CAIRO/GAZA: Palestinians in Gaza were waiting on Thursday to see if there would be a pause in fighting to allow a polio vaccination campaign to begin, as the conflict raged across the besieged enclave, killing at least 20 people.
The United Nations is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the World Health Organization confirmed on Aug. 23 that at least one baby has been paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The UN, which called for a humanitarian truce earlier this month, hopes to begin the vaccination campaign on Sept. 1, said Juliette Touma, communications director of UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency.
The World Health Organization named the baby as Abdul-Rahman Abu Al-Jidyan. He will turn one year old on Sept. 1.
His mother Nivin Abu Al-Jidyan said she feared for her son after she was told by health officials they could do little to help him.
“I was shocked that my son got this disease amid the war and the closure of border crossings, under these conditions and lack of medicine for him, it’s a shock. Would he remain like this?” Abu Al-Jidyan said on Thursday.
“He is my only baby boy. It’s his right to travel and be treated; it’s his right to walk, run and move like before...It is unfair that he stays thrown in the tent without care or attention,” she said from a tent in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
At Nasser Hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, Umm Eliane Baker fears her 19-month-old daughter may be vulnerable to polio due to ill health brought on by malnutrition.
She hopes her baby will be vaccinated soon, but said she is worried about moving safely in an area where there have been repeated Israeli strikes.
“I cannot walk in the street and get bombed, or have something happen to my daughter, or have a targeted (attack). I need a truce, a ceasefire so I can give my daughter this injection (vaccine),” she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week denied media reports Israel was preparing for a generalized humanitarian truce, saying that a more limited plan had been presented.
“These are not pauses in the fighting to administer polio vaccines but only the allocation of certain places in the Gaza Strip,” he said in a statement.
Senior Hamas official Izzat El-Reshiq reiterated the group’s support for the UN and international organizations’ initiative for an urgent humanitarian truce across the enclave to allow the polio vaccination campaign.
He described Netanyahu’s statement as an attempt to thwart the process by refusing the UN call.
FAMILY ‘CONSUMED’ BY FIRE
On Thursday, Israeli forces continued to bombard areas across the Gaza Strip in their battle against Hamas-led militants. Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes have so far killed at least 20 people.
One strike on a house in Gaza City killed eight Palestinians, including children, they said, while three others were killed when an Israeli missile hit a motorcycle in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
A neighbor of the bombed Gaza City house said they had managed to lower a ladder into the building to rescue a family trapped inside, but had only managed to extract one young girl.
“After that, the fire consumed them and we could not reach them,” he said.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the enclave has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Fighting rages in Gaza as Palestinians hope for a pause for polio vaccinations
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Fighting rages in Gaza as Palestinians hope for a pause for polio vaccinations
- UN hopes to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza starting September 1
- Benjamin Netanyahu denies Israel plans for general humanitarian truce
Four dead, 13 injured in Algeria landslide
- Four people have died and 13 others injured in a landslide in Algeria’s western coastal city of Oran, authorities said on Sunday
ALGIERS: Four people have died and 13 others injured in a landslide in Algeria’s western coastal city of Oran, authorities said on Sunday.
The landslide occurred late Saturday in the city’s Hai Essanouber district, the civil defense agency said.
It said the four “deceased were between five and 43 years old,” and that “13 other victims, aged between 12 and 75, suffered various injuries.”
Authorities did not comment on the reasons behind the landslide, which the interior ministry said “caused the collapse of five tin houses.”
With no one still missing from the landslide, the ministry said the death toll was “final.”
Gaza Health Ministry reports 51 deaths from Israeli strikes, bringing overall toll to over 52,000
- Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have received the remains of 51 Palestinians over the past 24 hours, killed in Israeli strikes
DEIR AL-BALAH: Hospitals in the Gaza Strip received the remains of 51 Palestinians over the past 24 hours who were killed in Israeli strikes, the local Health Ministry said Sunday, bringing the Palestinian death toll from the 18-month-old Israel-Hamas war to 52,243.
The overall toll includes nearly 700 bodies for which the documentation process was recently completed, the ministry said in its latest update. The daily toll includes bodies retrieved from the rubble after earlier strikes.
Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise bombardment on March 18, and has been carrying out daily waves of strikes since then. Ground forces have expanded a buffer zone and encircled the southern city of Rafah, and now control around 50 percent of the territory.
