Gaza’s Displaced Residents Tell of Fear and Abandonment

This picture taken on November 12, 2023 from a position along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian enclave amid ongoing battles. (AFP)
This picture taken on November 12, 2023 from a position along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian enclave amid ongoing battles. (AFP)
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Gaza’s Displaced Residents Tell of Fear and Abandonment

This picture taken on November 12, 2023 from a position along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian enclave amid ongoing battles. (AFP)
This picture taken on November 12, 2023 from a position along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian enclave amid ongoing battles. (AFP)

On foot, by horse-drawn cart and clinging to the sides of overcrowded trucks, Palestinians on Sunday fled southwards through Gaza to escape Israeli air strikes, telling of their fear, despair and bitter sense of abandonment.

"Nowhere is safe in Gaza. My son was injured and there was not a single hospital I could take him to so he could get stitches," said displaced Palestinian Ahmed al-Kahlout. "There is no water, there isn’t even salt water we can wash our hands with."

He had been forced to leave his home to search for basic necessities for his family while "there are bodies filling Gaza's streets".

There are still people hoping the conflict will be solved soon, he said.

"But only God knows if it’ll be solved. The whole world has let us down, the progressive world that boasts about human rights has let us down."

Also heading south, a Palestinian woman, Mariam al-Borno, said death, displacement and hunger had forced her and her children to leave home "to flee for our lives."

"We saw death with our own eyes. Throughout it all we were afraid."

People at a United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) school in Beit Lahia, where they had sought shelter, were looking at a crater left by an explosion.

"Even at UNRWA shelters we can't find safety," said one man.

"I'm just searching for a safe place, nothing more, to save myself and my children," he said.

Outside Gaza's largest hospital, Al Shifa, entertainer Alaa Miqdad gathered displaced children and put on a clown show.

"Despite the pain we are living in and the hurt, we will smile through the pain," he said.

But Ismail al-Najjar, whose family's residential compound in Khan Younis in the south was hit by an air strike, was less sanguine.

"I was coming with my horse, I stopped the horse, the aircraft came and fired something ... there was bombardment everywhere."

"It is not just destruction; it is an earthquake ... I ask God to take vengeance on the killers of children," he said.



Israel Warfare Methods 'Consistent With Genocide', Says UN Committee

Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", according to the United Nations Special Committee - AFP
Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", according to the United Nations Special Committee - AFP
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Israel Warfare Methods 'Consistent With Genocide', Says UN Committee

Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", according to the United Nations Special Committee - AFP
Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", according to the United Nations Special Committee - AFP

Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said Thursday, accusing the country of "using starvation as a method of war".

The United Nations Special Committee pointed to "mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians", in a fresh report covering the period from Hamas's deadly October 7 attack in Israel last year through to July, AFP reported.

"Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury," it said in a statement.

Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", said the committee, which has for decades been investigating Israeli practices affecting rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel, it charged, was "using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population".

A UN-backed assessment at the weekend warned that famine was imminent in northern Gaza.

Thursday's report documented how Israel's extensive bombing campaign in Gaza had decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe with lasting health impacts.

By February this year, Israeli forces had used more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives across the Gaza Strip, "equivalent to two nuclear bombs", the report pointed out.

"By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come," the committee said.

The committee said it was "deeply alarmed by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure and the high death toll in Gaza", where more than 43,700 people have been killed since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The staggering number of deaths raised serious concerns, it said, about Israel's use of artificial intelligence-enhanced targeting systems in its military operations.

"The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths," it said.

It warned that reported new directives lowering the criteria for selecting targets and increasing the previously accepted ratio of civilian to combatant casualties appeared to have allowed the military to use AI systems to "rapidly generate tens of thousands of targets, as well as to track targets to their homes, particularly at night when families shelter together".

The committee stressed the obligations of other countries to urgently act to halt the bloodshed, saying that "other States are unwilling to hold Israel accountable and continue to provide it with military and other support".