NGOs warn of ‘horrifying level’ of Israeli aggression on north Gaza
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According to Oxfam and 37 other humanitarian organizations, the Israeli occupation is wiping northern Gaza off of the map.
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People gather outside a collapsed building as they attempt to extricate a man from underneath the rubble following Israeli bombardment in the Saftawi district in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
Leading NGOs have raised urgent concerns about the critical situation in northern Gaza, where Israeli aggression and cruelty are ongoing for the 12th consecutive day.
Oxfam and 37 other humanitarian groups issued a joint statement on Wednesday, saying the Israeli bombardment had reached a "horrifying level of atrocity" and that the northern part of the Strip is "being wiped off of the map."
"Under the guise of 'evacuation', Israeli forces have ordered the forced displacement of an estimated 400,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza, including Gaza City," according to the NGOs.
"This is not an evacuation - this is forced displacement under gunfire."
The forceful relocation of Palestinian citizens in Gaza violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and does not constitute a lawful evacuation, according to the humanitarian groups.
"Relocation areas have not provided safety, adequate shelter or essential services, and there has also been no guarantee that displaced populations will be able to return once hostilities end."
The statement added that no food had entered the area since October 1, and civilians are starved as they are being bombarded in homes and tents.
The NGOs also detailed that fuel and essentials are depleting as medical professionals attempt to save lives with scant resources as wounded Palestinians continue to flood in.
Mohammed Salha, the interim director of the Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, told PressTV that the Israel occupation contacted staff repeatedly to evacuate the hospital, detailing how injured people were discharged due to a lack of beds.
Salha told the IOF that evacuation would not be possible unless ambulances were available to preserve the lives of the wounded until they reached another hospital.
The NGOs' statement also urged world leaders to accept their legal and moral obligations to act now, declaring that the world cannot continue to watch Israeli atrocities.
Blinken, Austin letter to 'Israel' recipe for more massacres: Factions
Palestinian factions denounced, on Wednesday, the letter US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin addressed to the Israeli occupation after they demanded that measures be taken to address the deteriorating situation in the Strip amid a new Israeli attack and siege of the northern Gaza Strip.
For his part, Hamas Political Bureau member Izzat al-Rishq confirmed that Blinken and Austin's letter to the occupation regarding increasing the amount of aid provided to the Gaza Strip is "a cover for the fascist government."
Al-Rishq said that "the one-month deadline mentioned in Blinken and Austin's letter, in light of the occupation's siege and preventing sufficient aid from reaching the entire Gaza Strip and its total absence in the north, makes the US administration fully responsible for the continuation of the crimes of starvation, thirst, and death from diseases affecting thousands in the Gaza Strip."
He pointed out that "the card of increasing the amount of aid that the US administration is waving is an exposed attempt to clear its image and reputation stained with the blood of the Palestinian people."
Al-Rishq pointed out that "the US administration is not demanded to send messages to the occupation government, rather it is demanded to halt support [to Israel] and full complicity with it in the war of genocide that it has been waging against the Palestinian people for more than a whole year.”
He also called for pressuring “Netanyahu and his extremist government by all means to stop the aggression.”
It is noteworthy that Blinken and Austin's message to the occupation specified certain steps that "Israel" must take within 30 days, including allowing the entry of a minimum of 350 trucks into the Strip daily, imposing periods of cessation in the fighting to allow the delivery of aid, and canceling “evacuation orders” for Palestinian civilians "when there is no need for them."
