Israel’s continuous assault on Gaza and blatant violations of international law are threatening the very foundation of the UN’s credibility and existence

Israel has been following a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system, particularly those devoted to paediatric and neonatal, sexual and reproductive health services, and thus, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity’, a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry said in a new report, which is being presented to the UN General Assembly very soon. Israel has slammed it as ‘outrageous’, accusing the investigators of bias. Israel has been on a spree of retaliatory attacks on Gaza for the last year, after Hamas, stormed into its territory, killing and kidnapping several Israeli citizens.  So far, Israeli retaliatory strikes, reportedly, had killed more than 42,000 civilians in Gaza and displaced almost its entire population.

Ground reports indicate that Israel has adopted a calculated strategy of meting out ‘punishment’ to people, by systematically targeting Gaza’s health infrastructure. Hospitals are now on the brink of collapse due to a shortage of electricity, medicine, equipment and specialised personnel (WHO). The year-long continuous bombardment had not spared operating rooms, medical equipment, health workers or ambulances with the Red Cross or Red Crescent emblem.  At least 165 doctors, 260 nurses, 184 health associates, 76 pharmacists 300 management and support staff, and around 85 civil service defence workers lost their lives, and hundreds of bodies have been recovered from several mass graves around hospital grounds. Thousands of wounded people are suffering from life-changing injuries, and their lives are at risk for want of specialised care (WHO).

Israel’s denial of medical supplies has endangered also the lives of at least 350,000 chronically ill patients. Patients in hospitals and people in relief centres are also showing signs of diseases associated with overcrowding such as stomach complaints, lung infections and rashes. The incessant bombing has contaminated Gaza’s air with asbestos dust, raising the threat of cancer shortly. Even those handful of partially functioning health institutions in Gaza are receiving repeated evacuation orders. WHO described such orders as ‘death sentences for the sick and injured’. UNICEF has declared Gaza as the ‘most dangerous place to be a child’.

Children have become a majority of the patients in hospitals for blunt, penetrating trauma, and direct gunshot wounds, and lack of basic medical facilities has made treatment of such children difficult.

Every day almost 10 children are losing one or both legs, and operations and amputations are conducted with little or no anaesthesia. The absence of a power supply has also enhanced the ‘death toll of newborns as incubators stop functioning’. The children staying a long time in hospitals without adequate nutrition are developing nutritional deficiencies which would result in long-term health consequences. Hospitals have turned into ‘graveyards for thousands of children’.

The threats to children go beyond ‘bombs and mortars’, as over  645,000 school children in the Gaza Strip, have lost a full academic year, and more than 800,000 children, three-quarters of Gaza’s entire child population, urgently need mental health and psychosocial support.

The UN Commission’s report described the wide-scale disruptions in sexual and reproductive health care services,  as ‘reproductive violence, and infringement of  women and girls’ reproductive rights and rights to life, health, human dignity and non-discrimination’. It has had irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and fertility prospects of about 540,000 women and girls of reproductive age.

Women are giving birth in hospitals when hospitals are drastically short of epidurals, anaesthesia and antibiotics. Many have been forced to give birth in unsafe conditions at home or in relief camps, with little or no medical support, risking the danger of life-long injuries and even death. As women’s access to food is severely restricted, pregnant and lactating women are at higher health and malnutrition risks (WHO).

The entry of food and water have been blocked to the besieged territory for months together. More than seven hundred water wells have been destroyed, and half of Gaza’s cropland (67.6  per cent), over 71 per cent of orchards and other trees, 67 per cent of field crops, and 58.5 per cent of vegetables have been damaged (FAO). Israel has justified its attacks on major medical facilities under the plea that over 85 per cent of them were used by Hamas for terror operations. But, so far, it has not provided evidence to substantiate the claim, the Commission’s report mentioned.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, ordering Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory within one year. Earlier, the ICJ also ruled that Israel’s continued occupation was  ‘unlawful’ and ordered to end it ‘as rapidly as possible’.  Israel, in defiance, intensified onslaughts on the civilian population in Gaza and its natural resources, and declared the UN chief as a persona non grata, barring his entry to Israel.

Israel’s actions blatantly breach the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, by intentionally starving a population, and continuing armed assaults on health apparatus and personnel. As the UN celebrates the adoption of its Charter on October 24, which is binding on the UN Member States, and, categorically, prohibits the use of force in international relations. After eight decades of its adoption, Israel’s flagrant violation of its principles has threatened the very existence of the UN.

(The author is former Director General, Doordarshan & All India Radio; views are personal)