SPECIAL REPORTS PALESTINE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA - FREE PALESTINE
 July wk 4 -- July wk 4to3 -- July wk3 P3 -- July wk3 P2 --  July wk3 -- July wk2 P3 -- July wk2 P2 -- July wk2 -- July wk1 P3 --   Click here for an overview by week in 2024
 

Special reports: TRIBUTES TO MOTHERS AND CHILDREN July 12, 2024 Noor Alyacoubi - "I'm fighting to keep my baby alive" and other stories Mothers and children: Boom-And again Boom

Special report: July 12, 2024: Scorched Hospitals - Schools -  Housing - Bodies -- fake or fact?

July 22 - 19, 2024 <<International Court of Justice calls on Israel to end occupation of Palestinian territories 'as rapidly as possible' and other actual news below but most with a 'give way or go away' yell!

July 18 - 15, 2024 "Gaza's impossible living conditions: 'If we don't die under the bombs, we'll die a slow death'" Food for thought: The question is what the non-Palestinian people incl. politicians and sorts will do to ease their conscience? Gino d'Artali all actual news below but most with a 'give way or go away' yell! Click here to go throughout July and earler, 2024

June 14, 2024 Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Hiba Abu Taha sentenced to one year in prison

Related news: July 11, 2024: Media organizations demand access to Gaza July 2 2024: Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war   Click here for earlier stories/news

May 23, 2024 In commemoration of Roshdi Sarraj and tribute to Shrouq Al Aila

 
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali.

EXTRA REPORT:
Le Monde - July 20, 2024 - By Stephanie Maupas (The Hague (Netherlands) correspondent) and Louis Imbert (Jerusalem correspondent)
<<International Court of Justice calls on Israel to end occupation of Palestinian territories 'as rapidly as possible'
The case was referred to the ICJ by the UN General Assembly in December 2022. The judges declared the Israeli occupation 'unlawful' and reiterated the Palestinians' unconditional 'right to self-determination.'
Sovereignty and self-determination: These words resounded on Friday, July 19, in the monumental courtroom of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. In a clear and unambiguous decision, the judges declared Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory <unlawful> and ruled that Israel is <under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence (...) as rapidly as possible.> On leaving the hearing, Palestine's ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, hailed the decision as <historic.> Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was quick to urge <the international community to demand that Israel, as an occupying power, end the occupation and withdraw unconditionally.> The matter was referred to the ICJ by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022. It was asked to give a judicial opinion on the legality, or otherwise, of the Israeli occupation. If Israel was found to be in breach of the law, the ICJ would rule on the consequences. In February, more than 50 states and organizations came to The Hague to plead their case, but Israel did not. Israel shunned the hearings, leaving it to its staunchest allies, the United States and the United Kingdom, to argue on its behalf. Washington asked the judges to issue a general opinion, calling for the resumption of peace negotiations. Instead, the court's decision plunged it into the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's Israel's <policies> that make the occupation illegal, explain the judges. In over 80 pages, they demonstrate that Israel is annexing large parts of Palestinian territory, thereby violating <the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by threat or use of force> as well as the Palestinians' right to self-determination. <Nor can Israel's security concerns override the principle of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force," read its president, Nawaf Salam, to the court. The court looked back over 57 years of occupation. The ruling details the occupier's practices, including the installation of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (numbering 750,000 today), forced population transfers, evictions, house demolitions, land confiscations, restrictions on movement and the detour of natural resources <to its own population, including settlers.> Israel has an obligation <to respect the Palestinian people's right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources,> the judges added. The settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem <are being maintained in violation of international law.> The decision is more severe and clear-cut than that on the separation wall, handed down in 2004. The court's opinion was that this structure, built by Israel during the second Intifada inside the West Bank, was contrary to international law and had to be dismantled.>>
Read more here:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/07/20/international-court-of-justice-calls-on-israel-to-end-occupation-of-palestinian-territories-as-rapidly-as-possible_6691356_4.html

Other News:

