Aid groups warn of mounting challenges to Gaza operations
Aid groups warn of mounting challenges to Gaza operations/node/2512051/middle-east
Aid groups warn of mounting challenges to Gaza operations
Aid groups say the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned of looming famine, has significantly deteriorated since Israeli troops entered eastern Rafah last week.(AFP)
Aid groups warn of mounting challenges to Gaza operations
The latest fighting, more than seven months into the war, has cut off access to some areas and left aid crossings either closed or operating at a limited capacity
Updated 17 May 2024
AFP
Jerusalem: Humanitarian workers already face a slew of challenges getting aid to civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip, and fear that as the Israel-Hamas war rages on they may be forced to halt operations.
“There are enormous needs” which are bound to grow, while there is “less and less access”, said the head of a European charity, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Aid groups say the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned of looming famine, has significantly deteriorated since Israeli troops entered eastern Rafah last week.
The Israeli military has launched what it called a “limited” operation, seizing on May 7 the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border — a key aid conduit that is now shut — and sparking an exodus of Palestinians seeking safety further north in Gaza.
The latest fighting, more than seven months into the war, has cut off access to some areas and left aid crossings either closed or operating at a limited capacity.
A worker for the Paris-based non-governmental organization Humanity & Inclusion (HI) in the Palestinian territories, also requesting anonymity, said: “We can’t get our teams out, the security conditions are too unstable.”
Israel has vowed to defeat remaining Hamas forces in the southern city of Rafah, which it says is the last bastion of the group whose October 7 attack triggered the war.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has since killed at least 35,303 people, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Aid workers told AFP their organizations had regularly been denied access by Israeli authorities to certain areas or routes.
The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and southern Gaza has reopened following a brief closure, but humanitarian groups say Israeli tanks amassing there and repeated Hamas rocket fire have hindered operations.
A trickle of aid has entered via Kerem Shalom in recent days under “great risk, through an area of active hostilities,” said a UN employee in Jerusalem.
Human Rights Watch charged this week that Israeli forces had repeatedly targeted known aid worker locations, even when their organizations had provided the coordinates to Israeli authorities to ensure their protection.
On Monday a UN employee was killed and another wounded when their vehicle was hit in Rafah.
Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the organization had subsequently “canceled all of our movements for the rest of the day to mitigate risk to our staff.”
The Israeli army said it was looking into the incident which occurred “in an area declared an active combat zone.”
Since the war began, more than 250 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza, according to UN figures.
Aid workers complain of lengthy and convoluted procedures to coordinate their movements with the Israeli military via the United Nations and several Israeli agencies.
“We are seeing mishaps” even after COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body overseeing civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, informs organizations they have clearance, said Tania Hary, head of Israeli rights group Gisha.
“It does point to something that’s going wrong in the communication” between COGAT and the army, she said.
To avoid having to go through a series of mediators — UN agencies, Israel’s Coordination and Liaison Administration and then its parent agency COGAT — some aid groups have opted for direct contact with Israeli military authorities.
But workers and officials told AFP this has mostly created further confusion. Some also fear NGOs would accept conditions in direct communication with the military, which could set precedents other groups may not be willing to abide by.
The HI employee said: “Notifying them of our movements, which they’re not supposed to hinder, is a way of reminding them of their accountability if anything goes wrong.”
Humanitarian workers stress that Israel, as an occupying power, is required under international law to ensure aid reaches civilians in Gaza.
A military spokesperson said Thursday the army was in contact with international organizations “in real time” and ensuring “the best way possible to communicate as fast as possible.”
Even if a full-scale invasion of Rafah is averted, humanitarian agencies say conditions are unsustainable.
Debris and destruction have rendered main routes and many other roads impassable, and a severe fuel shortage — worsened since the Rafah crossing takeover — has limited the use of vehicles.
“We’re only going to places we can walk to,” said the head of one aid group with about 50 workers in Gaza.
A Jerusalem-based humanitarian official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said he recognized that “military imperatives” arise in conflicts and may limit aid operations.
