Displaced and Refugees

Security Council Should Act on Access for Aid Deliveries ( Human Rights Watch ) – (New York, March 15, 2024) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to alert the Security Council in the coming days that Sudan has entered a downward spiral of extreme conflict-induced hunger, Human Rights Watch said today. The council […]

S. Africa Will Arrest Dual Nationals Fighting in Gaza, Demands Halt to Starvation of Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – South Africa’s Townpress reports that Naledi Pandor, the country’s foreign minister, pledged this week to arrest any South African/ Israeli dual citizen who fought in Gaza. She said at a pro-Palestinian gathering in Pretoria attended by a number of officials from the ruling African National Congress, “I have already issued […]

Displaced and Refugees

UN-Appointed Human Rights Experts Demand Halt of Arms Shipments to Israel for Violations of Laws of War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – More than thirty independent experts appointed by the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations said Friday that arms exports to Israel must cease immediately, given Israeli violations of the international laws of war and the government’s announced intention to invade Rafah in south Gaza, […]

Displaced and Refugees

If Israel continues War on Gaza for 6 Months, death toll will Exceed 100,000 from Trauma and Disease: Public Health Study

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Crisis in Gaza: Scenario-Based Health Impact Projections, a joint report by the the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins University, issued this week, warns that a further 85,750 Palestinians could die in the next six months from […]

Displaced and Refugees

UN Human Rights Experts Blast Israel over “credible” Reports of Rape, Sexual Abuse, Arbitrary Imprisonment of Palestinian Women

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli Newspaper Arab 48 reports that United Nations officials have expressed the utmost anxiety about information that has reached them concerning “rape and threats of sexual assault” by Israeli forces during their arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinian women and girls. International rights experts called for an independent investigation into Israeli […]

Apartheid

Brazil’s Lula compares Netanyahu to Hitler: How Fascist is Israel’s War on Palestinians?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stirred controversy when he said, “What is happening in the Gaza Strip and with the Palestinian people did not exist at any other historical moment. Or rather, it did: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” He continued, “It is not a war […]

Children

Water Crisis and untreated Sewage could kill more Gaza Palestinians than Bombs: Threat of Infant Mortality

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Arabi al-Jadid reports, “The streets of the Gaza Strip are witnessing a catastrophic environmental crisis due to the mixing of rainwater with sewage water, which is now flooding various roads as a result of a continuous overflow, resulting from the targeting of infrastructure [by the Israeli military], and the inability […]

Displaced and Refugees

Gaza: Israeli Siege, Palestinian Starvation, and the pre-War Policies that made them Vulnerable

The Conversation

By Yara M. Asi, University of Central Florida | – The stories of hunger emerging from war-ravaged Gaza are stark: People resorting to grinding barely edible cattle feed to make flour; desperate residents eating grass; reports of cats being hunted for food. The numbers involved are just as despairing. The world’s major authority on food […]

Displaced and Refugees

Netherlands Judges Halt Export to Israel of F-35 Parts: “Disproportionate Civilian Casualties including Thousands of Children”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dutch News reports that an appeals court in The Hague, Netherlands, has ruled that the Dutch government must cease sending spare parts for the F-35 fighter-jet to Israel. The spare parts are technically owned by the U.S., but are kept in storage at Woensdrecht Air Base. The news site quotes […]