Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza and West Bank/East Jerusalem-August 4, 2024

JOURNALS & REPORTS

OHCHR report here Detention in the context of the escalation of hostilities in Gaza, October 2023 to June 2024. Summary of report here, Since 11/23, Israeli forces have taken into custody thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, mostly men & boys, but some women & girls. They have generally been held in military facilities & further transferred to detention facilities & prisons inside Israel & the West Bank. During raids on hospitals & schools serving as shelters for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the IDF has taken into their custody large numbers, in the thousands, including at least 310 medical staff, as well as patients, companions & IDPs. >10,000 workers & patients from Gaza, who were legally present in Israel on 10/7, were also taken into custody in Israel in the days after. ~3,200 of them were released & transferred into Gaza 11/23, 6,441 were transferred to the West Bank, while ~1,000 of them remain unaccounted for.

PODCASTS & INTERVIEWS

Webinar with Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei, director of Gaza Community Mental Health here, Q&A here. “Nine Months of Israel’s War on Gaza: the Mental Health Impacts and the GCMHP’s Response” GCMHP teams have provided Psychological First Aid (PFA) to victims of complex trauma, visited in tents & shelters. They report high levels of helplessness & despair, severe psychosomatic symptoms, & detail the impact on Gaza’s children of loss & constant terror & uncertainty. The report & Dr Abu Jamei’s comments on individual narratives & children’s drawings bring home both the enormity of suffering & the powerful human bonds that this essential focus on mental health reveals.

Democracy Now speaks to 2 doctors who are part of a group of 45 US doctors, surgeons & nurses who have volunteered in Gaza since 10/ 7 & wrote an open letter to Biden & Harris demanding an immediate ceasefire & international arms embargo of Israel. The group included evidence of a much higher death toll than is usually cited: more than 92,000 people, which represents over 4% of Gaza’s population. “With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished & sick population of Gaza, 1/2 of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking.”  Here

Being a medical professional in Gaza today is a job of almost unbound trauma. In this interview, Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib describes how he has seen this first-hand, from Khan Younis to Rafah – but continues to work although his family have left. here

Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu unpacks the ICJ opinion on Israel’s military regime, and the lessons of turning international law into action on Democracy Now here.

Israeli bombardment from the air, land, & sea continues to be reported across much of Gaza, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, & destruction of houses & other civilian infrastructure. Ground incursions & heavy fighting also continue to be reported. 

Numbers are cumulative

GAZA

·       Killed: 39,623 (total of 165 journalists)

·       Injured: 91,469

·       Israeli soldiers killed: 329

·       Israeli soldiers injured: 2,176

·       Hostages: 115

Attacks (deadliest) 7/28-8/1

·       7/28: 5 Palestinians including 4 month old infant & 2 women killed & several injured in a tent for IDPs in Al Mawasi area

·       7/28: 10 Palestinians killed, tens of others injured, house hit in Khan Younis

·       7/29: 5 Palestinians, including 1 journalist, killed in central Khan Younis

·       7/29 5 Palestinians killed near Al Fardus Schoool near Rafah

·       7/30 9 men killed at entrance of An Nuseirat Refugee Camp, northern Deir al Balah

·       7/31 10 men killed, several others injured, car hit in northern Az Zawayda, central Deir al Balah

·       7/31 2 Al Jazeera journalists, a correspondent & a photographer killed by drone attack near Al Shifa Medical Complex, also killed boy on bicycle

·       7/31 6 men killed & several injured in car at Al Maghazi Refuee Camp, Deir al Balah

·       8/1 15 killed, 20 injured at Dalal Al Mughrabi public school in Shuja’iyeh, school was hosting thousands of IDPs

·       7/30 42 bodies recovered from eastern Khan Younis, due to denial of access, civil defense unable to respond to tens of calls from stranded & injured people in the area

·       Israeli army returned the bodies of 84 Palestinians to Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, with authorities & families saying many cannot be identified as they are in different stages of decomposition.

Evacuations & Displacement

·       WHO: 85 sick & severely injured patients medically evacuated with 63 family members & caretakers, second evacuation since May, patients transferred via Kerem Shalom to Ramon Airport in Israel & flown to UAE for treatment, patients have cancer, trauma, & chronic conditions like thalassemia, Fanconi anemia, cardiac, liver & kidney diseases

·       7/30: WHO, Belgium, European Commission & Palestine Children’s Relief Fund: 4 children suffering from cancer, hearing impairment & respiratory disorders, already evacuated to Egypt prior to the closure of Rafah Crossing, were transferred to Belgium, accompanied by 12 family members, to receive specialized care.

