70-80% of Gaza civilian infrastructure in ruins; another massacre of men, women & children; prisoner negotiations are reportedly progressing; UN calls for an arms embargo on Israel; West Bank violence; Israel will send a “sparse report” on its “compliance” with orders from Int’l Court of Justice; and more
Andalou Agency reports: World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic, and the spokesperson of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, spoke to Anadolu about the unprecedented levels of destruction Israel has inflicted on Gaza in this war.
Jasarevic said that between 70 to 80% of civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals, schools, water, and sanitation facilities, has been destroyed or severely damaged, and it will take decades to repair the infrastructure in Gaza, including the health system that is barely surviving.
The UN Environment Program estimates that it will take anywhere between three to 12 years to only clear the debris and explosive remnants of the war, Jasarevic recalled, and continued: “United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that it will take tens of billions of dollars and decades to reverse the overall economic damage, including to rebuild the health system which is on its knees.”
Jasarevic, citing a UN report, noted that if the fighting were to stop immediately, reconstruction were to start right away, and the 2007-2022 growth trend were to persist, it would take until 2092 just to restore Gaza’s gross domestic product levels in 2022.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports from Rafah: Israel carried out an air raid Saturday on a very busy road, hitting a two-story residential building.
The area shook as if an earthquake hit it, there was complete destruction and fire everywhere. Cars were incinerated and people on the sidewalks were critically injured. Victims were also pulled from the under the rubble for the building.
Seven people were reported killed, five of whom have been identified. Two of them could not be identified as they were incinerated beyond recognition.
Al Jazeera reports: More than 150 displaced civilians were sheltering in family homes in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area. As night fell, they were hit by a massive Israeli air strike.
At least 25 were reportedly killed – the vast majority women and children – and more than 70 people suffered critical injuries.
Fourteen children, including a 4-month-old baby, four women, and four men were killed in an attack on a house owned by the family of Mahmoud Abu Zaeiter, a comedian with 1.2 million online followers.
Al Haq reports on another home hit in Deir el Balah: The Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq denounces the killing of Dana Yaghy with 40 members of her family, including 10 children.
The 27-year-old was killed a few days after her colleague Nour Abu Al-Nour, “both fantastic young lawyers”, the organization says.
Axios reports on the latest in prisoner negotiations: American, Qatari ,and Egyptian officials presented a new more detailed framework for a hostage deal to Israeli negotiators during a key meeting in Paris on Friday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the issue.
The updated framework proposes that Hamas release roughly 40 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a six-week ceasefire and the freeing of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the sources said. It also would allow some Palestinians to begin returning to northern Gaza.
A UN press release: Any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately, UN experts warned today.
“All States must ‘ensure respect’ for international humanitarian law by parties to an armed conflict, as required by 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law,” the experts said. “States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behavior, that they would be used to violate international law.”
“The need for an arms embargo on Israel is heightened by the International Court of Justice’s ruling on 26 January 2024 that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and the continuing serious harm to civilians since then”, the experts said. The Genocide Convention of 1948 requires States parties to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide in another state as far as possible. “This necessitates halting arms exports in the present circumstances”, the experts said.
The experts noted that arms transfers to Hamas and other armed groups are also prohibited by international law, given their grave violations of international humanitarian law on 7 October 2023, including hostage-taking and subsequent indiscriminate rocket fire.
The duty to “ensure respect” for humanitarian law applies “in all circumstances”, including when Israel claims it is countering terrorism.
WEST BANK – Mondoweiss reports: On Thursday night, February 22, an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in the Jenin refugee camp killed two Palestinians and injured 14 others, including 5 children, one of whom is in critical condition.
The charred body in the car was later identified as Yasser Hanoun, a member of the Jenin Brigade in the camp. Another young man, Said Jaradat , 17, succumbed to his injuries hours later.
An Israeli army statement alleged that Hanoun, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was “on his way to carry out a shooting operation.” Israeli forces released a video depicting the moment of the assassination operation, showing that the vehicle was completely stationary inside the camp and located in a lively area surrounded by people.
In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, even to the point of armed resistance.
According to prisoner affairs groups, at least 200 children have been detained by Israeli forces out of 9,000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons as of February.
Times of Israel reports: Israel will send a formal notification to the International Court of Justice on Monday that it is complying with provisional measures handed down by the court, the Ynet news site reports.
The court issued six orders last month, including one that Israel report on its compliance.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly ordered those involved to submit a “sparse” report, detailing how Israel is complying with orders.
NOTE: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, an independent organization based in Geneva, has documented: “The killing of more than 3,847 Palestinians by the Israeli army, including 1,306 children and 807 women, in addition to the injury of about 5,119 since the ICJ issued its ruling.”
The organization confirmed that it had observed six main indicators that Israel is continuing the crime of genocide. These indicators include continued mass killings of civilians; intentionally inflicting severe physical and psychological harm; deliberately subjecting residents to miserable living conditions with the aim of actual destruction; starvation; blocking the entry of humanitarian aid; imposing measures aimed at preventing childbirth within Palestinian families; and official and public incitement by Israeli officials to escalate its genocide.
Axios reports: The Biden administration asked Israel to stop targeting members of the Hamas-run civilian police force who escort aid trucks in Gaza, warning that a “total breakdown of law and order” is significantly exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the enclave, according to three U.S. and Israeli officials.
U.S. officials say they are increasingly concerned “that Gaza is turning into Mogadishu” as a security vacuum and desperation have opened the door for armed gangs to attack and loot aid trucks, putting even more pressure on the Strip’s already strained humanitarian system. (Mogadishu — the capital of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa — was once considered the most lawless and dangerous city in the world.)
People in #Gaza are in extreme peril while the world watches on.
No one can claim “I did not know” as the images, footage and voices of unspeakable suffering continue.
We cannot turn a blind eye to this human tragedy any longer. pic.twitter.com/RislB5Ilr0
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) February 23, 2024
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: An Israeli raid targeted the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG:https://t.co/QRkgKBe82S pic.twitter.com/GDaw50feTV
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) February 25, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – FEBRUARY 24:
Palestinian death toll from October 7 – February 24: at least 30,098* (29,692 in Gaza* (over 12,660 children, 8,570 women), and at least 406 in the West Bank (100 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 38,066 Palestinian deaths.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
About 2.2 million are facing Crisis, Emergency, or Famine levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – February 24: at least 74,479** (including at least 69,879 in Gaza and 4,600 in the West Bank).
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – February 24: ~1,387 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~574 were civilians, 373 or 337 were security and/or military forces, ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 240 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza;, 12 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.
NBC reports: “According to the latest available IDF data… nearly 1 in 5, or 17%, of all Israel’s losses have come not at the hands of Hamas but from mishaps on its own side.”
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
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