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Wednesday, February 21, 2024
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Middle East Crisis

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Feb. 21, 2024, 2:40 p.m. ET14 minutes ago
14 minutes ago


MIDDLE EAST CRISISU.S. DEFENDS ISRAEL’S POLICIES TOWARD PALESTINIANS


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 * 
 * 

 1. Waiting for drinking water in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more
    than half of the enclave's population is sheltering.
    Reuters
 2. An Israeli tank at the border with Gaza. The war has now lasted for more
    than four months.
    Amir Levy/Getty Images
 3. Mourning the dead in Rafah after an Israeli strike. Local health authorities
    say more than 29,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the war.
    Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
 4. Preparing graves at a cemetery in Rafah.
    Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 5. A damaged building in Rafah. Israel is preparing a ground invasion there,
    drawing international alarm.
    Reuters
 6. Protesters in Tel Aviv wearing masks depicting the faces of the Israeli
    hostages being held in Gaza, one of many efforts to highlight their plight.
    Oded Balilty/Associated Press
 7. Smoke rising over the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon, where
    cross-border exchanges of fire threaten to expand into a second front.
    Rabih Daher/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 8. An Israeli Black Hawk in a training exercise in northern Israel on Tuesday.
    Amir Cohen/Reuters




HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW:

At the United Nations’ top court, a U.S. official argued that calls for Israel
to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories ignore the country’s “real
security needs.”

 * The U.S. defends Israel at the International Court of Justice.

 * An Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin kills 3, the military says.

 * Amid food shortages, people in Gaza are ambushing aid convoys.

 * Scientists’ worst-case model for Gaza over the next 6 months: 85,000 deaths
   from war and disease.

 * The Israeli military’s top lawyer reports some troop conduct that crosses
   ‘the criminal threshold.’

 * Syria blames Israel for a deadly strike in Damascus.

 * In Brazil, Blinken intervenes in a dispute with Israel.


THE U.S. DEFENDS ISRAEL AT THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE.

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transcript

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transcript


U.S. DEFENDS ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

THE UNITED STATES URGED THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE NOT TO CALL FOR
IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF ISRAEL FROM PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, AND TO CONSIDER THE
COUNTRY’S SECURITY NEEDS.

Any movement towards Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza requires
consideration of Israel’s very real security needs. We were all reminded of
those security needs on Oct. 7, and they persist. Regrettably, those needs have
been ignored by many of the participants in asserting how the court should
consider the questions before it. It is more urgent than ever to proceed to a
Palestinian state, one that also ensures the security of Israel and makes the
necessary commitments to do so. In light of these considerations, the court
should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and
unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory. Others have asked you to
broadly construe the questions and the law. They have asked you to try to
resolve the whole of the dispute between the parties through an advisory opinion
addressed to questions, focusing on the acts of only one party. The United
States disagrees with that, that this approach would be consistent with the
court’s role within the United Nations or the established U.N. framework for
achieving peace through negotiations.

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U.S. Defends Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories
1:15

The United States urged the International Court of Justice not to call for
immediate withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian territories, and to consider the
country’s security needs.CreditCredit...Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters

A day after vetoing calls for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the United States
on Wednesday defended Israel’s decades-long occupation of the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, arguing at the United Nations’ highest court that Israel faced “very
real security needs.”

The latest United States defense of Israel on the global stage came at the
International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Richard C. Visek, the acting
legal adviser at the U.S. State Department, urged a 15-judge panel not to call
for Israel’s immediate withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory.

He said that only the establishment of an independent Palestinian state
alongside Israel could bring about lasting peace, repeating a longstanding U.S.
position but one whose prospects appear even more elusive amid the war in Gaza.

The court is hearing six days of arguments over the legality of Israel’s
occupation of Palestinian-majority territories, including the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, which has been the subject of years of debates and resolutions at the
United Nations. The hearings — involving more than 50 countries — were called
long before Israel went to war against Hamas in Gaza, but have become part of a
concerted global effort to stop the conflict and examine the legality of
Israel’s policies toward Palestinians.

