We stand firmly against injustice in all its forms. Nothing can justify the current war crimes committed by Israel in occupied Palestine. Equally, nothing can excuse the continued support offered by other nations to this apartheid regime. If you believe in human rights, dignity, and justice, then we urge you to boycott this rogue state. Silence is complicity, do what’s right.
The aspiring journalist who’s gathered a social media following covering Israel’s war on Gaza, Lama Abu Jamous shares her first visit to her destroyed house after she had been displaced.
UN humanitarians reiterated their resolve on Tuesday to help the people of Gaza, where increasing numbers of children are on “the brink of death” from acute hunger, caused by five months of intense Israeli bombardment and constant aid access denials.
“What doctors and medical staff are telling us is more and more they are seeing the effects of starvation; they’re seeing newborn babies simply dying because they (are) too low birth weight,” said Dr Margaret Harris from the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
“Increasingly, we’re seeing children that are at the point, brink of death that need refeeding,” the WHO spokesperson told journalists in Geneva, a day after global nutrition experts warned that famine could happen “anytime” in northern Gaza.
‘Hunger, starvation, famine’
In response to the findings of Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza published on Monday, UN human rights chief Volker Türk insisted that “hunger, starvation and famine” were the result of Israel’s “extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods”, mass population displacement and the destruction of crucial civilian infrastructure.
Mr. Türk noted that “in the face of starvation” families have now resorted to sending children from northern to southern Gaza “unaccompanied in the desperate hope that they will find food and support among the 1.8 million people already displaced there”.
The High Commissioner’s comments on Gaza’s deepening hunger crisis echoed warnings from UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday who reiterated his appeal to the Israeli authorities “to ensure complete and unfettered access for humanitarian goods throughout Gaza”.
Speaking outside the Security Council in New York, Mr. Guterres also urged the international community “to fully support” the UN’s humanitarian efforts.
“Palestinians in Gaza are enduring horrifying levels of hunger and suffering”, the UN chief said, describing the IPC report as an “appalling indictment of conditions on the ground for civilians”.
Pregnancy dangers
While infants and young children are among the least able to cope with chronic hunger according to WHO, the UN health agency said that medical teams in the war-shattered enclave have been admitting increasing numbers of dangerously underweight pregnant women.
The complications that they have happen “if you’re trying to carry a pregnancy and you lack the nutrition,” said Dr. Harris, who insisted that the famine danger in Gaza was purely a result of the war, sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on 7 October.
“This is entirely man-made, everything we’re seeing medically; this was a territory where the health system functioned well,” said Dr Harris, adding that malnutrition was “non-existent”. “It was a population that could feed itself,” she insisted.
Feeding centre plan
To help the most vulnerable Gazans and save lives, WHO aims is now establishing emergency malnutrition stabilisation centres. But progress has been hampered by a lack of safety and ongoing aid access obstacles, Dr Harris maintained.
“We’ve set one up in the south, we’re looking at doing it in the north…but the problem is we have to be able to bring the materials in – but we can’t bring them in at the scale and to the people without the access and the safety. So there is no answer until there’s a ceasefire.”
“The desperation is so great,” Dr Harris continued, before insisting that aid needed to be allowed into Gaza at a “huge, huge scale”. When that happens, the relief supplies “will be absorbed like sand”, she said.
More than 350,000 families in Gaza have received flour distributed by UNRWA.
Vast job losses
Underscoring the dire impact of the war in Gaza and beyond, a new report by the UN labour agency, ILO, indicated that it has led to the loss of 507,000 jobs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
This has already had a “devastating impact” on the regional economy, said ILO spokesperson Zeina Awad, who added that if the conflict continues, the unemployment rate in the territory is expected to reach 57 per cent.
The new data – sourced by ILO and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) – estimates that as of 31 January, around 201,000 jobs were lost in the Gaza Strip, accounting for around two-thirds of total employment in the enclave.
In addition, 306,000 jobs – or over one-third of total employment – were also lost in the West Bank, where economic conditions have been severely impacted.
UNRWA probe findings
On Tuesday, the UN chief was scheduled to hear the interim findings of one of two investigations into UNRWA, following serious allegations that some of its staff had collaborated with Hamas during the 7 October terror attacks on Israel.
Of the 12 UNRWA staff implicated in the allegations, the UN agency immediately identified and terminated the contracts of 10; another two were confirmed dead.
“Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” UNWRWA said in a statementon its website.
Mr. Guterres was due to meet Catherine Colonna, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, who heads the Independent Review Group. Its work was scheduled to begin on 14 February aided by three research organizations: the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
The final report, which will be made public, is expected to be completed by late April.
A second, separate investigation is also underway, by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). It conducts administrative investigations into allegations of misconduct in the workplace. This includes alleged breaches of UN staff regulations, rules and codes of conduct. The findings of this probe will also be presented in a report to the UN Secretary-General
Since the beginning, it’s been obvious that Gaza was in many ways a fight between International Law and the US’s “rules-based order”.