But in the Gaza war, movement requests are denied too often and “we can hardly bring anything,” he said.
“We can’t work like this.”
At least 6 people die after school bus plunges into a river in northwest Syria
The bus carrying dozens of children left the road near the city of Darkush and plunged into the Orontes River, say White Helmets
Updated 07 June 2024
AP
DARKUSH, Syria: At least six people died and more than 20 were injured, most of them children, when a school bus went off the road into a river in northwest Syria on Thursday, emergency responders said.
The bus carrying dozens of children left the road near the city of Darkush, west of Idlib, and plunged into the Orontes River, a local civil defense organization also known as the White Helmets said in a statement.
Rescue teams were searching for survivors in the cliffside and in the river, it said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the bus to go off the road. Images from the scene showed a steep crag overlooking the riverbed where searchers were scrambling over boulders.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said the children had been attending a Qur’an memorization institute, of which there are many in northwest Syria.
It was the latest tragedy to affect an area that has already been hit hard by Syria’s ongoing civil war and by a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkiye and northern Syria last year.
Most of most of the 5.1 million people living in opposition-held northwest Syria have been internally displaced, sometimes more than once, in the country’s civil war, now in its 14th year, and rely on aid to survive.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank were hit with international sanctions. It only emboldened them
Three sanctioned settlers — Levi, Federman and Elisha Yered — say the measures against them were, at most, an annoyance
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler leader, said that sanctions are “a grave mistake by the Biden administration”
Updated 07 June 2024
AP
SOUTH HEBRON HILLS, West Bank: For weeks after being sanctioned by the United States, Yinon Levi struggled to pay the bills, living at his farming outpost atop a hill in the occupied West Bank. But the Israeli settler’s problems didn’t last.
When the banks froze his accounts, his community raised thousands of dollars for him, and Israel’s finance minister vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’ behalf. Two months after sanctions were issued, Levi was granted access to his money.
“America thought it would weaken us, and in the end, they made us stronger,” Levi, 31, told The Associated Press from his farm in the South Hebron Hills — one of dozens of unauthorized settlement outposts dotting the West Bank.
Levi is among 13 hard-line Israeli settlers — as well as two affiliated outposts and four groups — targeted by international sanctions over accusations of attacks and harassment against Palestinians in the West Bank. The measures are meant as a deterrent, and they expose people to asset freezes and travel and visa bans.
But the measures have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers as attacks and land-grabs escalate, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP.
Sanctions prohibit financial institutions and residents in the issuing country from providing funds to a person or entity. In some cases, property is seized. Even though Israeli banks aren’t obliged to freeze accounts, many do so to maintain relations with banks — particularly for US sanctions — and avoid risk.
But for sanctioned settlers, the implications didn’t last long, with communities donating money and holding fundraisers making tens of thousands of dollars. And Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler leader, said he’d “take care of the issue” of people being sanctioned, Levi’s father-in-law, Noam Federman, told AP.
Smotrich said in a text-message statement that sanctions are “a grave mistake by the Biden administration.” He didn’t address questions about whether he intervened directly to unfreeze settlers’ accounts. But he said his actions to develop settlements are authorized, and the government is working with “our friends in the US” to cancel or reduce sanctions.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler leader who lives in the West Bank, is part of the most right-wing governing coalition in Israeli history. (AP)
Israel seized the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank; the international community largely considers their presence illegal. But under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — the most right-wing in Israeli history, with settlers themselves in key positions — expansion has been turbocharged.
Palestinians say expanding Israeli outposts are shrinking their access to land, and settler violence against them has soared since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war with Israel. Land seized through unauthorized outposts has more than doubled since the war started, according to settlement watchdog Kerem Navot.
Palestinians living in small hamlets ringed by hilltop outposts say they fear it’s just a matter of time until they’re forced to leave their homes.
US officials have repeatedly raised concerns about surging settler violence, with President Joe Biden saying it had reached “intolerable levels” when announcing sanctions. Israel has said it’s calling for settlers to stand down and investigating violence. But rights groups accuse the government and army of complicity with the settlers.