Israel has said it would not participate in the hearings, and sent a letter to
the court last year arguing that they were unwarranted and failed to “recognize
Israel’s right and duty to protect its citizens” or its right to security.

The United States has strongly defended Israel during the war, including on
Tuesday, when it cast the lone veto against a U.N. Security Council resolution
that called for an immediate cease-fire, saying it would disrupt efforts to free
hostages held in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Mr. Visek asked the court to uphold the “established framework”
for peace that he said U.N. bodies had agreed to — one that is contingent on a
“broader end to belligerence” against Israel — rather than to heed calls by
other nations for Israel’s “unilateral and unconditional withdrawal” from
occupied territories.

The Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel were a reminder of the threats facing the
country and of its security needs, Mr. Visek said, “and they persist.”

“Regrettably, those needs have been ignored by many of the participants in
asserting how the court should consider the questions before it,” he said,
referring to others countries’ testimony in the hearings.

Mr. Visek’s appearance directly preceded that of Vladimir Tarabrin, Russia’s
ambassador to the Netherlands.

When he took the microphone, Mr. Tarabrin said Russia values its “stable
relations” with Israel and expressed condolences over Oct. 7. But in what
appeared to be a thinly veiled swipe at the United States, he said Russia
“cannot accept the logic” of those who “try to defend the indiscriminate
violence against civilians” in Gaza by citing Israel’s right to defend itself.

“Violence can only lead to more violence,” he said.

Image

A burned vehicle on Wednesday, after an overnight Israeli raid in the city of
Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Credit...Zain Jaafar/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images

The court, which often hears staid disputes among nations, has lately become a
venue for countries to oppose Israel. Last month, South Africa argued at the
court that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza — a
charge Israel strongly rejected. The judges have not ruled on that claim, but
issued an interim order for Israel to take steps to prevent genocide in Gaza.

On Tuesday, South Africa forcefully condemned Israel’s policies against
Palestinians, calling them “a more extreme form of apartheid,” the race-based
system of laws that deprived Black South Africans for decades.

Israel has long rejected accusations that it operates an apartheid system,
calling such allegations a slur and pointing to what it says is a history of
being singled out for condemnation by U.N. bodies and tribunals.

The United States has remained Israel’s staunchest defender internationally. But
the Biden administration, under increasing pressure from parts of the Democratic
Party, has also shown signs of impatience with Israel’s conduct of the war, the
rising toll in Gaza and the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

President Biden this month said that Israel’s military response in Gaza — which
began after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks — had been “over the top” and that the
immense civilian suffering had “got to stop.” The remarks came days after Mr.
Biden imposed broad financial sanctions against four Israeli men over violent
attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

After the hearings, which are scheduled to conclude on Monday, the court will
give an advisory opinion, a decision that is expected to take several months.
The opinion will be nonbinding.

Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.

— Marlise Simons

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AN ISRAELI RAID IN THE WEST BANK CITY OF JENIN KILLS 3, THE MILITARY SAYS.

Image

A room damaged during an overnight Israeli raid in the city of Jenin, in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Wednesday.Credit...Zain Jaafar/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images


Israeli forces killed three people and detained at least 14 others in an
overnight raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, the Israeli military said on
Wednesday.

The military said that the raid had targeted “terrorism” and was part of a
broader operation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority’s
news agency, Wafa, said Israeli forces had stormed two houses in a densely
packed area of Jenin, resulting in “violent confrontations.”

The agency reported that a 26-year-old man had been killed, three people had
been injured and homes and vehicles were damaged. It said eight Palestinians had
been detained during the raid, which began when undercover Israeli special
forces entered the area.

Most of the violence was in a crowded neighborhood of the city that was founded
more than 70 years ago as a refugee camp for Palestinians displaced in the wars
surrounding the creation of the state of Israel. The neighborhood has long been
a bastion of armed resistance against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Israeli military raids there, common for years, have become far more frequent
since the Hamas-led terrorist attack launched against Israel from Gaza on Oct.
7.

