No more safe spaces for journalists in Gaza

By Fr. Shay Cullen

A hospital is supposed to be one of the safest places to go to amid armed conflict, like the war Israel is waging against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, there is strong evidence that Israeli forces are deliberately killing civilians, including women, children and journalists, in and around hospitals.

On Aug. 25, Israeli forces twice attacked Nasser Hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, killing at least 20 people. They include five Palestinian journalists, including an Al Jazeera reporter, who were sheltering in and reporting from the hospital. The attack triggered widespread condemnation, with Al Jazeera saying Israel was systematically “assassinating journalists as part of a systematic campaign to silence the truth.” The five killed are now among the over 240 journalists slain in Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel called the deadly attack a “tragic mishap,” and they would investigate. Israeli officials say they take all “feasible” precautions to avoid civilian casualties, and accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields. This is not just about the brutal murder of those reporters, but part of the ongoing crimes against humanity that Israel has been accused of committing.

Besides relentless bombings, shooting starving civilians as they try to get much-needed food supplies is another weapon of war used by Israel. As of last Tuesday, the number of dead from the famine in Gaza rose to over 300, of which 117 were children; the toll should have risen as of this writing. This famine is manmade, United Nations officials have said. Now, the Israeli military has launched a new offensive against Gaza City in the territory’s north, forcing thousands to flee south and evacuate the Ad Daraj and Ash Sheikh Radwan areas.

Since Israel’s new military incursion into Gaza City, as many as 36,200 Palestinians were forced again to flee to save themselves and their children. The delivery of food and aid into Gaza has been mostly blocked, causing acute shortages not only of food but also of medicines. Blood supply is lacking, and the number of wounded is increasing, and hospitals need more than 350 units of it every day. But there are fewer blood donors, as the UN-declared famine is increasingly weakening Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinian population.

The UN reported that only six out of its 12 missions were allowed into Gaza as of last week. Thousands of aid trucks are being blocked by Israel from entering Gaza. The UN is demanding an immediate ceasefire and “full, unhindered humanitarian access.” The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the consequences of “ongoing hostilities, displacement and aid obstruction are even more devastating.”

‘REASONABLE FIGURE’

Also last week, a report in the Guardian newspaper said that as many as 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. A classified Israeli military intelligence database showed that as many as five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza were civilians, and more than half were women and children. These numbers have been considered “a reasonable figure” by a United Kingdom government source, the Guardian said. As many as 150,000 have suffered injuries, said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders. Almost 60 percent of lower-limb wounds were related to explosive weapons, often with open injuries to bone, muscle, or skin, the MSF added.

“Most immediate fatalities occur at the scene of impact and thus are not captured. Under-reporting of both injuries and deaths could be prevalent in our data in vulnerable populations who are often not able to move away from sites of impact, such as infants, children, people with disabilities, and older adults,” the report said.

Compare this with Hamas’ war-sparking attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, and more than 240 others taken hostage by the Palestinian militants and brought to Gaza.

Israeli forces continue to strike Khan Younis and Rafah, where the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) estimates that 1.2 million people are now living in makeshift shelters and over 100 UNRWA schools have been directly or indirectly hit, with some severely damaged. Many have been used as shelters for displaced families since the war began, reports say.

The UNRWA recently posted on social media: “No place is safe in #GazaStrip. This is a war on children. On their childhood and their future. Ceasefire now.”

The war will continue, as Israel’s right-wing government plans to continue destroying most of Gaza’s infrastructure to make it uninhabitable and has ignored UN calls for an immediate ceasefire.

 

In October 2023, the UN General Assembly called for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza with 120 votes in favor. In December 2023, 153 countries voted to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. In December 2024, it demanded, with 158 votes in favor, an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. These have been ignored by Israel and last week, the US vetoed a demand for a Gaza truce in the UN Security Council.

There is no interest by Israel to agree to a ceasefire despite the fact there are still hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and a growing movement in the country clamoring for the war’s end and the captives’ release.

Israel’s plan is to occupy as much of the West Bank with settlers and to occupy Gaza as long as possible so as to make a two-state solution impossible. Its long-term plan is to expel all Palestinians and expand the country. Such goals are illegal in international law and more nations are planning to recognize Palestine as a state, one illegally occupied by Israel.