Le Monde - July 22, 2024 - COLUMN auteur Jean-Pierre Filiu, Historian and professor at Sciences Po Paris
<<The small window of peace between Israel and Palestine
French experts are calling for a 'political initiative' to finally resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, under the auspices of a 'coalition for peace and security' made up of Western and Arab states, writes Jean-Pierre Filiu in his column. Nine and a half months after Hamas's terrorist bloodbath, the war waged by Israel in Gaza has become bogged down in carnage which, far from weakening the Islamist movement, is ravaging the Palestinian territory and sowing the seeds of extremism, which will remain there for a long time to come. The United States' inability to obtain a simple ceasefire, despite the UN Security Council's support, would seem to shut down any prospect of a lasting settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Yet a group of six French experts has considered that a small window could be explored, as soon as possible, to restart the peace process, and that this would be based on the internationalization of <the management of the 'post-war' in Gaza.> This is because the current catastrophe and its <logic of total war> have clearly demonstrated that <the deadlock in the bilateral Israel-Palestine process now only benefits radical Israeli and Palestinian players.>
Gaza and the region set ablaze
The report's authors are Jean-Paul Chagnollaud and Agnes Levallois, the heads of the Mediterranean and Middle East Research and Studies Institute (IREMMO); Antoine Arjakovsky and Jacques Huntzinger, of the College des Bernardins academic organization; Michel Duclos, of the Institut Montaigne think tank; and Bernard Hourcade, a renowned Iran specialist. It's also worth noting that Huntzinger and Duclos are former French ambassadors to Israel and Syria respectively. This means that the regional dimension of the current crisis was duly taken into account, along with the risk of escalation that was <revealed> during <the April 2024 Israeli-Iranian> conflict flashpoint. A similar sequence of events could <lead to armed confrontation between Israel and Iran, prompting Western and Arab states to involve themselves therein.> Even if such an outburst were avoided, there is still the serious danger of a <new Nakba,> one as tragic as the first, the 1948 Palestinian exodus, with a <massive transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt,> set amid the backdrop of a <third intifada> that would set the West Bank ablaze. Another <dark scenario> would see a form of <Somalization> of the Gaza Strip, becoming a <chaotic, masterless zone, the object of endless clashes between Israel and the reconstituted elements of Hamas.> This is the scenario that looms on the horizon, with Benjamin Netanyahu being unable to achieve the <total victory> over Hamas that he has assigned as the goal for his army. Faced with such Israeli obstinacy, Hamas and its Palestinian allies are still convinced that they <control the war's timing,> even though, <if there were to be a truce or ceasefire tomorrow, the Israeli government, Hamas, as well as the Palestinian Authority, would be unable to organize Gaza's future.> This is why a coalition of Arab and Western states must assume a form of <guardianship> over the Gaza Strip, before transferring it to a <renewed Palestinian Authority, capable of managing the territory with order and efficiency.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/07/22/the-small-window-of-peace-between-israel-and-palestine_6693768_4.html

