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human rights watch
Trump Cuts, NATO Withdrawals Weakening Landmine Treaty and Endangering Lives
"The Trump administration's deep cuts to foreign aid are now disrupting mine clearance operations," one campaigner said ahead of International Day of Mine Action.
Apr 01, 2025
International Day for Mine Action on April 4 is typically an occasion to take stock of humanity's progress toward eradicating the scourge of landmines; however, with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump dramatically slashing foreign aid and several European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization members withdrawing from the landmark Mine Ban Treaty, campaigners say there's little worth celebrating this Friday.
Mary Wareham, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Crisis, Conflict, and Arms program, said Tuesday that International Day of Mine Action "is a moment to highlight the work of the thousands of deminers around the world who clear and destroy landmines and explosive remnants of war."
"They risk their lives to help communities recover from armed conflict and its intergenerational impacts," Wareham—a joint recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL)—continued. "But due to devastating developments driven largely by two countries that have not banned antipersonnel landmines, the United States and Russia, this Mine Action Day does not feel like much of a celebration."
"For over three decades, the U.S. has been the world's largest contributor to humanitarian demining, mine risk education, and rehabilitation programs for landmine survivors," Wareham noted. "But the Trump administration's deep cuts to foreign aid are now disrupting mine clearance operations. Thousands of deminers have been fired or put on administrative leave pending the completion of so-called reviews. It's unclear if this crucial support will continue. The price of Trump administration cuts will be evident as casualties increase."
Responding to the Trump cuts, Anne Héry, advocacy director at the Maryland-based group Humanity & Inclusion—a founding ICBL member—said:
Any delay in clearance prolongs the danger of contamination by explosive ordnance for affected populations. Clearance operations save lives, especially children, who are often victims of explosive devices. They also enable communities to use land for agriculture, construction, and other economic activities. This funding cut will further displace vulnerable populations who cannot return home due to contamination. It will also result in limited access to schools, healthcare facilities, and water sources in contaminated areas.
The Trump administration's seeming disdain for Ukrainian—and by extension much of Europe's—security concerns, combined with Russia's ongoing invasion and occupation of much of Ukraine, has some E.U. and NATO members looking for other ways to defend against potential Russian aggression.
Earlier this month, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania said they would withdraw from the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Treaty and the Mine Ban Treaty.
In a joint statement, the four countries' defense ministers explained that "military threats to NATO member states bordering Russia and Belarus have significantly increased" and that "with this decision we are sending a clear message [that] our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our security needs."
As Wareham also noted: "Russian forces have used antipersonnel landmines extensively in Ukraine since 2022, causing civilian casualties and contaminating agricultural land. Ukraine has also used antipersonnel mines and has received them from the U.S., in violation of the Mine Ban Treaty."
In another blow to the Mine Ban Treaty, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo announced Tuesday that Finland is preparing to quit the pact, a move he said "will give us the possibility to prepare for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way."
#Estonia #Latvia #Lithuania #Finland #Poland – DO NOT EXIT the Mine Ban Treaty! Your choices shape the future. "Young people are watching, and we’re counting on you" to uphold the ban on landmines! #MineFreeWorld #ProtectMineBan
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— International Campaign to Ban Landmines (@minefreeworld.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Wareham said that "the proposed treaty withdrawals raise the question of what other humanitarian disarmament treaties are at risk: chemical weapons? cluster munitions? The military utility of any weapon must be weighed against the expected humanitarian damage."
"To avoid further eroding humanitarian norms, Poland and the Baltic states should reject proposals to leave the Mine Ban Treaty," she added. "They should instead reaffirm their collective commitment to humanitarian norms aimed at safeguarding humanity in war."
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Israel's Takeovers of Gaza Hospitals Amount to 'War Crimes,' Says Human Rights Watch
"The Israeli military's denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals."
