Palestinians walks amid the destruction in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip on January 4, 2025, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
While glittering visuals displaying fireworks in the capitals of the world marked the onset of 2025, news headlines about the ongoing Gaza genocide point to a horrifying contrast in the lives of Palestinians:
“In Gaza’s crowded tent camps, women wrestle with a life stripped of privacy”; “Israeli airstrike hits a Gaza humanitarian zone”; “Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 50, including several kids”; “Born in the heat of war, dead from the cold: Gaza’s children are freezing to death”.
It is thus no surprise that in his latest urgent plea, the head of the United Nations Palestine refugee agency UNRWA has yet again stressed the need for a ceasefire.
Commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said that no place and no one in Gaza has been safe since the war began in October 2023.
“As the year begins, we got reports of yet another attack on Al Mawasi with dozens of people killed and injured,” he said, calling this “another reminder that there is no humanitarian zone let alone a ‘safe zone’”.
He warned that “every day without a ceasefire will bring more tragedy”.
To underline the desperate fate of Gaza’s vulnerable civilian population, two independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council called for an end to “the blatant disregard of the right to health in Gaza” following the raid last week on Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north and the arbitrary arrest and detention of its director.
Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, special rapporteur on the right to physical and mental health, and Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, voiced their concerns in a statement.
“For well over a year into the genocide, Israel’s blatant assault on the right to health in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory is plumbing new depths of impunity,” they said.
They added that they were “horrified and concerned” by reports from North Gaza, “especially the attack on health workers including the last remaining of 22 now destroyed hospitals: Kamal Adwan Hospital”.
And echoing the condemnation by a growing number of health care professionals, Mofokeng and Albanese expressed grave concern over the fate of Kamal Adwan hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, describing him as “yet another doctor to be harassed, kidnapped and arbitrarily detained by the occupation forces, in his case for defying evacuation orders to leave his patients and colleagues behind”.
Such action they said “is part of a pattern by Israel to continuously bombard, destroy and fully annihilate the realisation of the right to health in Gaza”.
In contrast to the celebratory mood in many parts of the world and bizarrely in Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the grim reality is that Palestinians in Gaza are having to bury babies who have frozen to death.
A fact that seems to not bother the international community, which effectively comprises the US and Nato, is that Israel, as the occupying power, has a moral and legal obligation under international law to respect and protect the right to life and to health in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
But rogue regimes headed by leaders who have warrants of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court against them pay no heed to global conventions as is evident in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
We are reminded by Mofokeng and Albanese that more than 1,057 Palestinian health and medical professionals have been killed so far and many have been arbitrarily arrested.
“The heroic actions of Palestinian medical colleagues in Gaza, teach us what it means to have taken the medical oath. They are also a clear signal of a depraved humanity that has allowed a genocide to continue for well over a year,” they said.
Stressing that medical personnel enjoy special protections under international humanitarian law, the human rights experts said “they are not legitimate targets for attack, nor can they legitimately be detained for exercising their profession”.
The anomaly is that while Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu keeps boasting about having defeated Hamas and gleefully claiming that it is not a threat, his soldiers continue their killing spree under his orders.
Prolonging the genocide to protect his selfish political fortunes is the assessment made by many analysts, including Israeli pundits.
Dan Perry is among them who claims that Netanyahu has blocked any effort to bring an end game in Gaza.
“He uses the fact — that if Israel were to pull out today, Hamas would still likely maintain power in the [Gaza] strip — as his excuse for prolonging the war.”
Perry points out that a complete Israeli pullout in exchange for the hostages — a deal that Hamas has offered, and which more than 70% of Israelis desire — is opposed by the far right, which threatens to bring down Netanyahu’s government.
Related to the wanton daily slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank is the suppression of media freedom.
The prevention of international media from operating and reporting inside Gaza by Netanyahu’s regime is a major violation of the rights journalists possess as enshrined in numerous conventions related to the freedom of the press.
That such access to international journalists is denied speaks to Israel’s desperate efforts to maintain a grip on a narrative that conforms to its deceptive political and military goals.
Nor is the Palestinian Authority (PA) excluded from censure for following Israel’s dictates by letting loose its security forces to hunt down any form of resistance against the illegal settler colony, but also to shut down Al Jazeera’s network.
The language used by the PA to justify its actions against the media house is no different to Israel’s: broadcasting “inciting materials” that “deceive and stir strife”.
Suppression of freedom of opinion and expression, along with the cruelty inflicted on Palestinians by a regime aided and abetted by the US, Nato and Arab client-regimes is certainly not worthy of celebration.
Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of the Media Review Network.