In March, even the Israeli army complained about the extent to which the government intervenes on settlers’ behalf. An internal document, seen by AP and published by The New York Times, said the army is routinely denied authorization to act against illegal building by Israelis and regularly authorized to act against Palestinians.
REALITY OF SANCTIONS
Three sanctioned settlers — Levi, Federman and Elisha Yered — told AP the measures against them were, at most, an annoyance.
Levi founded Meitarim Farm in 2021 on a hill whose sloping sides give way to lowlands where Bedouin farmers graze sheep. He said he wanted to protect the area from being overtaken by Palestinians.
“Little by little, you feel when you drive on the roads that everyone is closing in on you,” he said. “They’re building everywhere, wherever they want. So you want to do something about it.”
Since then, anti-settlement activists say, more than 300 people from four nearby hamlets have been pushed off their land. Levi said the land is his and denies violently chasing anyone away.
US officials sanctioned him in February over accusations that from his outpost, he led settlers who assaulted Palestinians and Bedouins, threatened them, burned their fields and destroyed property.
Levi said his Israeli bank froze his accounts — holding nearly $95,000 — and within days, he couldn’t pay his mortgage or children’s school and activities fees.
Friends and relatives donated about $12,000 to him through April, he said, when the bank allowed him to withdraw on a controlled basis — he calls for permission and explains each transaction’s purpose.
An online fundraiser by the area’s regional council raised $140,000 for Levi from 3,000 donors worldwide. Following AP reporting on the fundraiser, the Mount Hebron Fund was also sanctioned by the US.
Since regaining access to his money, Levi said, he’s never been refused a request. The bank gave him a monthly limit of $8,000 in withdrawals, he said, but he nearly doubled that in the first few weeks.
In a clarification letter to Israel’s banks in March, the US Treasury said banks can process transactions for sanctioned people for basic needs such as food and healthcare, provided the transactions don’t involve the US financial system or US residents.
But Levi said he could buy whatever he wanted — he wouldn’t give specifics but said it wasn’t limited to “food or diapers.”
A US Treasury spokesperson didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment on Levi’s claims, sanctioned settlers and monitoring mechanisms.
The spokesperson for Bank Leumi, Levi’s bank and a major Israeli financial institution, didn’t respond to calls and messages seeking comment on the settlers’ accounts and transactions.
BEYOND SETTLER SANCTIONS
Local rights groups hope sanctions will be extended to Israeli government officials who they say embolden settler activity.
That would send a stronger signal of Washington’s condemnation, said Delaney Simon, of the International Crisis Group.
“Sanctions against government officials have cast a chilling effect in other countries, causing firms to shy away from doing business in those places,” she said.
Smotrich, who lives in the Kedumim settlement and was given special powers over settlement policies as part of the governing coalition agreement, told Israeli media in April that he’d take steps to help sanctioned settlers.
Levi’s father-in-law, Federman, told AP that he spoke to Smotrich directly.
“He said he will take care of it, and if necessary he will even make a law against interference of other countries in Israelis’ bank accounts,” Federman said. Shortly after, he added, his son-in-law’s account was unfrozen.
During a US congressional subcommittee meeting Tuesday with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland urged sanctions against Smotrich.
“This is in direct contradiction of US policy,” he said.
Yellen said she shared “concerns about what’s happening in the West Bank.” No action was taken in the meeting.
Britain sanctioned Federman, 55, in May over allegations that he trained settlers to commit violence against Palestinians, which he denied. He said he’d already had his wife open a separate account, after seeing others sanctioned.
He said he’s had no issues accessing money.
Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack said that in addition to sanctioning settlers, the international community should target organizations funding settler expansion.
“If the international community is serious about the two-state solution, they have to tackle everything that gives the system money and legitimacy,” he said.
Activists cite groups such as Amana, which funds settlements and maintains oversight for some of Levi’s farm, according to a contract seen by AP. They also point to the group Nachala, which has a stated goal of enhancing West Bank settlement and has openly planned construction of unauthorized outposts.
