Find here our situation update published yesterday.
On the 110th day of the war, intense fighting took place on Wednesday January 24 in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, between the Israeli army and Hamas. Israeli bombings left 125 dead there overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Territory’s Ministry of Health. While this city has become the epicenter of the fighting, the Israeli army claims that officials of the Palestinian Islamist movement are in Khan Younes.
According to the Hamas media office, the clashes are now taking place around three hospitals in the city, including Nasser Hospital, surrounded by dozens of tanks “from all sides”, which leave only a “corridor” for so people can leave. “Thousands of displaced people in Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals were forced to leave overnight and this morning for Rafah,” on the border with Egypt, the Hamas office said. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday deplored an “indescribable” situation in Khan Younes hospitals.
Two tanks opened fire Wednesday on a UN training center turned shelter for displaced people in Khan Yunis, killing “9 people and wounding 75,” said Thomas White, director in Gaza of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). The affected building “houses 800 people,” he said in his message. UNRWA and WHO were trying to contact the center on Wednesday, added Mr. White, who had earlier reported “buildings on fire and mass casualties”.
The entire complex is home to 10,000 people, according to James McGoldrick, acting UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, deploring “yet another incident in which a building used for humanitarian purposes is damaged or struck.” For the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, these strikes constitute “a flagrant violation of the fundamental rules of war”.
The UN’s highest court announced Wednesday that it will issue its decision on Friday on urgent measures demanded by South Africa, which accuses Israel of “genocide” of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Pretoria urgently took legal action last month, arguing that Israel was violating the United Nations Convention on Genocide, signed in 1948 following the Holocaust. South Africa wants the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue “provisional measures”, emergency orders to protect Palestinians in Gaza from possible violations of the convention.
The court will thus only rule on South Africa’s request for emergency measures, and not on the fundamental question of whether Israel is actually committing genocide – this could take years. However, it could order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza. The orders of the ICJ, which decides disputes between countries, are legally binding and final. However, she has no means of enforcing them. For example, she ordered Russia to suspend its invasion of Ukraine. “No one will stop us, neither The Hague, nor the axis of evil, nor anyone else,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already warned.
Sixteen humanitarian organizations, including Médecins du Monde, Oxfam and Amnesty International, on Wednesday called on all countries to stop providing weapons to Israel and Palestinian armed groups “that can be used to commit violations of international humanitarian and human rights law “.
Demanding an “immediate ceasefire”, they call on the United Nations Security Council to adopt “measures” to put an end to these arms deliveries: “The international community has long delayed in respecting these commitments . » NGOs also attack the “bombings” and the “Israeli siege”, which “deprive the civilian population of the elements essential to their survival and make Gaza uninhabitable”. They also claim that 167 aid workers were killed in Gaza, “the highest number in any conflict” in the 21st century.
In a letter addressed Wednesday to the acting UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Peter Hawkins, the Yemeni Houthi foreign ministry announced that “civil servants and workers of American and British nationality (…) must prepare to leave the country within thirty days.” The missive also orders foreign organizations not to hire American and British citizens for operations in Yemen.
This decision follows strikes carried out by the United States and Great Britain which, with the support of other countries, are trying to stem attacks by the Iran-allied group targeting international maritime traffic in the Red Sea. Last week, the US government also added the Houthis back to its list of terrorist groups. The Houthis said their attacks were part of solidarity with the Palestinians.