Israel has also sealed off the territory’s 2 million Palestinians from all imports, including food and medicine, for nearly 60 days. Aid groups say supplies will soon run out and that thousands of children are malnourished.
Israeli authorities say the renewed offensive and tightened blockade are aimed at pressuring Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed, and all the hostages are returned.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the now-defunct ceasefire reached in January.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says women and children make up most of the Palestinian deaths, but does not say how many were militants or civilians. It says another 117,600 people have been wounded in the war.
The overall tally includes 2,151 dead and 5,598 wounded since Israel resumed the war last month.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and it blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
Israel’s offensive has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in squalid tent camps or bombed-out buildings.
Putin offers Iran Russian help after blast at Iranian port of Bandar Abbas
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has offered Iran Russian help in dealing with the aftermath of a blast that rocked the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and expressed his condolences over the loss of life, the state RIA news agency reported on Sunday.
Iranian state media reported that a huge blast probably caused by the explosion of chemical materials killed at least 18 people and injured more than 700 on Saturday at Bandar Abbas, Iran’s biggest port.
Lebanon says one killed in Israeli drone strike
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli drone strike Sunday on a border town killed one person, the latest attack despite a November ceasefire that ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.
The health ministry reported in a statement “one martyr” from “the drone strike launched by the Israeli enemy on the town of Halta,” in southern Lebanon.
What is the International Court of Justice and why is it weighing in on humanitarian aid in Gaza?
- Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 as the court of last resort to prosecute those responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities
THE HAGUE: The top United Nations court on Monday will begin hearing from 40 countries on what Israel must do to provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Last year, the UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice to weigh in on Israel’s legal obligations after the country effectively banned the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the main provider of aid to Gaza, from operating. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, voted against the resolution.
Israel over a month ago again cut off all aid to Gaza and its over 2 million people. Israel has disputed that there is a shortage of aid in Gaza, and says it is entitled to block the aid because it says Hamas seizes it for its own use.
The Hague-based court has been asked to give an advisory opinion, a non-binding but legally definitive answer, in the latest judicial proceedings involving Israel and the 18-month war in Gaza. That is expected to take several months.
What is the International Court of Justice?
Set up in the aftermath of World War II, the ICJ is an organ of the UN and adjudicates disputes between countries. Certain UN bodies, including the General Assembly, can request advisory opinions from the court’s 15 judges.
All 193 UN member states are members of the ICJ, though not all of them automatically recognize its jurisdiction.
Last year, the court issued an unprecedented and sweeping condemnation of Israel’s rule over the occupied Palestinian territories, finding Israel’s presence unlawful and calling for it to end. The UN General Assembly sought the opinion after a Palestinian request. The ICJ said Israel had no right to sovereignty in the territories, was violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and was impeding Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Two decades ago, the court in another advisory opinion held that Israel was violating international law by constructing a barrier between Israel and the West Bank. That opinion, also requested by the UN General Assembly, dismissed Israeli arguments that the wall was needed for security.
Israel has not participated in previous advisory opinion hearings but has submitted written statements.
What is the genocide case that Israel is facing at the ICJ?
South Africa went to the court last year to accuse Israel of genocide over its actions in the war in Gaza, which began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many are civilians or combatants. The offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble, and most of its people remain homeless.
Israel rejects South Africa’s claim and accuses it of providing political cover for Hamas.
South Africa also asked judges to make nine urgent orders known as provisional measures. They are aimed at protecting civilians in Gaza while the court considers the legal arguments.
The court has ruled several times on that request, including ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. The proceedings are ongoing and likely to take years to reach a conclusion.
How is the ICJ different from the International Criminal Court?
The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 as the court of last resort to prosecute those responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.
While the ICJ deals with disputes between two or more countries, the ICC seeks to hold individuals criminally responsible.
In November, a three-judge panel issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’ military chief, Mohammed Deif, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.
The warrants said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and Gallant have used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas, charges Israeli officials deny.
The warrant marked the first time a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the global court of justice and has sparked major pushback from supporters of Israel, including the US
Israel and its top ally, the United States, are not members of the court. However, Palestine is, and judges ruled in 2021 that the court had jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory.