On Wednesday afternoon, just hours after Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin,
residents were still “very anxious and scared” and anticipating another raid,
leading some to leave for nearby towns, said Faraj Jundi, a resident of the camp
and a volunteer paramedic.

When news of the raid reached him around 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Mr. Jundi said, he
immediately gathered his wife and six children in the safest room of their home
and tried his best to calm them down before he headed out to treat the wounded.
He was still very worried about his family, he said, because “there is no safety
in the camp.”

By the time Israeli forces left, Mr. Jundi said, “The smell of death, sewage,
and blood and the smell of fear and terror” permeated the camp, where roads and
other infrastructure — already severely damaged by previous raids — had been
bulldozed by Israeli forces. “We fear that we could suffer the same fate as
Gaza,” he said.

Since the Oct. 7 attacks set off Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, hundreds of
Palestinians have been detained in raids in the West Bank, which Israeli
officials describe as counterterrorism operations against Hamas and an extension
of the war.

At least 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in
since Oct. 7, according to health officials, making it the deadliest period
there in nearly two decades. Deadly violence against Palestinians by Israeli
settlers in the West Bank has also reached record levels since Oct. 7, according
to the United Nations.

This week, the International Court of Justice in The Hague started hearing six
days of arguments over Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation” of
Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It is the first time the world’s highest court has been asked to give an
advisory opinion on the issue, which has been the subject of years of debates
and resolutions at the United Nations. The U.N. General Assembly asked the court
to review the legality of Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories more
than a year ago, before Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Adam Sella and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.

— Hiba Yazbek reporting from Jerusalem

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MAPS: TRACKING THE ATTACKS IN ISRAEL AND GAZA

See where Israel has bulldozed vast areas of Gaza, as its invasion continues to
advance south.

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AMID FOOD SHORTAGES, PEOPLE IN GAZA ARE AMBUSHING AID CONVOYS.

Image

Palestinians carrying bags of flour near an aid truck in Gaza City on
Monday.Credit...Kosay Al Nemer/Reuters


Amid widespread food shortages and a breakdown in civil order, groups of
desperate civilians in Gaza are regularly attempting to ambush aid convoys,
according to two Western officials who were recently in the enclave and images
of one such ambush reviewed by The New York Times.

In the images, several dozen young men, some of them carrying clubs, attempt to
block the passage of a convoy of trucks as they drive along a major highway in
southern Gaza after entering the territory from Egypt. The trucks are briefly
forced off the road as the drivers swerve to avoid hitting the men. Some of the
assailants throw stones at the trucks’ windshields, seemingly to try to stop
them.

The images, with time stamps indicating they were taken in recent days, were
reviewed by a reporter for The Times.

Such attacks have become common since Israel’s invasion last year as desperate
civilians face starvation in pockets of the enclave, according to the officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid complicating their work in Gaza. In
one recent attack, assailants threw an ax at a driver’s cabin, attempting to
break into it, while in another the attackers hurled a cement block, according
to one of the officials.

Israel blames much of the theft on Hamas, which it accuses of siphoning off
supplies for its own forces.

But the Western officials said the attacks appeared to be mostly organized by
groups of Gazans who were unaffiliated with Hamas, or were the spontaneous acts
of desperate civilians. Hamas officials are barely present on the ground in any
part of Gaza, the officials said, and international aid organizations are no
longer coordinating their movements with the group that until October controlled
the entirety of the territory.

The ambushes on aid convoys are partly a result of a breakdown in law
enforcement, the officials said. Gazan policemen are now refusing to protect the
convoys because they fear they will be targeted by Israel because of their
affiliation with the Hamas-run government, the officials said. That leaves the
convoys more vulnerable, they added.

Foreign diplomats privately say that enough food is reaching the Gazan border
via Egypt to prevent famine, but the problem is its distribution to areas beyond
Rafah, the southern city that lines the border with Egypt.