Related story:
Le Monde - November 24, 2023 - COLUMN auteur Jean-Pierre Filiu, Historian and professor at Sciences Po Paris
<<'Palestine has never suffered so much'
The war unleashed by the terrorist carnage of Hamas on October 7 will only be suspended for one more day. Although the Israeli army has achieved no decisive success in a month and a half of relentless bombardment, it is preparing to destroy the south of the Gaza Strip with the same methodical blindness that has already ravaged the north of the enclave. However, it is essential, without waiting for this new escalation, to stress a reality that is as overwhelming as it is fraught with consequences for the future: In a century of history marked by tragedy, the Palestinian people have never endured such suffering and the children of Palestine have never paid such a heavy price for a conflict in which they are, it should be remembered, by definition innocent. The repression of the 1936-1939 Arab uprising against the British Mandate over Palestine resulted in more than 5,000 deaths before the Nakba, the <catastrophe> of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, inflicted far greater losses. Around 13,000 died, most of them civilians, representing 1% of the Arab population of a Palestine that has now disappeared. Over the past 75 years, the scale of this slaughter has seemed unsurpassable, despite the tragedies that have marked Palestinian history since then. The bloodiest of these amounted to around a thousand deaths during the first Israeli occupation of Gaza, in 1956-1957; a few thousand deaths in 1970 during <Black September> in Jordan; a few thousand deaths during the 1976 massacres in Lebanon in the Quarantaine shantytown and the Tel al-Zaatar camp; from 800 to 3,000 dead during the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Chatila camps; 1,200 dead during the Israeli repression of the first Intifada, from 1987 to 1993; 3,000 dead during the Israeli repression of the second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005; and more than 4,000 dead at the end of the various Israeli offensives against Gaza, from 2008 to 2022. As of November 22, the death toll from the ongoing war in Gaza stood at 14,854. These figures from the Hamas Ministry of Health are considered reliable by the United Nations (UN), which has verified the credibility of such sources in many previous conflicts. A month and a half of hostilities have claimed more lives than the endless year of the Nakba. Above all, the 6,150 children killed - over 40% of the total - is unprecedented, even by the terrible standards of the Palestinian tragedy. A further 1,200 children are missing, according to UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, which fears that the remains of many of them are buried under the rubble.>>
Read more here:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/27/jean-pierre-filiu-palestine-has-never-suffered-so-much_6291946_4.html

France 25 - July 21, 2024
<<Israel strikes Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon foes after attacks
Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The Middle East was reeling Sunday from deadly violence with Israel bombing Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen in quick succession in response to attacks from Iran-backed militant groups. Despite Washington's top diplomat asserting a deal is near the <goal line> to end more than nine months of devastating war between Israel and Gaza rulers Hamas, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, as it pressed on with its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory. Dozens have been killed since Saturday across the Gaza Strip, the civil defence agency said, including in strikes on homes in the central Nuseirat and Bureij areas and displaced people near southern Khan Yunis.
Residents said a major operation was underway in the Saudi district of Rafah in the south, reporting heavy artillery and clashes. The deadly strikes in Gaza came hours after Hezbollah and its ally Hamas said they fired at Israeli positions from south Lebanon, while Yemen's Huthi rebels vowed to respond to Israeli warplanes hitting a key port. The fire left raging by the strikes on rebel-held Hodeida port <is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,> Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said. Detailing the first strikes claimed by Israel in Yemen, Gallant warned of further operations if the Huthis <dare to attack us> after a rebel drone strike killed one in Tel Aviv on Friday. In Hodeida three people were killed and 87 wounded, health officials said in a statement carried by Huthi media.
Netanyahu travels to Washington
The trio of militant groups has vowed to keep up attacks on Israel until a truce ends the violence in Gaza, which lies in ruins, with most residents forced to flee their homes. The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 42 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's military retaliation to wipe out Hamas has killed at least 38,919 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The war has also unleashed hunger and health crises in Gaza, with Israel and the United Nations trading blame for vital aid supplies failing to reach those in need. After the detection of poliovirus in Gaza sewage, though no individual cases, the World Health Organization said there were <monumental> constraints to mounting a timely response. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Friday the agency believes many more diseases are <spreading out of control> inside Gaza. The months-long war has also brought Israelis to the streets, sometimes in their tens of thousands, focused on securing the release of the remaining hostages. <Bring them home,> demonstrator Ofira Azrieli said Saturday in Tel Aviv, appealing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The premier is due to address US lawmakers Wednesday in Washington, where he will be under pressure to reach a ceasefire with Hamas. <He doesn't have to go there. First, you have to sign the deal and after, go to Washington,> Azrieli, 64, told AFP.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday a truce was within reach.
<I believe we're... driving toward the goal line in getting an agreement that would produce a ceasefire, get the hostages home, and put us on a better track to trying to build lasting peace and stability,> he said.
2024 AFP>>
Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240721-israel-strikes-gaza-yemen-lebanon-foes-after-attacks

