Oxfam Australia Media Release
The Israeli military onslaught in southern Gaza is causing destruction, danger, and civilian terror and suffering at such a scale that makes any humanitarian response impossible across the entire enclave, says Oxfam.
The nightmare is unfolding in full view of the international community. “Our political leaders are failing – in abject weakness – to forge a ceasefire, which is the only possible humanitarian action that now really matters,” said Marta Valdes Garcia, Oxfam Humanitarian Director.
Oxfam says that many within the international community – particularly Israel’s state supporters – are complicit in the mass death, forcible displacement, starvation and deprivation being inflicted upon more than 2 million people being penned and moved around Israeli designated target zones in Gaza, both in the besieged north and now throughout the entrapped south.
Oxfam staff in Gaza speak of young children asking their parents to pack their clothes into separate bags for their next displacement under fire, in case their parents are killed. People are now fighting over basic necessities like food, water and fuel. An Oxfam partner told us today:
“This is one of the most difficult days and wars that we have experienced. If you look anywhere around, you will find displaced people, injured people, people sleeping in the streets, and even we face many difficulties in distributing aid because there is no safe place in Gaza. Every area can be dangerous, each and every place can be bombed at any moment.”
Virtually no aid is now going into Gaza. Whatever Israel might allow to trickle in is insufficient and cannot be safely distributed to civilians being forced to run for their lives. “This kind of systemic, militarised chaos has overwhelmed the international humanitarian system. Our governments don’t even have the smokescreen of humanitarianism to hide behind now as Israel carries out its campaign of collective punishment,” said Garcia.
“Israel’s so called safe zones within Gaza are a mirage: unprotected, not agreed or trusted, not provisioned, and not accessible. We hold genuine fears that masses of terrified people will be forced beyond Gaza itself under the guise of ‘safety’,” she said. “This would force the humanitarian system into an impossible choice between helping civilians and being complicit in their forced deportation.”
“The terrible irony is that this militarised destruction of Gaza is literally blowing away any chance of real security for both Palestinians and Israelis alike. Gaza needs a ceasefire now and humanitarian agencies need the guarantee of safe access in order to help its people and save lives.”
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the world is screaming STOP!
The IDF. The Nazi ‘Sturmtruppen’ of the 21st century. They are doing now what they so bitterly complained was done to them during WWII. Extermination of those you consider beneath you. Hypocrisy at it’s finest! IDF should stand for Israeli Destruction Force! Shame shame shame!!
The Netanyahu Nakba continues because it suits the US NE Military Industrial Complex that controls American politics for profit supplying international conflagrations often for the benefit of other American multinational corporations.
Biden can stop this genocide with a single telephone call.
The overall strategy of the Zion@zis is to ”drive all Palestinians into the sea” by dispossessing them of their residential real estate, displacing them and chasing them south into the Egyptian desert where they become the responsibility of international aid agencies.
After 15 years of running the biggest open prison in the world since the notorious Warsaw Ghetto in the 1940s, the off-spring of that genocide in Poland are imposing the same consequences on Palestinians ….. while the so-called ”civilised western world” sits back, wringing their hands and licking their lips at the profits of ”war”.
You’ll never be forgiven for your stance, Albanese. No less scum than the Liberals/Nationals.
We are dealing with criminals who ignore any guidance from International law, UN or most definitely, “the pub test”
The nation only exists as long as they can outgun their neighbours.
They are that popular.
The interesting angle is that the great military power, USA, cannot influence this genocide, even though Israel is sponsored by them
Which speaks volumes about the global influence these days of Uncle Sam.
Criminals don`t observe any of the conventions in the western world, but we are failing to understand this.
Douglas, “The nation only exists as long as they can outgun their neighbours.” I fully agree.
If you have to hold on to the land by having the biggest gun, you are doing two things. Acknowledging that your not welcome and your sowing the seeds of your own destruction.
What kind of jew would want to join the cult of the promised land? Its an existential question very few answer. If anything it all goes back to authorised talking points.
I understand their traditions and wanting to hold on to their shared history, but at what cost will they follow the cult. This is clearly a case of another screwball religion saying they are doing gods work. Think of the backlash and how this cult will be viewed by the future, is this what jews really want as their destiny? Never again aparantly only applies to cults.
Its now been confirmed that there was brisk trading on the Israel stock exchange just before Hamas attacked.
The form of this activity was very close to movements on the US stock exchange just before the famous 9/11 event.
Same MO on both occasions, stirs the anger in me.
The above comments contain very interesting observations. Particularly DP’s stock exchange comment.
Aside from the millennia of hocus-pocus sectarian excuses applied to domination of the Levant, the reality is plainly one of geographic control of trade and commerce more often than not facilitated by military superiority. Although the west’s efforts through the ‘crusades’ failed, the byzantine mindset has never been far from front and centre.
The west has demonstrated time and again via their various accommodations and controls on the Jewish diaspora, that commerce and trade is the sine qua non, with sectarian practice a suitable excuse to peddle to the god-fearing public. And for the west, as for those ‘crazy’ Mongols, Persians,Turks, Arabs, Berbers and Saracens, who could ever seek to control them? Perhaps only the Jews particularly with their proven track record of wrangling the tribal theatres?
Well, from the Great War onward, circumstance and opportunity coalesced and under the cover of blood, death and destruction, and the fog of war the plans evolved, along with the balance of power of the imperia. And so it has progressed under the full control of the west, never letting modernity get in the way of the old tried and tested colonialist m.o., especially when oil and gas continue to be the elixir to hegemony.
The Levant is critical to the maintenance of the hegemony, not only now, but ever more so in the future with the inevitable rise of Africa. To suggest that the west’s arming and control of its suzerain is out of some noblesse oblige is absurd. And to suggest that the west does not observe and control in microscopic detail all the goings on is equally absurd.
The entire business is yet another sordid, bleak and bloody story involving that hideous euphemism ‘collateral damage’. And in conjunction with proximity of the shadow-play that is COP28, one can be left in no doubt about the lengths of recklessness, brutality and carnage the wielders of power are prepared to exercise, and the lies peddled to give cover.
I think don’t confuse Judaism with Zionists,one is a peaceful religions following the other is a Political military corrupt corporate dictatorship with fascist leading tendencies this is the one that is responsible for the slaughter of thousands of people and mostly women and children happening right now