In northern Gaza, aid groups say another major obstacle is the difficulty in
coordinating safe passage with the Israeli military.

Unlike southern Gaza, the north is mostly under full Israeli control, and aid
groups say Israel regularly blocks access to Gaza City and its surrounding
districts.

Israel has accused the aid groups of failing to coordinate their convoys closely
enough with the Israeli government, and says that not all requests for access
can be granted because of continued fighting.

In one case in early February, the United Nations accused the Israeli navy of
shelling an aid convoy heading up Gaza’s coastal road toward Gaza City. The
Israeli military said it was looking into the claim.

— Patrick Kingsley reporting from Jerusalem

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SCIENTISTS’ WORST-CASE MODEL FOR GAZA OVER THE NEXT 6 MONTHS: 85,000 DEATHS FROM
WAR AND DISEASE.

Image

Displaced Palestinians in Rafah, in southern Gaza, as smoke rises over the
nearby city of Khan Younis last month. Scientists tried to estimate the future
death toll in Gaza under three situations.Credit...Bassam Masoud/Reuters


An escalation of the war in Gaza could lead to the deaths of 85,000 Palestinians
from injuries and disease over the next six months, in the worst of three
scenarios that prominent epidemiologists have modeled in an effort to understand
the potential future death toll of the conflict.

These fatalities would be in addition to the more than 29,000 deaths in Gaza
that local authorities have attributed to the conflict since it began in
October. The estimate represents “excess deaths,” above what would have been
expected had there been no war.

In a second scenario, assuming no change in the current level of fighting or
humanitarian access, there could be an additional 58,260 deaths in the enclave
over the next six months, according to the researchers, from Johns Hopkins
University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

That figure could climb to 66,720 if there were outbreaks of infectious disease
such as cholera, their analysis found.

Even in the best of the three possibilities that the research team described —
an immediate and sustained cease-fire with no outbreak of infectious disease —
another 6,500 Gazans could die over the next six months as a direct result of
the war, the analysis found.

The population of the Gaza Strip before the war was roughly 2.2 million.

“This is not a political message or advocacy,” said Dr. Francesco Checchi,
professor of epidemiology and international health at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“We simply wanted to put it at the front of people’s minds and on the desks of
decision makers,” he added, “so that it can be said afterward that when these
decisions were taken, there was some available evidence on how this would play
out in terms of lives.”

Dr. Checchi and his colleagues estimated the projected excess deaths from health
data that was available for Gaza before the war began and from that collected
through more than four months of fighting.

Their study considers deaths from traumatic injuries, infectious diseases,
maternal and neonatal causes, and noncommunicable diseases for which people can
no longer receive medication or treatment, such as dialysis.

Dr. Checchi said the analysis made it possible to quantify the potential impact
of a cease-fire in lives. “The decisions that are going to be taken over the
next few days and weeks matter hugely in terms of the evolution of the death
toll in Gaza,” he said.

The projected 6,500 deaths even with a cease-fire is predicated on the
assumption there will not be epidemics of infectious disease. With an outbreak
of cholera, measles, polio or meningitis, that figure would be 11,580, said Dr.
Paul Spiegel, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health and an author of the research, which has not been peer-reviewed.

“The point there is even with a cease-fire, we’re not out of the woods
whatsoever,” he said. “There’s still a significant number of deaths, and that
needs to be prepared for.”

While it is obvious that a military escalation would bring additional
casualties, he added, policymakers should be cognizant of the range in the
number of deaths that these scenarios indicate.

“We hope to bring some reality to it,” Dr. Spiegel said. “This is 85,000
additional deaths in a population where 1.2 percent of that population has
already been killed.”

— Stephanie Nolen

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THE ISRAELI MILITARY’S TOP LAWYER REPORTS SOME TROOP CONDUCT THAT CROSSES ‘THE
CRIMINAL THRESHOLD.’

