the civilian population; particularly with regards to the hunger, thirst, and the lack of the most essential and basic necessities for their survival, including medicine and medical supplies. Collective punishment and starvation of the civilian population constitute very grave violations of the laws of war. Deliberately delaying the provision of essential humanitarian aid, or deliberately starving residents by withholding aid essential for their survival constitutes a war crime.”
