Gaza

A new Oxfam report reveals how Israel has been systematically weaponizing water against Palestinians in Gaza, showing disregard for human life and international law.  

Oxfam is gravely concerned for the lives of around 500,000 Palestinians, alongside any of the more than 200 Israeli and other national hostages, currently trapped in a “siege within a siege” in northern Gaza.  

Starvation is being used as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians, Oxfam said today as it renewed its call for food, water, fuel and other essentials to be allowed to enter.  

Shane Stevenson, Oxfam Country Director for the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel said:   

“Finally, for the first of 12 consecutive nights, two million Palestinians in Gaza, including hundreds of thousands of traumatized children, can rest rather than lie awake in fear as bombs fly over their homes.  And civilians across Israel will be spared the threat of rocket attacks.  

With a new US-led peace initiative looming, it is critical to look back over the last 26 years and the legacy of the Oslo Accords to bring insight and understanding and to learn vital lessons from the past.

Despite the announcement (and then extension) of a ceasefire agreement, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have continued unabated and Israeli forces continue to expand their occupation in southern Lebanon, as well as widening the range of Lebanese towns impacted by forced displacement orders, aggravating the rate of displacement across the country.

Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Policy Lead Bushra Khalidi - a Palestinian mother from Jerusalem living in the West Bank - addressed the UN Security Council in New York today, warning that the ceasefire in Gaza is failing and urging member states to uphold their obligations under Resolution 2803.

In reaction to the closing of the G7 Summit today, Oxfam International Head of Inequality Policy Max Lawson, said: "Once again, the G7 has put its own interests ahead of the people paying the price for crises that these same powers have too often caused, fueled or failed to prevent. This summit was defined as much by what was left off the agenda as by what was discussed. Climate change, gender inequality and human rights were conspicuously sidelined to secure President Trump’s attendance. Silence became a strategy."

The violations and atrocities that underpinned Israel’s genocide in Gaza are again on full display in Lebanon as Israeli forces roll out the same military playbook across the country during the latest escalation.

From mass forced displacement to the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, as well as the redrawing of buffer zones and borders, the impunity that Israel was allowed in Gaza has emboldened it to carry out the same tactics as it attacks Lebanon. Showing that it can do what it wants, wherever it wants, without repercussions as it expands its violations in the region.

Scorecard from humanitarian organizations assessing core civilian protection, humanitarian access provisions of ceasefire plan reveals failure