by Oui
Sat Oct 12th, 2024 at 07:44:29 AM EST
Living in two worlds of hypocrisy and bare reality ...
Desensitizing western "civilization" to suffering in the wars of empires.
Gaza's Children: Trapped in a cycle of suffering | UNICEF |
When I was here in November, families and children in the Gaza Strip were relying on three litres or less of water per person per day. Today, on average, households surveyed in the Rafah area had access to less than one litre of safe water per person per day.
"Neighbouring Khan Yunis is also unrecognizable, though for a different reason - it barely exists anymore. In my 20 years with the United Nations, I have never seen such devastation. Just chaos and ruin, with rubble and debris scattered in every single direction. Utter annihilation.
"Moving around those streets, I was overwhelmed by loss.
"Which takes us back to Rafah. And the endless talk of a large-scale military operation in Rafah. Rafah is a city of children. 600,000 girls and boys there. A military offensive in Rafah? "Offensive" is the right word. Rafah - home to some of Gaza's last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems.
"And then there is the north. Yesterday I was again in Jabalia. Tens of thousands of people crowd the streets, placing their hands to their mouths - that universal sign for hunger.
"When I came into the Gaza Strip a week ago, there were hundreds of trucks with lifesaving humanitarian aid, waiting to get to people in urgent need, but on the wrong side of the border. Hundreds of UN/INGO trucks are currently backlogged waiting to enter Gaza.
"Remembering, last week's Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) noted famine is imminent in northern Gaza. Gaza now has the largest percentage of a population, anywhere, to receive its most severe rating since the body began reporting in 2004.
"Before this war, child wasting in the Gaza Strip was rare with less than one per cent of children under 5 years of age acutely malnourished. Today one in three children under 2 years are acutely malnourished. Clearly, the north needs massive amounts of food and nutrition treatments, urgently. But let's be clear - our efforts to provide that aid are being hampered.
To Eliminate Palestinians from Northern Gaza
Have majority countries threatened the ICC to quit the Rome Statute, yet decision arrest warrants genocide Netanyahu and Gallant delayed.
The White House's Defense of Israel Is Undermining International Law
The United States tends to hail the ICC when it prosecutes American enemies, but assails the court when it goes after U.S. allies.
US threats
Weeks before Khan's announcement, senior Republican lawmakers in the US submitted a letter to his office that threatened to bar him and his family from the country if he applied for warrants against Israeli leaders.
In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Khan said a senior US elected official even told him that the ICC "was built for Africa" and for "thugs like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin" but not Western or Western-backed leaders.
"We don't view it like that," Khan said. "This court is the legacy of Nuremberg, and this court is a sad indictment of humanity, and this court should be the triumph of law over power and brute force."
US President Joe Biden criticised Khan's decision by calling the application for indictments against Israeli leaders "outrageous".
Biden, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and several US lawmakers said Khan had drawn a false moral equivalence between Hamas "terrorists" and democratically elected Israeli leaders.
Netanyahu, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have all made similar statements
But Adil Haque, a legal scholar at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said those arguments have no legal weight.
Israel's allies are using a "rhetorical device" to undermine Khan's equal application of international law, he explained.
.
Israeli forces fire on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon | UN News - 10 Oct 2024 |
Members of the elitist western empire have threatened the ICC in The Hague and the specific judges and prosecutors in the responsible role of their decision on arrest warrants for alleged genocidal acts under the leadership of PM Netanyahu and Defense minister (minister of war) Gallant.
Their silence is deafening and undermines the United National and the very critical UN Charter. The world weeps with the Palestinians ...
ICC A Political Tool of the Empire?
Related reading ...
Head of State Immunity is Too Important for the International Court of Justice | Just Security |