Image

An Israeli tank in an area near the border with the Gaza Strip. Credit...Abir
Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock


The Israeli military’s top lawyer on Wednesday said that her office had
discovered unacceptable conduct by Israeli forces in Gaza, including some that
appeared criminal, and warned that commanders must prevent unjustified force and
destruction or plunder of civilian property.

In a letter to officers, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, the military’s
advocate general, said that her unit had encountered “conduct that deviates from
I.D.F. values and orders,” using the abbreviation for Israel’s military.

She said this included “inappropriate statements that encourage unacceptable
phenomena; the application of non-operationally justified force, including on
detainees; looting, which includes the use or disposal of private property that
doesn’t serve an operational use; and the destruction of civilian property
against orders.”

General Tomer Yerushalmi’s letter described the unacceptable actions as not
representing the Israeli military as a whole, but said that they harm the
international perception of Israel and its military in a way that “is difficult
to exaggerate.”

The letter said that following investigations into these incidents, some of
which “cross the criminal threshold,” military officials would determine how
they would be addressed. It did not elaborate on the specific incidents. The
letter called on commanders to prevent future incidents by creating an
environment of zero tolerance.

International criticism of Israel has mounted as the war has taken an increasing
toll on Gaza, where local health authorities say that more than 29,000 people
have been killed and many more wounded. Israel’s conduct of the war is under
scrutiny at the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest
court, and the country must present a report there by next week to show how it
is complying with a ruling that it must take action to action to prevent acts of
genocide by its forces in Gaza.

Some incidents involving Israeli soldiers have been filmed and posted on social
media — sometimes by the soldiers themselves — forcing senior military officials
to publicly discuss discipline. The military declined to comment on Wednesday on
how many soldiers it had disciplined since the start of the war.

A visual investigation by The New York Times in early February found that
soldiers in Gaza had vandalized shops and classrooms, destroyed what appeared to
be civilian property and promoted inflammatory ideas of building settlements in
Gaza. In response to questions by The Times, the military said in a written
statement at the time that “the conduct of the force that emerges from the
footage is deplorable and does not comply with the army’s orders.”

In January, The Times also found that Palestinian detainees from Gaza had been
stripped to their underwear and beaten while they were held incommunicado, and
that some had been interrogated for months. In response to questions in that
period, the military said that Israeli authorities were treating detainees in
accordance with international law.

Maj. Gen. Tomer Yerushalmi’s letter came a day after Israel’s chief of staff
announced that the military would begin investigating its response and security
failures leading up the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on the country.

— Adam Sella reporting from Tel Aviv

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SYRIA BLAMES ISRAEL FOR A DEADLY STRIKE IN DAMASCUS.

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Deadly Airstrike Hits Neighborhood in Damascus, Syria
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Syrian state media blamed the strike, which it said had killed two people, on
Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment.CreditCredit...Louai
Beshara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Syrian state media reported on Wednesday that an airstrike on a residential
building in Damascus had killed two people, and said that Israel was responsible
for the attack.

The Israeli military declined to comment on the strike, which the Syrian
government’s official SANA news agency said hit a building in the Kafr Sousa
neighborhood just after 9:30 a.m. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said that a third person had been
killed by shrapnel from the attack, which also damaged surrounding buildings.

A strike last February in the same neighborhood killed at least five people. At
the time, a senior Western diplomat said the strike was targeting Iranians near
a site used by the Iranian military.

While Israel did not comment on the latest attack, it has acknowledged hundreds
of past strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria.

Israel, Iran and Iranian proxies such as Syria have been waging a shadow war by
air, land, sea and cyberspace for years. Iran supports and arms a network of
proxy militias that have been fighting with Israel, including Hamas and other
Palestinian groups.

The strikes and counter-strikes across the region have escalated in the wake of
the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks against Israel. Last month, Iran accused Israel of
launching an airstrike on the Syrian capital, Damascus, that killed senior
Iranian military figures.

Cassandra Vinograd and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.

— Adam Sella reporting from Tel Aviv

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IN BRAZIL, BLINKEN INTERVENES IN A DISPUTE WITH ISRAEL.