Nachala is run by Daniella Weiss, a prominent figure in fringe Israeli efforts to resettle Gaza who’s regarded as the godmother of the settler movement.
“I’m not afraid of sanctions,” Weiss said. “The truth of the matter is that the United States wants us to be in Gaza because the United States does not want jihad to rule the world.”
Daniella Weiss (center), shown speaking with another woman in Sderot, southern Israel, on May 14, is regarded as the godmother of the Israeli settler movement. (AP)
EFFECTS FOR PALESTINIANS
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank say sanctions are mostly futile.
Eight Palestinians in two hamlets in the South Hebron Hills told AP they’re still being pushed off their land, with several alleging Levi has threatened them since being sanctioned.
One man said that in February, while out with his sheep, Levi held him at gunpoint, recounted all the places he’d forced people away, and threatened to kill him if he returned.
“He told me, ‘I displaced people from Zanuta to ad-Dhahiriya ... I am from the family of the farm of mad people,’” said Ahmed, who spoke on condition that only his first name be used, over retaliation fears.
Levi told AP the incident never happened.
Ahmed and other Palestinians said they are verbally and physically harassed, can’t move freely, and face intimidation by settlers circling their properties on motorbikes, cars or horses and spying via drones. A drone hovered overhead while AP was on the land; Palestinians say the buzzing is used to send sheep fleeing.
The few Palestinians who’ve refused to leave the area around Levi’s farm say their land has shrunk by 95% since he established Meitarim, crippling them economically.
In recent years, settlers have changed land-grabbing tactics, anti-occupation researcher Dror Etkes said: Rather than establishing residential settlements, they’ve turned to farming outposts, which use more land for grazing animals and spark more violence because they’re spread out, with high visibility.
Etkes said there’s been a total collapse of rule of law in the territory, with the Israeli government defending settlers.
Etkes said land Levi controls has nearly doubled since the war, from about 1,000 (400 hectares) to 2,000 acres (800 hectares).
And settlers say they’ll keep expanding.
In a makeshift clubhouse on a hilltop near the settlement of Maskiyot in the northern West Bank, Elisha Yered said he’s established five outposts since 2021. The most recent was built about a month before he was sanctioned by the European Union in April.
He’s a leading figure for Hilltop Youth — a group of Jewish teenagers and young men who occupy West Bank hilltops and have been accused of attacking Palestinians and their property. Hilltop Youth was also sanctioned by the UK and the EU.
The EU order said Yered, 23, was involved in deadly attacks on Palestinians. He was accused of involvement a 19-year-old Palestinian’s death last year.
Yered told AP the incident was one of self-defense over Palestinians attacking a herder and said he had nothing to do with his death. He was arrested in the case but never charged.
Yered is also sanctioned by the UK, which said he incited religious hatred and violence and called for Palestinian displacement.
Yered said that while the sanctions initially posed challenges accessing money, friends and family supported him. His credit card remains blocked, he said, but his bank lets him withdraw with permission.
He said nothing has halted his expansion goals.
“Only settling the land will bring security,” Yered said. “Anyone who thinks this will break us is mistaken. We’ve survived harder things than this.”
US warns Israel of ‘massive’ impact of denying Palestinian revenue
Israel's military earlier warned that the denial off funds to the Palestinian Authority could push the occupied West Bank into a third “intifada”
The World Bank has also warned that the PA's fiscal situation has "dramatically worsened" with the risk of complete collapse
Updated 07 June 2024
AFP
WASHINGTON: The United States warned Thursday that Israel will see a "massive" negative impact if the Palestinian Authority collapses as Washington again pressed its ally to let revenue flow.
"We have made clear to the government of Israel in some very direct conversations that there is nothing that could be more counter to the strategic interests of Israel than the collapse of the Palestinian Authority," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
While acknowledging shortcomings in the Palestinian Authority, he said the Ramallah-based body had helped maintain stability in the West Bank even as war has raged in Gaza, run for years by rivals Hamas.
"If you saw the Palestinian Authority collapse and instability spread across the West Bank, it's not just a problem for the Palestinians," he said, "it is also a massive security threat for the state of Israel."