Mar 20, 2025
As the Israel Defense Forces continued a devastating assault on the Gaza Strip Thursday, a U.S.-based rights group said that the IDF "caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients while occupying hospitals" there over the past 18 months, "amounting to war crimes."
"International humanitarian law provides that hospitals and their staff may not be deliberately attacked," states the new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. "Parties to the conflict must at all times respect and protect hospitals and take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to patients, staff, and facilities during the hostilities."
Like previous publications exposing the IDF's systematic destruction of the Gaza health system, the HRW report lays out how Israeli forces who occupied hospitals neglected their legal obligations and instead "severely interfered with the treatment" of injured and sick Palestinians, including by denying doctors' pleas to bring in supplies and blocking access to facilities and ambulances, "leading to the deaths of wounded and chronically ill patients."
HRW interviewed patients and healthcare workers present for Israeli takeovers of al-Shifa medical complex in Gaza City, Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, and the Nasser facility in Khan Younis. According to witnesses, the IDF "denied electricity, water, food, and medicines to patients; shot civilians; mistreated health workers; and deliberately destroyed medical facilities and equipment. Unlawful forced evacuations put patients at grave risk and left desperately needed hospitals nonfunctional."
In the section on Israeli activities at al-Shifa in November 2023, HRW reported that "Ridana Zukhra, 25, said she left al-Shifa with her children, brother, and cousin when Israeli forces ordered people to evacuate. Despite holding white flags, a tank fired at the group, badly wounding her daughter, Ghazal, 5, whose leg had to be amputated."
The report also shares accounts from the hospital five months later:
Dr. Badr B., 28, who asked not to use his real name for his protection, said that electricity at the hospital was cut off at about 2:00 am on March 18. Israeli forces broadcast a message that no one could leave, he said, and they shot and wounded four healthcare workers near the entrance. A doctor told the BBC that two patients on life support died because of the electricity cut.
Israeli forces seized the complex with "military vehicles, snipers, quadcopters [drones], soldiers, everything," Dr. B. said. Israeli forces ordered the 72 healthcare workers left at the hospital to transfer about 180 patients from the third and fourth floors of the ICU in the specialized surgeries building to the ground floor and warned they would "start shooting at these floors" within two hours. Dr. B. said that they began "shooting as we were evacuating the last group, three [patients] on crutches and the rest in wheelchairs." Staff then transferred patients to the hospital's reception building.
HRW also detailed Israel's December 2023 assault on Kamal Adwan and the February 2024 raid at Nasser, "when 850 patients and up to 10,000 displaced people were sheltering there."
According to the publication:
Duaa D., who asked that her real name not be used for her protection, said her son Mohammed, 20, was a kidney patient in Nasser hospital at the time, where there was no fresh food, clean water, or medicine for Mohammed's hypertension. Her two younger children, sheltering in a tent in the hospital courtyard, went sleepless with fear. Mohammed said he could barely walk and had lost almost half his body weight due to vomiting and diarrhea, that the water was contaminated, and that he could not digest the canned food due to his chronic illnesses.
On February 13, Duaa saw Jamal Abu al-Ola, 25, who had been sheltering in the hospital, in a white hazmat suit with his hands bound. NBC and other media reported that Israeli forces had detained and beaten him and ordered him to warn the hospital to evacuate, threatening to kill him and others if he did not return. Duaa said al-Ola shared the warning and left the hospital, but soon after was carried back in and "shot, with a fountain of blood pouring." Witnesses told news media that Israeli forces shot and killed him near the hospital entrance.
Duaa told HRW that she saw a large number of bodies on the ground and recalled an "unbearable" smell. "We saw cats and dogs eating bodies," she said. "Once a dog brought a human hand and gave it to its puppies."
Bill Van Esveld, associate children's rights director at HRW, demanded accountability for Israeli troops' well-documented war crimes.
"Israeli forces repeatedly demonstrated deadly cruelty against Palestinian patients in hospitals that they seized," Van Esveld said. "The Israeli military's denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals."