Image

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, left, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva of Brazil met on Wednesday.Credit...Evaristo Sa/Agence France-Presse —
Getty Images


Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken confronted President Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva of Brazil on Wednesday about his recent sharp comments on Israel,
including the Brazilian leader’s comparison of Israel’s attacks in Gaza to the
Holocaust.

The sparring showed how the enduring war in Gaza has continued to expand into a
broader diplomatic problem for the United States, and how the war’s mounting
death toll has spurred more nations to speak out against Israel’s offensive.

An intensifying dispute between Brazil and Israel broke out this week over Mr.
Lula’s comments on Sunday that the only comparison to Israel’s killing of
Palestinian civilians in Gaza is “when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” It was
a significant escalation of his previous rhetoric.

Since then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said Mr. Lula
“crossed a red line,” Israel’s foreign minister called Brazil’s ambassador to
the Holocaust museum and scolded him in front of the media, and Israel’s
official account on X said Mr. Lula “went full on Holocaust denier.”

Brazil responded by recalling its ambassador to Israel “for consultations” and,
according to Brazilian news outlets, discussed expelling Israel’s ambassador to
Brazil if the situation escalated further.

In a 90-minute meeting in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, Mr. Blinken had a “frank
exchange” with Mr. Lula, saying that he disagreed with the Brazilian leader’s
recent statements and that the United States was trying to get hostages held by
Hamas freed and get extended humanitarian pauses enacted, according to a senior
U.S. State Department official.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity while on the secretary’s flight
to Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Blinken is in Brazil for meetings at a conference of
foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations.

A senior Brazilian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that
the conversation about Israel was calm and respectful, and that Mr. Lula
condemned both the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, and the scale of Israel’s
response, emphasizing the deaths of Palestinian children.

The conversation came at the end of the meeting, and Mr. Blinken opened the
topic by discussing how his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, survived the Holocaust,
the Brazilian official said. The biggest point of contention was over Mr. Lula’s
stance that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, the official said.

Both officials said the two leaders agreed on the goal of ending the conflict as
soon as possible. However, Mr. Blinken emphasized that must be done under
conditions that prevent Hamas from carrying out another Oct. 7-style attack and
that end the long-running cycle of violence.

That the Israel-Gaza war has become a point of friction in the Biden
administration’s dealings with one of the most influential nations in Latin
America, one considered a leading voice in the region, illustrates how the
conflict has thrown a shadow on American diplomacy around the world.

— Jack Nicas and Edward Wong


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THE W.H.O. SAYS NASSER HOSPITAL IS STILL WITHOUT POWER, WHICH ISRAEL DENIES.

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Israeli Military Raids One of Gaza’s Last Functioning Hospitals
1:27

Health care workers shared videos of a chaotic scene at Nasser Medical Center in
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, as Israeli troops raided the hospital and ordered
people to evacuate on Thursday.CreditCredit...Obtained by Reuters

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that the Nasser Medical Complex in
Khan Younis had no electricity or running water after an Israeli raid last week,
calling the destruction around the hospital “indescribable” and saying piles of
medical waste and garbage were breeding disease.

But Israeli authorities pushed back on the W.H.O.’s description of dire
conditions at the hospital, maintaining that the facility had sufficient medical
supplies and that Israel had delivered a generator for the intensive care unit
and food for the remaining patients.

Israeli forces raided the grounds of the facility — one of the last and largest
hospitals still in operation in Gaza — late Thursday. Videos posted online
showed chaotic scenes from inside smoke-filled corridors. The military said it
had arrested 20 people who had participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel
and had found mortar shells and grenades it said belonged to the militant group.

According to the W.H.O., an estimated 130 sick and injured patients and at least
15 doctors and nurses remain inside the hospital.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Friday that the electric generators powering the
hospital had stopped, and that five patients had died as a result. In a
statement on Tuesday, the W.H.O. said that the hospital’s intensive care unit
was not functioning and that, aside from minimal supplies it had been able to
bring in, the remaining patients and staff were “cut off from aid.” The last
remaining patient in the I.C.U. had been transferred to a ward where patients
are receiving basic care, the W.H.O. said.