France 25 - July 20, 2024 - by: NEWS WIRES
<<Newborn saved from dead mother's womb as Israeli strikes kill dozens across Gaza
A pregnant woman who was fatally wounded in an Israeli air strike on a refugee camp in central Gaza managed to make it to hospital in time for doctors to deliver her baby through an emergency caesarean section, medical staff at the Al-Awda Hospital said Saturday. At least 30 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, rescuers and medics in Hamas-run Gaza said. Doctors in Gaza described delivering a newborn baby against incredible odds on Saturday, pulling him from his mother's womb moments after she died of wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike. At nine months pregnant, Ola Adnan Harb al-Kurd managed to survive just long enough to reach Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza after an overnight strike hit her home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, medics said. Emergency department doctors rushed into action when they saw the heavily pregnant woman arrive in critical condition, the head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department, Raed al-Saudi, said.
She was taken to the operating room, but was already <almost dead>, surgeon Akram Hussein told AFP. Unable to save the mother, who they said was in her 20s, doctors detected a heartbeat and a team of obstetricians and surgeons was called. <An emergency caesarean section was performed, and the foetus was extracted,> Saudi said.
Kurd was among at least 30 people killed across the Gaza Strip in a punishing 24 hours of Israeli bombardment that killed six members of one family in a neighbourhood north of Gaza City, rescuers and medics in Hamas-run Gaza said. At least seven people were killed in overnight strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp, a civil defence spokesperson said. Medical sources at Al-Awda Hospital said four children from Nuseirat were wounded while playing on a roof, with one requiring an amputation. Kurd's husband was also wounded in the missile attack that hit their home, said surgeon Hussein.
After surviving the C-section, baby Malek Yassin faced further medical hurdles. Born in critical condition, he was stabilised after receiving oxygen and medical attention, Saudi said.
The war in Gaza has made childbirth increasingly perilous, with pregnant women facing near-daily strikes that hamper access to health facilities.
If they are able to reach a hospital, they find facilities that humanitarian groups say are stretched to breaking point. Just 1,500 hospital beds are currently available to Gaza's more than two million people, compared with 3,500 beds before the war, UN agencies have said. Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat is the only medical facility that has been able to provide obstetric and gynaecological care in central Gaza since the war began last year.
Pre-term deliveries and maternal complications, including eclampsia, haemorrhage and sepsis, have been rising, Doctors Without Borders said this week. The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 42 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 38,919 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry.
(AFP)>>
Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240720-gaza-hospital-says-newborn-saved-from-dead-mother-s-womb

France 25 - July 20, 2024 - Video by: Tom CANETTI
<<13 Palestinians killed in central Gaza as ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas grind
At least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza overnight into Saturday, according to Palestinians health officials, as cease-fire talks in Cairo appeared to make progress. Story by Jennie Shin.>>
Source and video here:
https://www.france24.com/en/video/20240720-13-palestinians-killed-in-central-gaza-as-cease-fire-talks-between-israel-and-hamas-grind

