war crimes

Restrictions on movement and total siege making aid operations almost impossible.

After more than a year of a brutal military assault and blocking of aid by Israeli authorities, this pause is long overdue.

On the deadline for compliance to the US Secretary of Defense letter demanding Israel to provide concrete measures to reverse the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza, today, Tuesday, November 12, Oxfam and seven humanitarian organizations have released a scorecard assessing progress against these measures over the past 30 days, concluding that Israel has failed to comply with its ally’s demands – at enormous human cost for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Response to the alert issued last night, by the IPC’s Famine Review Committee, which warned of imminent famine in northern Gaza.

The Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza has escalated to a horrifying level of atrocity. Northern Gaza is being wiped off the map. Under the guise of “evacuation,” Israeli forces have ordered the forced displacement of an estimated 400,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza, including Gaza City. This is not an evacuation—this is forced displacement under gunfire.

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.  

Of the meagre 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians. For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours.  

In a joint report released today, Forced Displacement Orders: Debunking the Myth of Humane Attacks, ActionAid and Oxfam reveal that so-called evacuation orders between September 23rd and October 31s may amount to a campaign of forcible transfer—a grave breach of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Ahead of foreign affairs ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday, where discussions will include the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the wider region, Agnès Bertrand-Sanz, Oxfam humanitarian expert, said: 

“The discussions happening today behind closed doors have an impact on real people, people who are facing the unimaginable. Yet, Europe’s response is often lethargic – recently exemplified by their lack of response to Israel’s banning of UNRWA.