How Israel’s war on Gaza is affecting the elderly
Oday El-Meghari, a Palestinian rights advocate, wrote about the plight of older people in Gaza as Israel’s assault continues, saying they faced four major challenges: lack of medication, housing, nutrition and safety.
“My father, who has lived through 76 years of occupation, said he had never seen anything as bad as this. All previous wars combined equalled one day of this conflict,” El-Meghari wrote in a dispatch published by HelpAge International, a British charity.
Some older people have died during Israel’s forcible transfers of Gaza’s population or “while trying to survive in makeshift shelters, exposed to the harsh cold of winter,” he wrote. Others have died from preventable health complications amid a scarcity of medications.
Older people are also at a higher risk of malnutrition because they could not queue for hours or fight for the limited food supplies, El-Meghari said.
“Many older people had already endured a lifetime of hardship. Having been born in a tent in a refugee camp during the 1950s, it was a cruel twist of fate to see them end their lives decades later in another tent,” he said.
Palestinians, including the elderly and children, leave the northern Gaza Strip on foot to seek refuge in the south as Israeli tanks roll deeper into the enclave in central Gaza in November 2023
Bellingcat analysis finds vast destruction in Rafah
The investigative journalism group says its analysis of satellite imagery shows “vast swaths” of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, “have been damaged or destroyed”.
Israeli forces have demolished entire city blocks as part of their expansion of the Philadelphi Corridor into neighbourhoods in the south of Rafah, including the Brazil Refugee Camp and Dahiyat as-Salam, the Bellingcat researchers found.
Bellingcat also found that the destruction went far beyond the expanded Philadelphi Corridor, including into the eastern neighbourhood of Tal as-Sultan, where only 224 of roughly 670 buildings remain standing.
A satellite image shows the Canada Well water facility in Tal as-Sultan, Rafah, after the site was damaged in an Israeli explosion
UN experts says Israel’s ‘vast demolition’ in Rafah part of wider pattern of crimes
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, was responding to new analysis from Bellingcat showing Israeli forces have demolished large areas of the city in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“Israel is demolition nation par excellence,” Rajagopal said in a post on X, adding the latest analysis “shows commission of vast international crimes including domicide”.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) “cannot fail to add these to its charges”, the UN rights expert added.
Israel is Demolition Nation par excellence. Evidence of vast demolition of housing in Rafah, a pattern that extends far back, again shows commission of vast international crimes including domicide. ICC cannot fail to add these to its charges. https://t.co/8lyvZxXNig
— UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing (@adequatehousing) August 28, 2024
