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Amnesty International today urged the UN
Security Council to demand that Israel, Hamas and Palestinian armed
groups observe an immediate truce in Gaza to allow desperately needed
humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered civilian population,
evacuation of the wounded and safe refuge for civilians wishing to flee
the conflict zone.
Amnesty International today urged the UN
Security Council to demand that Israel, Hamas and Palestinian armed
groups observe an immediate truce in Gaza to allow desperately needed
humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered civilian population,
evacuation of the wounded and safe refuge for civilians wishing to flee
the conflict zone.
"Civilians in Gaza are trapped in an unfolding humanitarian
catastrophe, and need immediate respite," said Malcolm Smart, Director
of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.
"It is abundantly clear that the parties to this conflict are
failing to respect international humanitarian law, and that the
civilian population of Gaza is paying a very heavy price."
"Eleven days into the conflict and amid a mounting toll of civilian
casualties in Gaza, calls for a ceasefire have as yet gone unheeded by
both Israel and Hamas," said Malcolm Smart "In the absence of a
ceasefire, an immediate humanitarian truce is urgently needed to
protect the civilian population. The fighting must stop long enough so
that humanitarian assistance can reach those in need and so that those
who want to leave can be evacuated."
"An immediate pause in hostilities would at least make it possible for
basic assistance to be got to civilians in dire need, permit the
evacuation and treatment of the wounded and the burial of the dead,"
said Malcolm Smart. "It would also allow civilians trapped in Gaza an
opportunity to leave the conflict zone safely to seek refuge with the
assistance of neighbouring states where necessary, allow emergency
repairs to essential infrastructure, and ensure that humanitarian
workers can provide protection and assistance in safety."
Amnesty International has repeatedly urged Israel, Hamas, and other
Palestinian armed groups to end attacks on civilians and other
violations of international humanitarian law, and to allow access to
humanitarian assistance. The organization has urged the UN Security
Council and the international community to ensure compliance with
international law.
However, civilians -- particularly the 1.5 million Palestinians
trapped in Gaza -- continue to both be targeted and suffer
disproportionately in this conflict.
Backgound
More than 500 Palestinians have been killed since 27 December,
including more than 100 unarmed civilians. This includes scores of
children. Over 2,000 have been injured. Israeli air strikes continue to
be launched in a reckless manner, resulting in high civilian
casualties. The use of artillery - which is notoriously inaccurate in
pinpointing its target and should never be used in densely populated
areas - is leading to further deaths and injuries to civilians. The
invasion by Israeli ground forces into Gaza (since 3 January) brings
the fighting into the midst of residential areas. The division of Gaza
by Israeli forces into three sections is further exacerbating the
humanitarian situation.
Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have been firing hundreds
of indiscriminate rockets into towns in southern Israel, in violation
of international humanitarian law. Three Israeli civilians have been
killed in these attacks.
The Israeli ground incursion into Gaza that began on 3 January has
taken the fighting even further into the heart of residential areas,
increasing the risk for the civilian population.
Even with fighting continuing, Israel has clear obligations under
international humanitarian law to allow humanitarian assistance for
civilians and must do so immediately. Instead, Israel has been actively
blocking essential medicine, food, fuel, and electricity in violation
of its duties as the Occupying Power.
There is a critical shortage of food, medicine and most of the
necessities required to sustain life in Gaza. According to the ICRC,
hospitals are now completely dependent on unreliable generators that
cannot be repaired due to Israeli restrictions on the import of spare
parts. The fighting has prevented ambulance crews from responding to
some emergency calls, resulting in preventable deaths.
Many water supply lines have been severed during bombardments,
making it very difficult for families in certain areas of the Gaza
Strip to get hold of safe drinking water. Necessary repairs have been
impeded by bombings. This lack of clean water supply is a disaster in
waiting.
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
While Israel argues that its invasion of Syria does not violate a 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries because the Assad dynasty no longer rules the neighboring nation, Dujarric said Guterres maintains that Israel must uphold its obligations under the deal, "including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the cease-fire and stability in Golan."
Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
Asked about Thompson's alleged killer—26-year-old Luigi Mangione, whose reported manifesto railed against the nation's expensive healthcare system and low life expectancy—Sanders said: "You don't kill people. It's abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. It was a terrible act. But what it did show online is that many, many people are furious at the health insurance companies who make huge profits denying them and their families the healthcare that they desperately need."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system," he continued, noting the tens of thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't get to a doctor.
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
Two other Medicare for All advocates, Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also made clear to Business Insider that they oppose Thompson's murder but understand some of the responses to it.
"Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents," said Ocasio-Cortez. "We also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst, not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family's lives."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
After facing some criticism for those comments, Warren added Wednesday: "Violence is never the answer. Period... I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder."
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.
Reports released this week from two organizations that advocate for journalists underscore just how deadly Gaza has become for media workers.
Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
Bruttin added that "many of these reporters were clearly identifiable as journalists and protected by this status, yet they were shot or killed in Israeli strikes that blatantly disregarded international law. This was compounded by a deliberate media blackout and a block on foreign journalists entering the strip."
When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
IFJ lists out each of the slain journalists in its 139 count, which includes the journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, who was killed with journalist Mustafa Thuraya when Israeli forces targeted their car while they were in northern Rafah in January 2024.