Palestinian foreign ministry says credibility at stake after new ICJ provisions
Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomes the new ICJ provisions, saying they challenge “Israel’s historic rebellion against international law”. It added that the “kidnapping” of more than two million Palestinians and their starvation constitutes an unprecedented crime.
“The ministry believes the credibility of international law and its institutions is at its final test for what concerns its ability to let aid [into Gaza] in a sustainable way,” it said in a post on X. "There are no excuses for the international community’s terrible failure to protect civilians and to provide the needed humanitarian assistance.”
UNRWA says operational space in Gaza ‘shrinking’
The capacity for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to operate in Gaza is diminishing due to Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the aid agency, a spokesperson for the organisation says. “We’re finding that our operational space is really shrinking,” Tamara Alrifai told Al Jazeera.
Since the Israeli government announced last week that it would stop all cooperation with UNRWA, five requests to enter northern Gaza have been denied. Additionally, the agency’s trucks remain parked in El Arish on the Egyptian side of the border, waiting to enter Gaza.
Alrifai added that an average of 155 trucks enter Gaza every day but this number is a far cry from the 500 trucks estimated by the UN to be the minimum required given the circumstances in Gaza.
“Any attempt to get food into Gaza is welcome, but the easiest, fastest and cheapest way is to use land crossings,” the spokesperson said. “Airdrops are symbolic, a way to say, ‘We will bring food in against the odds.’”
Japan to resume funding to UNRWA
Japan is preparing to resume funding to the UN’s crisis-hit Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), which coordinates the vast majority of aid to Gaza, according to the government.
Once the sixth-largest contributor to the agency, Japan joined more than a dozen countries in pausing funding after Israel claimed that 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 Gaza employees were involved in the deadly October 7 Hamas attack.
Despite critical rhetoric, US policy towards Israel is ‘business as usual’
While the US is publicly pressuring Israel to “dial back” its war in Gaza, its policy moves are sending an entirely different signal, says Marc Owen Jones, associate professor of Middle East studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
“We need to bear in mind that just a few weeks ago, the US passed a federal funding bill that both reaffirms military aid to Israel with over $3bn and cuts funding to UNRWA,” the main group providing aid in Gaza, Owen Jones told Al Jazeera. “The US’s policy is actually just business as usual.”
The unfettered assistance to Israel, which aid groups says is hindering aid to Gaza as famine-like conditions spread, is undermining US President Biden’s efforts to reposition the US as a “moral authority in the world,” according to Owen Jones.
“Biden is breaking, or at least not enforcing, the Leahy Laws,” he said, referring to US human rights laws that bar the US from supplying weapons to countries plausibly engaged in rights abuses.
“How is Biden going to position himself as any kind of moral authority when he is contravening laws that are meant to defend the human rights of people like those in Palestine?”
Gaza journalists become street art icons in UK
Palestinian journalists working in Gaza have inspired street art in the United Kingdom with the latest wall mural appearing in East London’s Ilford area.
Painted by street artists Auberi Chen, Core 246 and Captain Kris, the large “Heroes of Palestine” mural features Palestinian photographers, from left to right, Mohamed al-Masri and Ali Jaddalah, writer Hind Khoudary, and photographer Abdelhakim Abu Riash.
Media in the UK reported earlier this week that some of the “Heroes of Palestine” murals have been the target of pro-Israeli vandalism, with some of the images honouring Gaza’s journalists painted over with the Star of David religious symbol as well as disparaging comments.
An aerial view of a mural depicting Palestinian journalists in Ilford, east London, on March 28, 2024
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