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Palestinian women, children systematically dehumanised: UN expert
Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur for violence against women and girls, says that over the past year, women in Gaza have gone through “the most bloody chapter” of inhumane Israeli mistreatment.
This included “collective punishment, incarceration, sexual violence and deliberate extermination”, she told Al Jazeera.
“Women and children have been systematically dehumanised – where children are seen as not innocent and where women’s wombs are seen as something that has to be attacked and exterminated,” Alsalem said.
This is being carried out through large-scale violence, attacks on health infrastructure that amount to reproductive violence, “and forcing women to leave their babies behind” when Israeli troops forcefully evacuate hospitals, she noted, in addition to starving lactating mothers.
‘Using kitchen vinegar to put on wounds’: Surgeon recounts lack of supplies in Gaza
Plastic surgeon Victoria Rose has spoken to Al Jazeera about what she encountered during her time working at two hospitals in Khan Younis in southern Gaza: the European Hospital in March and April and Nasser Hospital in August.
She said the main difference between the first and second visit was the growing number of deaths coming in and the smaller number of charities and doctors working.
“I saw one other emergency medical team while I was there [in August], and I was acutely aware of the lack of specialist doctors. I was the only plastic surgeon in Gaza at that period, and I was the first plastic surgeon to enter Gaza since May.”
Rose said she entered through Rafah with some medical supplies in March, but had to go through the Karem Abu Salem crossing, which Israel calls the Kerem Shalom crossing, after the invasion of southern Gaza, only carrying a single suitcase with three days’ worth of water, a month’s stock of food and no medical kit.
“We had very, very basic supplies, I was using kitchen vinegar to put on wounds. The amount of aid that was getting to the hospitals was a fraction of what we had in March.”
‘For children, this is hell on earth’
James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson in Gaza, has described the suffering endured by Gaza’s children as “hell on earth”.
“I find it absolutely heartbreaking. I spent my adult life in war zones advocating for children to receive healthcare, protection and education,” he told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
“This might be the first crisis where I have to begin by advocating that children are humans.”
He said that Gaza is not a place for children right now because “they’re forced to live in conditions that deny them life-saving medicine, water, even their dignity. And at the same time, bombs continue to fall”.
“Sometimes I fail to capture just how horrific the situation is that’s been imposed on children,” Elder said.
Israel still blocking ceasefire agreement, says Hamas official
Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s politburo and its chief negotiator, said that Israel is still blocking a ceasefire agreement despite the group’s flexibility.
In a televised speech shown on Hamas Aqsa television to mark one year since the October 7 attacks, al-Hayya urged countries to stop their “double standards” over Gaza and Lebanon.
“Not abiding by international law and international humanitarian law and not stopping Israel’s aggression against our people and the people of the region will lead to more insecurity and instability in the region and globally,” he said.
Al-Hayya hailed the support of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels as well as Iraq and Iran, “which avenged the killing of our leader and martyr Ismail Haniyeh”.
Israel carried out 3,654 massacres in Gaza in one year
According to the Gaza’s Government Media Office, since October 7:
- Israeli forces have killed at least 41,870 people, including at least 17,000 children and 11,487 women
- 171 babies born were killed by the Israeli army
- 710 infants under the age of one have been killed by Israeli forces
- 36 people have died from malnutrition
- 986 medics and 85 members of the Palestinian Civil Defence have been killed by Israeli soldiers
- 187 shelters have been targeted
- Almost 26,000 children have been orphaned or have had one parent killed by Israeli forces
