Gaza: Exodus from Khan Younis compounds pressure on meagre resources

For UN aid agencies and partners, “fuel shortages continue to undermine humanitarian operations and jeopardize the functioning of health, water and food production facilities,” according to the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, in its latest update.

According to the UN agency’s aid access dashboard, only 24 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies handled and retrieved by UNRWA – the largest UN agency operating in Gaza – entered the Strip via Kerem Shalom in the south of the enclave on Sunday, the latest displayed date.

None entered the enclave on Saturday but 46 trucks reached northern Gaza on Saturday via Western Erez crossing.

Compared with June, when almost 1,300 trucks entered the battered enclave, July’s total is only 674, with just one week until the end of the month.

Paltry fuel deliveries

Citing OCHA, UNRWA said that between 1 and 21 July, just over 2.1 million litres of fuel entered Gaza, including 378,700 on 21 July alone. This is about 103,000 litres of fuel per day, or a quarter of the 400,000 litres of fuel that humanitarians estimate is needed daily to sustain humanitarian activities in Gaza.

Several ongoing challenges stand in the way of collecting much needed humanitarian supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing point in southern Gaza, the UN agency said, highlighting the breakdown in law and order, among other factors.

West Bank spiral continues

In a related development, a top independent human rights expert said on Wednesday that the Israeli authorities “continue to target human rights defenders” in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, before calling for the immediate release of two Palestinian human rights defenders held in “administrative detention”.

Omar al-Khatib and Diala Ayesh were arrested between October 2023 and March 2024, according to Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.

She said in a statement that Mr. al-Khatib campaigns against the forced eviction of Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, while Ms. Ayesh is a human rights lawyer who documents the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel. 

They and three other activists were “reportedly slapped, beaten, humiliated, sent from one prison to another in the space of one or two days, and made to sign documents in Hebrew they could not understand”, maintained Ms. Lawlor, who was appointed by and reports to the Human Rights Council and is not a UN staff member.

“All five human rights defenders were arrested without warrant. They were not given any reason as to why there were being detained. They were all interrogated without the presence of a lawyer. They were not allowed contact with their families,” Ms. Lawlor said.

Deaths and demolitions

Staying with the occupied West Bank, media reports indicated that four Palestinians were killed there on Tuesday.

Israeli armoured personnel carriers and troops reportedly entered Qalandiya – a densely packed refugee camp north of Jerusalem – and destroyed the house of a Palestinian alleged to have carried out an attack on Israel.

The latest West Bank humanitarian update from OCHA reported that at least 554 Palestinians have been killed between 7 October 2023 and 15 July 2024, while the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that 143 children have died in the West Bank including East Jerusalem since 7 October, at an average of one child killed every two days.

The Palestinian victims included 539 killed by Israeli forces, 10 by Israeli settlers and seven whose perpetrators were either Israeli forces or settlers.

During the same period, 14 Israelis (nine Israeli soldiers and five settlers) were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank. In Israel, attacks by Palestinians from the West Bank have claimed the lives of eight Israelis and four Palestinians.

Between 15 and 21 July UNRWA reported at least 169 recorded Israeli Security Forces (ISF) search and arrest operations across the occupied West Bank. “More than 110 Palestinians…were detained by the ISF during this period and there were three recorded Palestinians killed.

“One person was killed during an ISF operation in Beit Ummar, in the southern West Bank, on 19 July,” UNRWA said.

Violence follows ICJ declaration

The UN agency also noted that on 15 July, the ISF demolished five houses in Al Walajah village, north of Bethlehem, resulting in the displacement of an estimated 39 Palestine refugees.

And following the release of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July, attacks by Israeli settlers were reported against Palestinian communities in Huwwara and Burin, in the northern West Bank, and in Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, UNRWA continued.

The world court’s declaration that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory “is unlawful” and that “all States are under an obligation not to recognize” the decades-long occupation, followed a request by the UN General Assembly on the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Latest data compiled by OCHA on demolition and displacement in the West Bank pointed to more than 820 demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures in the territory since the start of the year.

At the current rate of destruction, a record 1,400 buildings could be razed by the end of the year, surpassing the previous high of 1,177 in 2023 and 1,094 in 2016.