·       New Israeli evacuation order displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Order affected part of southern Gaza, while farther north, Israeli military struck the grounds of a school it claimed was being used by Hamas, killing more than 30 people.

Hospitals & Healthcare

·       WHO: Out of a prewar total of ~20,000 health workers, 500 have been killed in the war, & > 300 are in Israeli detention per Gaza health ministry.

·       MSF: Hospitals inundated with wounded due to successive mass casualty incidents, for instance: Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah had 220 beds pre-war, now caring for 550-600 patients, Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis-critically low levels of blood products

Humanitarian aid

·       7/30: UN World Food Program: “Nowhere in Gaza is safe, conditions remain volatile… This has severely limited humanitarian operations & forced food distribution points to close & evacuate,” including closure of bakeries, community kitchens. Food rations reduced as Israel carries out a “targeted starvation campaign.”

·       Impediments to humanitarian access are ongoing, including restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on the entry of certain humanitarian supplies (e.g. mine action supplies, recreational & psychosocial support kits), closure of Rafah Crossing, continued hostilities, damaged & impassable roads, risk of unexploded ordnance, attacks on aid convoys, & breakdown in public order & safety. These continue to limit the entry of aid into Gaza & significantly hinder the delivery of aid & basic services to hundreds of thousands of people. Between 7/1& 7/29 July, an average of 77 truckloads of aid supplies entered Gaza daily, representing a decline of about 42% compared with the daily average of 132 trucks between January & April 2023

Public Health – Water & Sanitation

·       High risk of infectious diseases amid chronic water scarcity & lack of management of waste & sewage

·       UNRWA recorded 40,000 case of Hepatitis A since Oct., WHO reports 107,000 cases of acute jaundice

·       Health cluster preparing for polio outbreak, acquiring vaccines, but major challenges due to bombed out roads, ongoing fighting, & safe access. 7/16: Ministry of Health announced poliovirus in 6 wastewater samples at sites in Khan Younis & Deir al-Balah, 2 governorates of Gaza, suggesting widespread transmission. Multiple agencies are scrambling to assess risk as well as active surveillance for any paralytic cases & initiation of vaccination campaign.  Genetic sequencing shows close relationship with strain in Egypt found in 2023. It’s not the wild poliovirus but one spawned by a vaccine. Known as vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, the virus is every bit as dangerous as the wild virus. These variant viruses emerge in areas where vaccination rates are low, allowing the live, weakened virus used in the oral polio vaccine (OPV) to pass from child to child & regain its ability to spread & paralyze. Type 2 component in OPV was withdrawn from routine immunization globally in 2016, so children in Gaza are not well protected against this strain.

·       WHO is sending >1 million polio vaccines to Gaza, which will be administered in the coming weeks to prevent children being struck down by the disease. However, without an immediate ceasefire a vast acceleration of humanitarian aid, including a targeted vaccination campaign focused on young children, people will continue to die from preventable diseases & injuries that are treatable.

·       7/27 Israeli military targeted & destroyed with explosives key water production & distribution facility in Tal as Sultan area of Rafah governate, a water facility Rachel Corrie spent her last month of life defending.

·       7/22-28: no fuel delivered to WASH facilities in northern Gaza, affected hundreds of thousands of people, in south, 20,368 liters of fuel delivered per day, which was critically low

·       7/31 water authority delivered ~50,000 liters of fuel to water facilities in northern Gaza, up to 40 water facilities received fuel needed to produce ~S30,000 cubic meters of water/day, daily essential requirement is 70,000 liters/day

·       Range of water availability & consumption is 2-9 liters per capita per day, minimum amount of water in an emergency is 17 liters per capita per day

·       7/29: Khan Younis Municipality: 50% of machinery destroyed negatively impacting ability to collect, transfer solid waste, open roads, remove rubble

·       7/28: Gaza Municipality: 80% of machinery destroyed, 20% in bad condition, producing increase in accumulation of solid waste, water shortage, sewage overflow

·       Public health conditions continue to deteriorate due to recurrent evacuations, mass displacements, lack of access to safe drinking water, poor sanitation, wastewater & sewage in the streets, mounting accumulation of solid waste, fueling water & vector-borne disease, impacting access to emergency services, especially for pregnant women, disabled, elderly

Food & Nutrition

·       8/1: 12 of 18 bakeries supported by humanitarian partners remain open

·       Volume of distributed food currently insufficient to enormous need & lacks dietary diversity, plus there is scarcity of commercial commodities, high prices

·       >96% of women & children 6-23 months are not meeting nutrient requirements due to lack of minimum diet diversity

·       >50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition in 2024

Other:

·       Protection teams continue to track the release of Palestinians who were arbitrarily detained from Gaza & provide them with emergency assistance, including medical care & support to reunite with their families.