Al Jazeera - July 20, 2024 - By Ruwaida Amer
<<In July came the evacuation orders. We had one option - a bombed Gaza flat
My family and I now live among debris in a burnt apartment in the refugee camp we fled to many times when I was a child.
When this war began, I imagined it would last a week or two. Friends living abroad would call to check on us and I'd reassure them that before long our lives would return to normal. There was no need to leave our home of 20 years. My mother has a problem with her spine and struggles to walk. And anyway, it would all be over soon. Each morning, I'd arrange our house in the al-Fukhari neighbourhood, east of Khan Younis, and prepare breakfast for my parents. Then I'd read the Quran, fill the water tanks by hand and wash our clothes. It wasn't easy, but at least we were at home. It was the home we’d moved to when I was 10 years old; the year before, Israel had destroyed our previous home. Remaining in our home gave me some peace of mind but, perhaps more than that, I was afraid to leave it. As a child, I'd been displaced many times. Each time there was a war, we’d go to my grandfather's building in the refugee camp in Khan Younis. This time, I was determined not to leave. But that was many months ago and in this war, there is no choice but displacement.
Smaller steps
At first, our displacement came in smaller steps - when the bombing grew too loud and the walls of our house started to shake, we'd leave for the night, fleeing to the European Hospital, just 10 metres (33 feet) away. In the mornings, we’d return to our home, relieved to find it still standing.
Then, in December, my sister, her husband and their two children came to live with us. Their apartment - in the same building we'd fled to as children - had been bombed. As the war continued and the death and destruction grew, the prospect of displacement loomed larger. Still, I consoled myself with the thought that this nightmare would end before we were forced to flee. Then it came, on July 1 - the order from the Israeli army to evacuate our neighbourhood. I felt as though the weight of a mountain had been placed on my chest. I didn't know what to say. I looked at my mother, but all she could do was pray.
We had nowhere to go.
The refugee camp we’d fled to so many times before had been the site of an Israeli ground operation between January and March. Tents stood amid the rubble. It was almost impossible for the young to survive in such conditions. How would my frail, elderly parents manage to? We had only one option: the remains of my sister’s home. We collected what we could from our home, knowing that almost everything in hers had been destroyed. We cried as we left - tears for what we were leaving behind and for what we feared we would find. On July 2, we made our way to the camp. But when we reached it, we didn’t recognise anything. The streets bore no resemblance to what had been there before. It was like an earthquake had struck, bringing down buildings, and leaving the ground strewn with rubble. We eventually found the building and climbed to the fourth floor - to my sister's apartment. It has no walls and no ceiling. We covered the spaces where the walls should have been with large nylon sheets although we can still see into - and be seen from - the destroyed street below. Everything is burned. The kitchen is covered with ash that does not go, no matter how hard you clean it. The ash contaminates everything and turns your hands black. The toilets were all but destroyed. Only one remains working but it has no door, so we use it as quickly as we can. There is no water in the tanks. The infrastructure in the camp is completely destroyed, so our day begins at dawn when residents wake early to get water from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, about a kilometre (0.6 miles) from the camp. With the streets destroyed, it is difficult to pull a cart along them. So you must get just what you can carry, although that isn't enough for the day. It is almost impossible to imagine living among such destruction. This building feels so unstable and I am constantly afraid that it will give way and fall upon my five-year-old niece and three-year-old nephew. In those moments it feels like this camp is our destiny – just as it had been all those times before.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA>>
Source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/7/20/in-july-came-the-evacuation-orders-we-had-one-option-a-bombed-gaza-flat