Under peace agreements in the 1990s, Israel collects money for the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank.
Israel then disburses the money to the PA.
But Israel has been blocking revenue since Hamas on October 7 carried out its massive attack in Israel, triggering a relentless retaliatory military campaign.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a member of the far right who advocates Jewish settlement of the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also a long-time critic of the Palestinian Authority and of moves toward an independent Palestinian state.
The US warning followed a statement by the Israeli military that the Netanyahu government policy of cutting off funds to the PA could push the occupied West Bank into a third “intifada.”
The World Bank has also warned that the PA's fiscal situation has "dramatically worsened" with the risk of complete collapse.
Israel’s Netanyahu to address US Congress on July 24: source
Updated 07 June 2024
AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation from Republican and Democratic party leaders to address lawmakers in the US Congress on July 24, a congressional source told AFP on Thursday.
The visit comes amid mounting pressure for the US ally and Hamas militants to agree to a permanent ceasefire as Israel faces growing diplomatic isolation over the rising death toll in Gaza.
Biden last week presented what he called an Israeli three-phase plan that would end the conflict, free all hostages and lead to the reconstruction of the devastated Palestinian territory without Hamas in power.
But Netanyahu's office stressed that the war sparked by the October 7 attacks would continue until Israel's “goals are achieved,” including the destruction of Hamas, which has not given its response to the plan.
The four party leaders in the US House and Senate asked Netanyahu last week to speak before a joint meeting of Congress in a letter voicing solidarity with Israel “in your struggle against terror, especially as Hamas continues to hold American and Israeli citizens captive.”
The visit comes after Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called in March for Israel to hold new elections in a rare example of strident criticism from a senior American official of the country's handling of the war in Gaza.
The rebuke from Schumer, the highest-ranking elected Jewish American in history, came amid expressions of dismay from progressive Democrats who have condemned Netanyahu over his handling of the military response and vowed to snub the right-wing leader’s speech.
The war was sparked when Hamas attacked Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,654 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
A Gaza hospital said Thursday at least 37 people had been killed in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school that the Israeli military alleged housed a Hamas compound.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have resumed talks aimed at securing a truce and hostage-prisoner swap in the nearly eight-month war.
But the nation has faced a mounting diplomatic chill, with international court cases accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognizing a Palestinian state.
US media reported on Monday that Netanyahu had agreed to visit on June 13, but his office told Israeli media the date had "not been finalized" and would not be on that date because it interferes with a Jewish holiday.
Hamas still to give response on Gaza truce plan: Qatar
Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, has been engaged in months of negotiations over details for a ceasefire in Gaza
Seeking to restart talks, US President Joe Biden said last week Israel was offering a new three-stage roadmap
Earlier on Thursday, a senior Hamas official cast doubt on Biden's proposal as "just words said ... in a speech"
Updated 07 June 2024
AFP
DOHA: Hamas has not given its response on a tabled plan for a ceasefire with Israel in Gaza and an exchange of hostages and prisoners, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday.
"Mediators have not yet received a response from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) regarding the latest proposal," Majed al-Ansari told Qatar's state news agency.
Hamas had "indicated that it is still studying the proposal", Ansari added, explaining mediation efforts were ongoing.
Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, has been engaged in months of negotiations over details for a ceasefire in Gaza.
But except for a seven-day pause beginning in November, which led to the release of more than 100 hostages, there has been no break in the fighting.
Seeking to restart talks, US President Joe Biden said last week Israel was offering a new three-stage roadmap.
Egypt on Thursday said it had received encouraging signals from Hamas over a potential deal with Israel, according to state-linked Al-Qahera News, citing a high-level source.
The comments came a day after meetings began between Hamas representatives, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in Doha.
But Beirut-based senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday cast doubt on the substance of the framework described by the US president.
"There is no proposal -- they are just words said by Biden in a speech," he said.
"So far, the Americans have not presented anything documented or written that commits them to what Biden said in his speech," he added.
Also on Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry held talks in Cairo with Biden's top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk.
