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Gaza faces starvation as Israel continues to block aid
Deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza dropped by 50 percent in February compared with January.
Published On 27 Feb 2024
Two human rights groups have accused Israel of further limiting humanitarian aid to Gaza despite an order from the United Nations’ top court.
Exactly one month ago, The International Court of Justice in The Hague said Israel must do everything to prevent genocidal acts in the besieged territory. Tel Aviv must also take “immediate and effective measures” for aid provision, the ICJ added.
But Israeli authorities have “failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply” with the ICJ ruling issued on January 26, Amnesty International has claimed.
Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday that the number of aid trucks entering Gaza had actually decreased by roughly one-third since the ruling, which came in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention.
“The Israeli government is starving” Gaza’s 2.4 million Palestinians, “putting them in even more peril than before the World Court’s binding order,” said Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel and Palestine director. “The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid.”
ICJ rulings are legally binding but the court has no enforcement mechanism.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said there was a “50 percent reduction” in humanitarian aid entering Gaza during February compared with January.
The comments from the NGOs came as Israel prepares for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday would “put the final nail in the coffin” of aid operations.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas fighters staged an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7. Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed almost 30,000 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Israel dismissed the case brought by South Africa as a “grossly distorted story” and said that if any genocidal acts had been carried out, they had been executed against Israel during the October 7 Hamas attack.
In a separate, non-binding, case, the UN has asked the ICJ to hand down an “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.
