Israel is ‘starving, killing and displacing’ Gaza civilians, Palestinian envoy tells UN court
A Palestinian diplomat has told the United Nations’ top court that Israel is “starving, killing and displacing” civilians and targeting aid workers in Gaza.
Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians and aid staff and did not attend the hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday.
At The Hague, Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, Ammar Hijazi, accused Israel of breaching international law in the occupied territories.
He said: “Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organisations trying to save their lives.”
Ammar Hijazi, right. Pic: AP
A protester outside the International Court of Justice on Monday. Pic: AP
The hearings are focused on a request last year from the UN General Assembly, which asked the court to weigh in on Israel’s legal responsibilities after the country blocked the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees from operating on its territory.
In a resolution sponsored by Norway, the General Assembly requested an advisory opinion, a non-binding but legally important decision from the court, on Israel’s obligations in the occupied territories to “ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population”.
Pic: AP
While Israel was not in court, foreign minister Gideon Saar told a news conference in Jerusalem: “I accuse UNRWA, I accuse the UN, I accuse the secretary-general and I accuse all those that weaponised international law and its institutions in order to deprive the most attacked country in the world, Israel, of its most basic right to defend itself.”
Forty states and four international organisations are scheduled to participate in the ICJ hearings, with it likely taking months for the court to rule.
Pic: AP
The hearings come amid the near collapse of the humanitarian aid system in Gaza.
Israel has blocked the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other humanitarian supplies since 2 March.
The World Food Programme said last week its food stocks in the Gaza Strip had run out.
Palestinians wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, in Beit Lahiya. Pic: Reuters
Israel also renewed its bombardment on 18 March, breaking a ceasefire, and seized large parts of the territory, claiming it aims to push Hamas to release more hostages.
Overnight into Monday, at least 27 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes, according to local health officials.
An air strike hit a home in Beit Lahia, killing 10 people, including a Palestinian prisoner, Abdel-Fattah Abu Mahadi, who had been released as part of the ceasefire.
His wife, two of their children and a grandchild were also killed, according to Indonesia Hospital which received the bodies.
An Israeli air strike hit a home in Beit Lahia, killing 10 people. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Another strike hit a home in Gaza City, killing seven people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service.
And late on Sunday, a strike hit a home in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing at least 10 people, including five siblings as young as four-years-old, according to the health ministry.
Two other children were killed along with their parents, according to Nasser Hospital which received the bodies.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel claims it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
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World Food Programme stocks in Gaza have run out
Read more:
Israeli troops shot at Gaza aid workers from ‘point-blank range’
Israeli official says claims IDF targets aid workers are ‘blood libel’
Israel’s ban on UNRWA came into effect in January.
The organisation has faced increased criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who claim the group is deeply infiltrated by Hamas, which UNRWA refutes.
Amir Weissbrod, a foreign ministry official, presented Israel’s case against UNRWA on Monday.
He accused it of failing to act before the war against evidence that Hamas had used its facilities, including by digging tunnels underneath them.
The official said UNRWA employed 1,400 Palestinians with militant ties.
Israel claims some of those employees also took part in Hamas’ attacks on 7 October 2023, with at least three of those employees still allegedly working for the UN.
The presentation included videos, documents and pictures of the alleged employees.
The 7 October 2023 attack in southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and prompted the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza – which the territory’s health ministry says has killed more than 52,000 people.
UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal UN investigation concluded that they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated and corroborated.
The ban does not apply directly to Gaza, but UNRWA is prohibited from operating inside Israel which affects the agency’s ability to function.
Israeli officials claim they are looking for alternative ways to deliver aid to Gaza that would cut out the UN.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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