Col. Moshe Tetro, the head of the Israeli government agency that oversees aid in
Gaza, said at a news conference that there had been electric power in the
intensive care unit throughout the operation. He said Israel had delivered a
generator to ensure this was the case.

He acknowledged that there were problems with power outages in other parts of
the hospital, but he said the issues were not related to Israel’s raid last
week.

Neither the Israeli claims nor those of the W.H.O. and the Gaza Health Ministry
could be independently verified.

Colonel Tetro also said that Israel had delivered “large amounts of water, food
and baby food for those remaining in the hospital.” Based on conversations with
the hospital’s staff, he added that “it is our understanding that there is no
shortage of medical supplies at the moment.”

Colonel Tetro said that Israel has also assisted in transferring patients to
other places for treatment since the raid.

Before the raid, the Israeli military ordered an evacuation of thousands of
displaced people who had taken shelter at the hospital. Israel has repeatedly
said that Hamas uses hospitals for military activities, a claim Hamas regularly
denies.

The Israeli military said that the raid was based partly on intelligence that
hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel had been held at the
complex and that their bodies might be there. No hostages have been reported as
found.

On Friday, the Israeli military said medication bearing the names of Israeli
hostages had been discovered during a search. The source of the drugs and how
they were used was being investigated, the military said in a statement.

While Israel and Hamas reached a deal last month to deliver medications to the
remaining hostages, it has been unclear if any had reached the captives. Qatar,
which has served as a mediator, said on Tuesday that Hamas had confirmed that it
had received the medications and that it had started delivering them.

— Adam Sella reporting from Tel Aviv

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LEADERS OF AID GROUPS DENOUNCE THE UNITED STATES FOR VETOING A CEASE-FIRE
RESOLUTION.

Image

A Palestinian inspecting a damaged home after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah,
Gaza, on Monday.Credit...Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images


Leaders of several humanitarian organizations on Tuesday sharply denounced the
United States for vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution calling
for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, criticizing the country for not doing more
to use its international influence to prevent further death and destruction.

“Again, the U.S. has weaponized its veto power to obstruct, to undermine, the
possibility of the U.N. Security Council taking action by calling for a
cease-fire,” Amnesty’s director for global research and policy, Erika
Guevara-Rosas, said at a media briefing held as the United States vetoed the
resolution. Representatives from several international medical aid groups had
convened to discuss the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The veto was expected; the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield,
said on Sunday that the resolution, presented by Algeria, would jeopardize
ongoing talks to free hostages in Gaza. The United States has vetoed resolutions
calling for a cease-fire twice before, standing alone among the other Security
Council members.

Avril Benoit, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders in the United
States, called the repeated blocking of cease-fire resolutions by the United
States “unconscionable,” denouncing the decision as “effectively sabotaging all
efforts to bring assistance.”

The United States is negotiating an alternative resolution, which proposes a
temporary cease-fire contingent on the return of all hostages and greater aid
being allowed into Gaza, but some speakers on Tuesday’s panel dismissed it as
too weak or impractical.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, said the calls by the
United States for a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah were “a mirage,”
arguing that the rest of Gaza was “almost entirely uninhabitable” and there was
no safe way for them to leave.

“It worries me, actually, to be hearing this from the U.S. government, this idea
of a safe evacuation, because it suggests that such a thing is possible,” he
said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has ordered the military to draw up
plans to evacuate civilians in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza packed with about
1.4 million people, many of whom moved there months before seeking shelter.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, also said that the government had no
intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians into Egypt.

Tsafrir Cohen, the executive director of the aid group Medico International,
called on Israel’s two closest allies — the United States and Germany — to stop
giving the Israeli government “carte blanche” and to condition their military
support on ending the fighting, preventing further displacement in Gaza or into
Egypt, and increased humanitarian aid entering the enclave.

— Gaya Gupta

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