Rights and Accountability 7 February 2025
Palestinian human rights groups say that the aid coming into Gaza still isn’t enough to meet basic needs. (Omar Ashtawy / APA Images)
The following is from the news roundup during the 6 February livestream. Watch the entire episode here.
Despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces still in the south of the Gaza Strip killed two Palestinians in Rafah on Wednesday.
A child was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper in central Rafah, hours after occupation forces opened fire at civilians in eastern Khan Younis, killing a man.
As people continue to return to their homes in the north and the south, the local government and human rights groups say that Israel is not fulfilling its obligations under the ceasefire agreement regarding the entry of necessary humanitarian relief and shelter aid.
Access to safe water, especially in the north, is still a daily struggle, and Palestinians are still unable to procure adequate temporary shelters and materials to protect themselves from the winter cold.
The Gaza government media office stated on 3 February that, according to the ceasefire protocol, 60,000 caravans and 200,000 tents were supposed to be brought into the Gaza Strip to accommodate displaced people.
Six hundred trucks containing aid and fuel are also supposed to enter each day, the media office said, in addition to medical and health services and equipment “necessary to rehabilitate humanitarian services in the Gaza Strip.”
However, Israel is obstructing the aid deliveries, “which exacerbates the humanitarian crisis and doubles the suffering of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” the media office warned.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says that the humanitarian situation has not improved since the ceasefire was implemented on 19 January.
In a report, the human rights group says, “Nearly all forms of aid remain disrupted, and the urgent humanitarian needs of the Strip’s roughly 2.3 million residents have not been met.”
Though the number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip has increased, Euro-Med says, a preliminary analysis of the volume and type of aid entering the enclave reveals that some of it includes non-essential items. The rights group adds that only about 35 percent of the 8,500 trucks that have been let in since the ceasefire have entered northern Gaza.
Medical devices and essential equipment needed to resume hospital operations, such as MRI machines, have not yet arrived in Gaza.
In terms of necessary municipal infrastructure, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says that about 85 percent of the water wells in Gaza have been destroyed, and Israel has forbidden the importation of supplies to repair and restore them.
According to estimates from the Gaza Municipality and the northern Gaza Strip local authorities, 100 wells in the northern Gaza Valley need to be restored and repaired immediately; none have been fixed thus far, the group says.
The health sector, meanwhile, remains in ruins.
Izzedin Lulu, a medical student, filmed himself walking through the wreckage of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, this week.
Kamal Adwan’s director, the pediatrician Hussam Abu Safiya, is still in Israeli detention at the Ofer military prison and has been denied access to a lawyer for more than 40 days. The Palestinian rights group Al-Mezan has requested immediate legal access. The Rafah crossing nominally re-opened this past week for patients in Gaza needing medical evacuation. The United Nations says that there are between 12,000 and 14,000 patients needing to access care outside of Gaza, but only a few dozen Palestinians had been evacuated through the Rafah crossing as of Wednesday.Netanyahu at White House
International fugitive and war crimes suspect Benjamin Netanyahu was welcomed to the White House this week.
President Donald Trump asserted during his meeting with Netanyahu that the US will “own” Gaza.
Trump claimed that he has plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza while it is rebuilt – similar plans to those asserted by Joe Biden, his predecessor as US president, and then Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the 15-month genocide.
Palestinian human rights groups have broadly rebuked these statements.
The rights group Al-Haq stated on Wednesday, “Instead of supporting rebuilding efforts at scale to reconstitute what Israel’s genocidal machinery has destroyed, the US administration has announced its clear participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza – the latest plan in the ongoing Nakba, intended to fragment and destroy the Palestinian people, and deny Palestinians their inalienable right to self-determination.”West Bank siege
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the northern West Bank city of Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp as Israel’s raid and siege of the area entered its third consecutive week. Raids and assaults by Israeli forces in nearby towns and villages have also expanded.
In Tulkarm, Israeli attacks have displaced approximately 75 percent of Palestinians from their homes in the Tulkarm refugee camp, while Israeli forces have prevented the entry of medicine, food and essential supplies, according to local officials.
The Electronic Intifada’s Tamara Nassar reports that in Jenin, “the Israeli military carried out several aerial bombardments in densely populated civilian areas and caused widespread destruction of infrastructure and homes across the camp that Reuters said was ‘on a scale not seen there for over 20 years.’”
In the southern occupied West Bank meanwhile, heavily armed Israeli settlers have attacked areas including Masafer Yatta, near Hebron.
Activist, journalist and filmmaker Basel Adra filmed the settler attack in Masafer Yatta on 3 February.
He stated that the settlers smashed and destroyed Palestinians’ cars, attacked homes and damaged water tanks.Highlighting resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to share images of people expressing determination and resilience in the aftermath of Israel’s 15-month campaign of destruction.
In northern Gaza, a man responded to Donald Trump’s absurd claims about Gaza.
“They’re saying that Trump wants to forcibly displace Gaza’s people,” he tells the camera.
“Gaza’s people here are digging a well. And they are rebuilding Gaza from scratch. I swear, you have your work cut out for you with Gazzawis. And you’re in for a long ride. You’re in for a long ride.”
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