Category: Columns

Columns

Israel’s New INGO Registration Measures Are a Grave Threat to Humanitarian Operations and International Law – 55 Organisations Say

Posted on | Oxfam

The undersigned 55 organisations operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) call for urgent action from the international community against new Israeli registration rules for international NGOs. Based on vague, broad, politicised, and open-ended criteria, these rules appear designed to assert control over independent humanitarian, development and peacebuilding operations, silence advocacy grounded in international humanitarian and human rights law, and further entrench Israeli control and de facto annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Columns

Statement on Gaza by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Posted on | United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

To the Israeli authorities, and those who can still reason with them, we say again: lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives.

To the civilians left unprotected, no apology can suffice. But I am truly sorry that we are unable to move the international community to prevent this injustice. We won’t give up, even if the world has given you every reason to give up on us.

Columns

Mohsen Mahdawi — the Columbia student arrested at his citizenship appointment — speaks

Posted on | National Public Radio (NPR)

In the first media interview with any of the Trump administration’s student detainees – all at risk of deportation — Mahdawi spoke to Leila Fadel in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vt., where he’s awaiting a court hearing Wednesday in a petition that argues government officials violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his right to due process.

Editor’s note: On Wednesday, April 30, a federal judge in Vermont ordered Mohsen Mahdawi’s release while his case proceeds.

Columns

Long overdue release of Ahmad Manasra marks the start of a long and difficult path to recovery

Posted on | Amnesty International

Ahmad Manasra’s release comes at a time when thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees face unprecedented levels of torture and other ill-treatment and denial of their most basic rights, such as food and healthcare. Israeli authorities repeatedly claimed that Manasra’s prolonged and cruel solitary confinement was aimed at protecting him, but in fact it subjected him to immense suffering.

Columns

Scholasticide Continues: Israel’s Ongoing Destruction of Gaza’s Education System Jeopardizes an Entire Generation’s Future

Posted on | Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights

The growing impact of malnutrition among children and students in Gaza—driven by the Israeli-imposed blockade and its deliberate policy of starvation and denial of humanitarian aid—has become a key factor undermining academic performance. The deteriorating humanitarian conditions and widespread food insecurity have led to a sharp rise in malnutrition rates, impairing students’ physical and cognitive development and significantly diminishing their ability to concentrate and engage in learning.