Al Jazeera - July 19, 2024 - By Mat Nashed
<<Palestinians urge world to end Israel's illegal occupation after ICJ ruling
Activists say ICJ's ruling will do little for Palestinians under occupation unless other states apply pressure to Israel to withdraw.
Activists and legal experts in the West Bank say Friday's ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has found that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is unlawful, will do little to improve life for Palestinians. Other states must now apply collective pressure on Israel to end its rule over Gaza and the West Bank, including annexed East Jerusalem, if the situation there is to change, they say. The world's highest court concluded on Friday - with 12-3 judges in favour - that Israel is forcibly displacing Palestinians from their lands, exploiting water sources, annexing large swaths of the occupied territory <by force> and is violating the right of Palestinians to <self-determination>. The ICJ also ruled that Israel must stop all building of settlements in the West Bank and should compensate Palestinians for human rights violations in the occupied territory.
The ruling is a non-binding advisory opinion, which was sought by the United Nations General Assembly in 2022, seeking to clarify the legal implications of Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The ICJ called on the UN - especially the Security Council and General Assembly - to take action to bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to a <rapid> end. A Palestinian father mourns over the covered body of his daughter in the Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah prior to burial, following an Israeli air strike in the Al Zwaida neighbourhood in the central Gaza Strip, 18 July 2024. According to a report from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, six Palestinians, members of the Muheisen family, were killed following an Israeli air strike in the Central Gaza Strip. More than 38,000 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), since Hamas militants launched an attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, and the Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank which followed it. However, Zainah el-Haroun, the spokesperson for Al-Haq, a Palestinian nonprofit organisation based in the West Bank that monitors human rights violations, said previous ICJ rulings have not led to global action against Israel. She referenced the ICJ's 2004 advisory opinion that found Israel's separation wall and settlements on occupied Palestinian land illegal. Settlements have not only remained in the West Bank since the ruling, but the number of Israeli settlers living there has also risen from 250,000 in 1993 to more than 700,000 in 2023.
<These rulings mean nothing if third states and the international community fail to hold Israel accountable,> she told Al Jazeera. <The ICJ has ruled that Israel's occupation is unlawful and must end immediately. Third states must ensure the full and total realisation of the Palestinian people to self-determination and sanction Israel’s illegal occupation, which breaches international law,> she added.
Little to celebrate
Palestinian activists in the West Bank said they cannot celebrate the ICJ's ruling when the situation across the occupied territory is worse than ever before. They cited Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed at least 38,848 Palestinians - the vast majority of them civilians – and has rendered the enclave uninhabitable. Gaza is also witnessing an outbreak of diseases such as polio and cholera while nearly the entire population is struggling to survive food shortages brought on by Israel's siege of the enclave. Israel's war on Gaza followed Hamas-led attacks on military outposts and communities in southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and 251 taken captive. The global attention - and shock - over Israel’s war ever since has distracted attention from its settlement expansion in the West Bank, observers said. <A year ago, a ruling like this would have been great. We all would have thought this was a great step forward,> said Tasame Ramadan, a human rights activist from the West Bank city of Nablus. <But right now, the priority is a permanent ceasefire [in Gaza] and an end to the occupation.> Mohamad Alwan, a Palestinian rights activist monitoring settler attacks in the West Bank, expressed a similar wariness about what the ruling will mean on the ground. He said that while he recognises the ruling hurts Israel's image abroad, there is no way for the court to apply or enforce it. In addition, Alwan said he is pessimistic about whether states will take action against Israel after the ruling. He cited perceived indifference to the ICJ’s binding order in January, in which the court called on Israel to scale up aid and prevent further harm to civilians in Gaza after concluding that <the rights of Palestinians were at risk> under the Genocide Convention. <In my opinion, this decision will have no immediate impact on the situation on the ground,> he told Al Jazeera.
<However, in the long run, there might be an impact. The world has seen now how Israel kills people and kills children, and their views are changing about Israel and its occupation.>
'Nakba is where it all started'
Palestinian activists stressed that the ICJ's advisory ruling on Friday must be understood in the context of the Nakba, or <Catastrophe>, of 1948 when Zionist militias expelled about 750,000 Palestinians from their lands to create the state of Israel. Diana Buttu, a Palestinian legal expert, said she wished the ICJ had referenced the Nakba to highlight the historic pattern of Israel's behaviour in the occupied territory. <While I'm happy about the outcome of this case, I also think that this focus just on the West Bank and Gaza ignores the bigger picture of the origins of this situation and the ways in which Israel was created, which was through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,> Buttu told Al Jazeera. She criticised the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs large swaths of the West Bank and represents the Palestinian people internationally, for how the issue of Israel-Palestine is typically framed by and within the global community. She accused the PA of having long given up advocating for stateless Palestinians to be able to exercise the right of return to their former homes and lands lost during the Nakba or calling for an end to the discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face. Experts and activists have previously attributed the PA's shortcomings to the Oslo Accords, the first of which was signed in 1993 by then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the lawn of the White House. <The PA a long time ago took a position that it is all about the two-state solution and ending occupation, so their entire discourse has just been about that,> Buttu said. Ramadan agreed on the importance of centring the Nakba whenever speaking about Israel's settlements expansion and its war in Gaza.
<The Nakba is where this all started. How can we not mention the cause of the issue and where this all started? This is not the right way to address an issue like this,> she said. <We would definitely like to see the international community recognise the Nakba, recognise all the people we lost in 1948 and to recognise the consequences of the Nakba that we are still living through today.>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/19/palestinians-urge-world-to-end-israels-illegal-occupation-after-icj-ruling