This whole episode around the UN resolution is a perfect illustration of this. There is no debate amongst international law scholars that resolutions by the UN Security Council that “demand” certain actions are binding (good explanation by a legal scholar here: verfassungsblog.de/why-todays-un-…). In fact resolutions by the council ARE international law, article 25 of the UN Charter clearly states: “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”
Yet the US now argues that the “rule” is in fact different: “It’s a non-binding resolution, so there’s no impact at all on Israel”.
Where is this rule written, that somehow when the UNSC “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire”, it’s non-binding and “there’s no impact at all” on the warring party? Nowhere, that’s the beauty of the rules-based order: the rules are made-up in the moment to fit the interests of the U.S. and its henchmen, depending on the circumstances.
Had the very same resolution, with the exact same language, been adopted for a conflict that the U.S. actually wanted stopped, there’s no doubt they’d have argued the exact opposite: that it was binding and the hostilities had to cease immediately. Which goes to show that sometimes the Rules-Based Order does align with international law, when it’s in the US’s interests to do so.
In that sense, Israel’s genocide in Gaza is a great revealer because everything about it goes against international law: the mass killing of civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers; the pre-existing occupation of Palestinian land; the wholesale destruction of Gaza: the hospitals, the mosques, the schools; the torture of prisoners; the deliberate starvation of the population, etc. So never before have we been able to see in such an obvious way the immense contrast between the rules-based order and international law.
And there’s no going back, the curtain was pulled: if they hadn’t noticed before, the world now knows for sure that the US (and Israel of course) is quite literally a rogue state, operating outside international laws and norms, and outside the most fundamental moral principles.
There’s no overstating how consequential this is for the integrity of international relations. By doing so, the US effectively destroys the world order it largely created after WW2 because it effectively tells everyone that the set of institutions, rules and norms that underpin it are meaningless. We’re effectively now in a world system where everyone realizes the police, the government, the basic set of beliefs, have become completely corrupted. This changes everything.
What comes next? I think there’s no coming back for the U.S. And I think they know this, maybe unconsciously, otherwise they would at least pretend to act for the better good of all. The fact they don’t, shows they’ve effectively abdicated ambitions to restore their hegemony: they’re now nakedly in it to milk the system for themselves, universal pretentions have gone.
Most countries however don’t want to live in an “eat or get eaten”/”might makes right” world, without rules or norms. So in time a new system will arise. The biggest unknowns being: can it arise without a major global war, who will lead the construction of its foundations and how can it be set up so that this time around it is fair for all and respected by all?
A podcast by an Irish man who explains the reason why the Irish feel so strongly about what has happened in Palestine and much of it is because of the shared history in that Balfour and Churchill were both involved in the oppression.
The terrorist paramilitary force of Black and Tans, notorious for their brutal tactics during times of colonialism , hold a dark place in the histories of both Ireland and Palestine. Originating as a paramilitary force deployed by the British government, their terrorism left a lasting impact on the socio-political landscapes of these regions.
In Ireland, the Black and Tans were dispatched in response to the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), tasked with suppressing the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and quelling nationalist uprisings. However, their methods were marked by terrorism, violence and reprisals against civilians, earning them a reputation for indiscriminate brutality. Infamous incidents such as the burning of Cork city and the Croke Park massacre stained their legacy, exacerbating tensions and fueling anti-British sentiment.
Similarly, in Palestine, during the period of British Mandate (1920-1948), the British authorities employed the paramilitary Black and Tans to maintain control over the territory amidst growing unrest. The indigenous Palestinian communities clashed with the European Jewish invaders who stole Palestinian lands and massacre innocent civilians , and the British responded with force, often resorting to harsh measures against Palestinian civilians to suppress dissent. The legacy of this era, marked by oppression, terrorism, and displacement, continues to shape the Israeli occupation of Palestine to this day.
The Haganah, a terrorist Jewish paramilitary force, emerged amidst the tumult of British Mandate of Palestine, seeking to confiscate land and kill Palestinians. Haganah engaged in armed attacks against both Palestinian civilians and British military installations and personnel. This dual terrorist role of Haganah reflects the ongoing brutal Israeli occupation with acts of genocides and ethnic cleansing for over 75 years of apartheid regime and constant violations of human rights of indigenous Palestinian population.
Their shared history of British colonial oppression and the experiences of Ireland and Palestine are so similar in many ways. On the other hand, the southern part of Ireland eventually gained independence from British occupation, but Palestine remains under brutal and illegal Israeli occupation, which is sadly, fully supported by British government and western countries. Nevertheless, the parallels between the use the Black and Tans and Haganah in both contexts highlight the inhumane and dirty methods of imperial occupation of innocent people whose only fault was to have been born in Ireland or Palestine.
The legacy of the Black and Tans serves as a reminder of the human cost of illegal occupation and brutal colonial history. Their inhumane and terrorist actions underscore the lengths to which imperial powers were willing to go to maintain illegal occupation of over others’ lands.
By examining their role in Ireland and Palestine, we gain insights into the enduring impact of colonialism and the ongoing struggles for justice and sovereignty in the modern world.