"The Israeli military's occupation of Gaza's hospitals has transformed sites for healing and recovery into centers of death and mistreatment," he added. "Those responsible for these horrific abuses, including senior officials, should be held to account."
The report was published just days after Israel fully abandoned a cease-fire that took effect in January. Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Khalil Al-Dakran toldAnadolu Agency on Thursday that "the bodies of 710 people were transferred to hospitals since Tuesday, in addition to over 900 others injured."
Al-Dakran said that 70% of the injured were women and children, and "many of the injured died due to the lack of urgent medical care amid an Israeli blockade on Gaza, which causes a severe shortage of essential equipment and medicine."
Since the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel, the IDF has slaughtered at least tens of thousands of Palestinians—leading to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
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Entire Families Wiped Out as Israel Resumes Genocidal Assault on Gaza
"All of this is made possible by the U.S. government, which has funded and fueled these atrocities," said Jewish Voice for Peace.
Mar 18, 2025
Once again, entire families are being wiped out by Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip after U.S. President Donald Trumpreportedly gave the green light for the key American ally to resume its assault on the Palestinian enclave.
Israel unilaterally abrogated the crumbling eight-week cease-fire early Tuesday, unleashing a wave of ferocious strikes on the already flattened Gaza Strip, killing at least 404 people—including 174 children, 89 women, and 32 elders—and wounding at least 562 others, with the death toll expected to rise, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
"We were shocked late at night to see strikes and attacks on Gaza like in the early days of the war," Momen Qoreiqeh, who lost more than two dozen relatives in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home, toldAl Jazeera. "I was with my family and suddenly there was a huge attack on our residential block. The attack killed so many people from my family, some of them we still haven't recovered from under the rubble."
"So far we've managed to recover about 26 bodies from my family and 20 other people who were with us," he added.
Ramy Abdu, founder and chair of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor—which has published numerous reports on alleged Israeli war crimes and acts of genocide in Gaza—said his sister's family was killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza City.
"This morning, Israel killed my sister, my heart, Nesreen, and her beloved sons and daughters: Ubaida, Omar, and Lian, along with Ubaida's wife, Malak, and their children, Siwar and Mohammed," Abdu said on social media.
According to Al Jazeera, the family had survived many Israeli airstrikes over the years.
"Israel may kill us at will, burn us alive, and tear us apart, but it will never succeed in uprooting us from our land," Abdu
wrote in a separate post. "Justice and accountability await—no matter how long it takes."
Al Jazeera also reported that Dr. Majda Abu Aker, an OB-GYN at a Rafah clinic run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and more than a dozen other people were killed in a strike on her house in Rafah's al-Jenaina neighborhood. At least 10 of the dead were from the same family; the youngest victim was a girl who was just three days old.
Fifteen people, most of them members of the Barhoum family, were reportedly killed when Israeli forces bombed al-Mawasi.
Six members of the same family were also reportedly killed while trying to flee in a car in Abasan, east of Khan Younis.
Ahmed Abu Rizq, a teacher who survived Tuesday's airstrikes, described to Al Jazeera the horror and chaos he witnessed at a local hospital, where he saw "blood everywhere" and arriving families carrying the "remains of their children."
Al-Shifa Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya said that "every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources," as Israel has imposed a " complete siege" on Gaza since October 2023 that has been blamed for widespread starvation and sickness. The South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice cites the siege, which has been called a "genocidal act" by an independent United Nations commission and human rights groups.
Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, said later in the day that Tuesday's strikes are "only the beginning" and will continue until Hamas frees all the remaining hostages it took on October 7, 2023 and is destroyed.
During a meeting with the U.S. Zionist lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar affirmed that Tuesday's bombings were not a "one-day attack."
Palestine defenders around the world took to the streets to protest the renewed Israeli onslaught. In London, thousands of demonstrators turned out for an emergency protest organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Protests also took place in cities including Ramallah, Dublin, Berlin, Jerusalem, Manchester, and Belfast, and are planned for Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.