France 25 - July 19, 2024 - Video by: Lise Kiennemann
<<Gaza: 400,000 tonnes of trash
In Gaza, many Palestinians live surrounded by piles of garbage or lakes of sewage. Those contaminate coastal waters and soils, and threatens the health of Gazans. Our team talked to Louise Wateridge, UNRWA spokesperson: <The UN is very concerned about the growing risk of cholera spreading. It is a very deadly disease. If it were to spread, it would have a huge and devastating impact on communities. The conditions for the spread of cholera are those we are currently seeing in Gaza.> >>
Source incl. video:
https://observers.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-observers/20240719-gaza-400-000-tonnes-of-trash-garbage-sewage-health-environement

Al Jazeera - July 19, 2024
<<'Big blow to the Israeli side': Palestinian officials embrace ICJ findings
<It is a big blow to Israel as a state, as an establishment, as a government, as settlers.> Palestinian officials welcomed the International Court of Justice's opinion that called for an end to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.>>
Source and video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/7/19/big-blow-to-the-israeli-side-palestinian-officials-embrace-icj-findings

France 25 - July 19, 2024 - Video by: Tom CANETTI
<<Polio virus found in Gaza as soaring temperatures threaten drought
Polio has been detected in samples of sewage that is starting to take over Gaza in the grip of a devastating war, health authorities in the Hamas-run territory and Israel said Thursday. The announcement came after a European activist group released a report saying the Gaza Strip is <drowning> in hundreds of thousands of tonnes of human waste and rubble from the Israel-Hamas war. Meanwhile, soaring summer temperatures are adding to the strip's acute shortage of clean water.>>
Source incl. video:
https://www.france24.com/en/video/20240719-polio-virus-found-in-gaza-as-soaring-temperatures-threaten-drought

BBC - July 12, 2024 - By Christy Cooney, BBC News
<<Israeli PM blocks hospital for sick Gaza children in Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blocked plans for a field hospital in Israel to treat sick and injured children from Gaza, according to reports. The site was announced earlier this week by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as a temporary measure to provide treatment while the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt remains closed to civilians. On Thursday, the prime minister's office said he had not approved a hospital on Israeli territory and that it would not go ahead. Since the conflict began last year, there have been numerous reports and widespread international concern about its impact on children and the number suffering serious physical injuries. Mr Gallant said the temporary hospital would be used to address the most urgent humanitarian needs until a permanent system for the evacuation and treatment of sick children could be established. He said it would treat those suffering with conditions including cancer, diabetes, and orthopaedic injuries. However, on Thursday the Mr Netanyahu's office announced that he <does not approve the establishment of a hospital for Gazans within Israeli territory - therefore, it will not be established>. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AFP news agency that the defence ministry had asked the prime minister's office to help speed up the evacuation of patients from Gaza two weeks ago. <No response was received, so the minister issued an order to the army to establish a field hospital within Israeli territory as an immediate solution for sick children,> they said. Mr Netanyahu's military secretary Major General Roman Gofman told the Ynet news site that there had not been enough progress in creating a corridor for transporting sick and injured Gazans to other countries and this was why the hospital did not go ahead. The episode is just the latest sign of tension in the Israeli government to show in recent months. In May, Mr Gallant, a member of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party, voiced open frustration at the government's failure to set out plans for how Gaza would be governed after the conflict. Last month, opposition figure Benny Gantz quit the country's war cabinet in protest at Mr Netanyahu's handling of the war. The current conflict began following the 7 October attack, which saw around 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage. The Hamas-run health ministry says at least 38,848 people have so far been killed and 89,459 injured in Gaza. In April, British surgeon Dr Victoria Rose, who had been working in Gaza, told the BBC that a <huge amount> of the operations she had carried out had been on children under 16, including many under six.
She said she had treated people with bullet wounds and burns and that a lack of food available in Gaza meant patients were not strong enough to heal properly.>>
Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2j3ej80dnno

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