·       OHCHR: ~53 Palestinian detainees from Gaza & West Bank have died in Israeli detention since 10/7.  As of the end of June 2024, the Israel Prison Service reported that there were 9,440 detainees described as "security detainees,” almost double the 5,088 held at the end of September 2023. The number of detainees from Gaza is unknown.

·       Palestinian detainee who was allegedly sexually abused by Force 100 soldiers in Sde Teiman was returned to military detention center after he was discharged from the hospital where he was treated for his injuries.

·       Decimation of Gaza’s academia is ‘impossible to quantify. ’With thousands of faculty & students likely killed & campuses destroyed, Palestinian universities in the Strip are barely surviving Israel’s scholasticide.

WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM

Attacks Settler Attacks and Property Damage

·       ~87 Palestinian families, totaling ~600-680 individuals, are facing legal proceedings initiated by settlers to evict them from their homes in Batn al-Hawa, Silwan area of East Jerusalem. 

ISRAEL

·       Israel wants to screen displaced Palestinians as they return to northern Gaza when the cease-fire begins, retreating from an agreement to allow civilians who fled south to freely return home. [ed comment, home to what?]

·       Tel Aviv District Court approved, at the state’s request, the extension of the ban on Al-Jazeera’s” broadcast from Israel.

·       Netanyahu delayed the evacuation of sick & wounded children from Gaza to the UAE after Golan attack. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel called the decision “a cruel game by the Israeli government with children’s lives.”

·       ~200 people protested outside the Beit Lid army base in central Israel demanding the release of 9 reservists who are held for questioning there after being detained earlier on suspicion of abusing a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility. Dozens of protesters stormed the army base. Soldiers attempted to stop protesters who stormed into the base & entered the military court building inside, as the demonstrators called them “traitors.”

·       Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says the government is working “to remove the threat” of Palestinian statehood through expanding illegal settlements & infrastructure on occupied territory.

·       Lebanon’s Hezbollah & the Israeli military launched cross-border attacks; multiple casualties reported on the Lebanese side.

·       While the Israeli government ordered residents of this & other nearby villages to evacuate last October, Suidan estimates nearly 70% of Palestinian al-Aramshe’s residents have returned as the war drags on. Yet the military has not changed course, continuing to station soldiers in the villages that dot the country’s northern border, putting civilians in harm’s way. Those risks have intensified over the past week, as Israel accused Hezbollah of bombing the occupied Golan Heights in a strike that killed 12 children and retaliated by assassinating a Hezbollah commander in a targeted strike outside Beirut. The assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran added even more fuel to an already volatile situation.

US

·       Nearly all influential US-based global health organizations have ignored what may be the most acute & most preventable global health catastrophe in the world today. From the gargantuan Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the many smaller NGOs & academic centers, these organizations have abstained from taking any meaningful stand against the systematic destruction of health infrastructure actively enabled by the Biden administration’s provision of arms, funds & diplomatic cover for Israel.

·       Kamala Harris said she had a “frank and constructive meeting” with Netanyahu, reiterated her “unwavering commitment” to Israel’s security. “It is time for this war to end & end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, & the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination”

·       Aides in the US Congress have created a dissent channel to protest support for Israel. An anonymous group of junior staff members has modeled its effort on an internal State Department messaging system, hoping to create an outlet for calls for a cease-fire in the war in Gaza.

·       Israel’s provocative assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh & Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr have raised the risk of a wider war in the Mideast, but the US media would rather celebrate Israeli espionage than hold it to account.

International

·       In a significant victory against public financial support for the theft of Palestinian land, Canada announced it is revoking the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada. Donors will no longer be able to claim tax credits for their donations to the JNF, the organization itself will have to pay income tax on the donations it receives – a major financial blow.

Sources

OCHAOPT, Portside, Aljazeera, OHCHR, Haaretz, Democracy Now, +972, The Guardian, Electronic Intifada, New York Times, Dropsite News, Mondoweiss, Intercept