United Nations officials condemned Tuesday's strikes, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres writing: "I am outraged by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. I strongly appeal for the cease-fire to be respected, for unimpeded humanitarian assistance to be reestablished, and for the remaining hostages to be released unconditionally."
Human rights groups also condemned Israel's renewed aggression, with Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard calling Tuesday "a desperately dark day for humanity."
"Israel brazenly resumed its devastating bombing campaign in Gaza... again wiping out entire families in a matter of hours," she said. "Palestinians in Gaza—who have barely had a chance to start piecing together their lives and continue to grapple with the trauma of Israel's past attacks—have woken up once more to the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment."
"Today, we are back to square one," Callamard lamented. "Since March 2, Israel has reimposed a total siege on Gaza blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine, and commercial supplies, including fuel and food, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel has also cut off electricity to Gaza's main operational desalination plant. And today the Israeli military has once again started issuing mass 'evacuation' orders displacing Palestinians."
Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine director, said: "The reported killings of hundreds of Palestinians amid Israel's renewed assault on Gaza is alarming. The Israeli authorities have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, including forced displacement and extermination, and acts of genocide during the assault on Gaza."
"Other countries should urgently act to prevent further mass atrocities, including by suspending arms transfers to Israel, supporting the International Criminal Court and executing its arrest warrants, and imposing targeted sanctions on officials responsible for laws-of-war violations," Shakir added.
The American Human Rights Council (AHRC) condemned "the restart of the Israeli genocidal policy of starving and bombing the Palestinians in Gaza" and noted that "the victims of the Israeli genocidal acts are primarily infants, children, women, and the elderly."
"AHRC urges the Trump administration to uphold its peace promise," the group added. "The current Israeli escalation of war crimes and the ongoing Israeli weaponization of food, water, and medicine are resulting in avoidable deaths and suffering. The U.S. can put a permanent end to this war but for political expediency is choosing not to."
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim civil rights group, said that "President Trump must stop the madness after the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu renewed its genocide and slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, during the holy month of Ramadan."
"Without strong actions to push back against this renewed orgy of slaughter, mass destruction, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing, the Israeli government will continue to act with impunity and our government will remain as complicit with genocide as it was under the Biden administration," Awad added.
The U.S. group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which has organized numerous protests against the assault on Gaza—said: "This is a campaign of extermination. This is genocide."
"All of this is made possible by the U.S. government, which has funded and fueled these atrocities," JVP noted. "Over the last 17 months, the U.S. has spent over $17 billion in military funding to the Israeli government's campaign of extermination and apartheid against the Palestinian people, and continues to sell the Israeli military more weapons."
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)—a Quaker organization that has worked in Palestine for decades—said that "there are no words adequate to express the devastation of watching bombs rain down again on people who have already endured more than 17 months of a U.S.-backed genocide."
"Our hearts are with AFSC staff, families, partners, friends, and all Palestinians in Gaza—we are holding you in the Light and we will continue the relentless struggle to end these atrocities," the group added.
Progressive U.S. lawmakers also denounced the renewed Israeli assault and demanded an end to American armed aid, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, writing on social media that "the Israeli apartheid regime has resumed its genocide, carrying out airstrikes all across Gaza and killing hundreds of Palestinians."
"This comes after a complete blockade of food, electricity, and aid," Tlaib added. "They will never stop until there are sanctions and an arms embargo."
Netanyahu has not allowed any food, water, or fuel into Gaza in two weeks. Now he has resumed bombing, killing hundreds of people and breaking the ceasefire that had given Gaza a chance to live again. NO MORE MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.
— Senator Bernie Sanders ( @sanders.senate.gov) March 18, 2025 at 7:57 AM
The Gaza Health Ministry says that at least 48,964 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the past 529 days. At least 112,481 others have been wounded, and an estimated 14,000 more are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings.
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