Ramez Al-Naouq, a child living in Gaza, was born with a severe congenital deformity in his upper and lower eyelids, which prevent him from closing his eyes even while he is sleeping.

His eyes constantly bleed, become ulcerated and inflamed, and put him at risk of permanent blindness.

Before the Israeli occupation’s genocide on the Gaza Strip, Al-Naouq received ointments and eye drops to keep his eyes moisturised and reduce the inflammation. But his treatment has now completely stopped because of the ongoing blockade and severe shortage of medicines. As a result his condition has dramatically worsened.

Although Ramez urgently needs complex operations to repair his eyelids and protect his vision, doctors in Gaza are not able to carry out the necessary surgeries, because of a lack of medical resources.

Rateb

Rateb is a child amputee in Gaza. He has been trying hard to make a plastic limb for himself, so he can play with other children. He lost his leg after the Israeli occupation forces bombed a car a few months ago.

There are hundreds of children like Rateb in Gaza, who have lost upper or lower limbs, and are left permanently disabled because of injuries sustained during this genocide. These become infected and, because poor nutrition slows healing and antibiotics are intentionally being prevented from entering the Strip, sepsis sets in, leaving no other option but amputation.

Child amputees have a lifetime of disability and a very uncertain future ahead of them. Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita anywhere in the world, with 10 children, every single day for the past two years losing one or both of their legs.

Hanna

Hanaa Al-Awdi, was a Palestinian child who developed brain cancer during the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and also suffered from brain atrophy which had already taken away her sight and hearing. The Israeli occupation’s complete blockade of the besieged Gaza Strip meant there was a delay in her travel for treatment abroad, so her condition became significantly worse. This left her body unable to withstand the disease,  and although she was eventually able to travel to Italy for treatment, she recently passed away in an Italian hospital with stage four brain cancer, which had spread throughout her body.

These children mentioned here are not unique in Gaza. There are thousands who are suffering and left to die, slowly and painfully, without anyone hearing about them. The Israeli regime has intentionally bombed hospitals to bring about the collapse of Gaza’s health care system, while the ongoing intentional blockade prevents the entry of everything necessary for the survival of the Palestinian population, including medicine and fuel. Dozens of children have also experienced severe deterioration in their health, or have already lost their lives, because of delays in medical evacuation by the Israeli occupation authorities.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/ABC News In Depth

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.

Palestinian journalist Alaa Al-Rimawi was released this week after being locked up in Israeli occupation jails for the past two years. He was imprisoned under Israeli administrative detention, meaning his detention was based on secret evidence, and he was held without charges or trial.

Al-Rimawi has been recognised for his investigative reporting on Israeli policies and the challenges facing journalists under occupation. He is also manager of the J-Media Network. The news agency sells video content to media outlets, and is a prominent voice in the occupied West Bank. Al-Rimawi has worked relentlessly to expose the occupation’s abuses, often at severe personal risk. Over the span of his career, he has cumulatively spent almost a decade behind bars.

Unprecedented targeting of Palestinian journalists

He was arrested, likely because of his social media posts, in October 2023, a time in which, according to Palestinian press freedom organisation MADA, Israeli occupation forces were carrying out an unprecedented number of serious crimes and violations against Palestinian journalists and press freedoms in Palestine.

The Israeli occupation forces raided his home in Ramallah while he was undergoing medical examinations at a hospital and detained his son, whose arrest they used to pressure Al-Rimawi to turn himself in.

For two years, Al-Rimawi endured medical neglect, repeated assaults, and physical and mental torture. His detention was part of a broader campaign targeting Palestinian journalists, often holding them for extended periods without formal charges or trial.

Al-Rimawi’s experience reflects the ongoing crackdown on freedom of expression in the occupied territories, where journalists work under constant threat of violence or imprisonment. This assault on media workers by the Israeli occupation is part of a strategy to suppress independent reporting and documentation of human rights violations.

Al-Rimawi’s liberation has been welcomed by human rights groups, and the Palestinian community. He has decided to continue his work as a journalist, saying in a statement to Palestinian media:

The freedom of our journalists is essential for the truth to reach the world. The occupation cannot silence the voice of our people.

Targeting freedom of the press

Struggles for press freedom in the West Bank and Gaza are ongoing, with 55 Palestinian journalists still imprisoned and suffering the same conditions Al-Rimawi was forced to endure. 21 of that group are also held under administrative detention. According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, nearly one-third of the approximately 11,100 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody are held under administrative detention.

Figures from the Government Media Office in Gaza show that 254 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the occupation and 433 journalists injured in the two years up until October 7, 2025.

As the Israeli regime aims to erase the culture, history, and future lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, reporting is not only a profession for journalists in the occupied territory, but an essential act of resistance and survival.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.

According to a new report from the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC), Israel has committed more than 38,000 human rights and legal violations in the occupied West Bank since 7 October 2023.

These 38,359 violations were committed by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and illegal colonial settlers against Palestinian citizens and their property.

Out of these, 31,205 incidents were attributed to the army, while settlers carried out 7,154 attacks, which led to the killing of 33 Palestinians. The report also revealed that settlers established an unprecedented 114 new settlement outposts during this same period, which triggered the forced displacement of 33 Palestinian Bedouin communities. These communities comprised of 455 families and a total of 2,853 people, who were forced to flee their homes.

Palestinian West Bank land being reclassified so the Israeli occupation can steal it

Since October 2023, Israel has taken control of around 5,500 hectares of Palestinian land, including large areas reclassified as ‘nature reserves’ and ‘state land’.

In addition, about 175 hectares were confiscated through the use of more than 100 military orders for the construction of security infrastructure and 25 buffer zones which were established around the illegal settlements, mainly in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli occupation’s apartheid system ensures the illegal settlers living in these settlements have everything at their disposal, even their own roads, which Palestinians are not permitted to use. Efforts have now intensified, to fragment Palestinian land and isolate communities, by expanding the network of these settler only roads, to connect the various settlements.

Settlement expansion at an unprecedented rate

Israeli occupation authorities reviewed 355 planning proposals for more than 37,000 new settlement units on over 3,800 hectares in the occupied West Bank and elsewhere. Nearly half have been approved, with the remainder pending. Jerusalem recorded the highest concentration of these plans with 148.

In the past two years, 11 existing outposts have been legalised, and almost 70 have received infrastructure support to strengthen settler hold over Palestinian land. Outposts often start off as nothing more than a caravan placed on Palestinian land by a settler, and are often accompanied by livestock grazing, fencing, and infrastructure that encroach on Palestinian territory.

Settlers use outposts strategically to seize Palestinian lands by establishing a physical, very often violent, presence that gradually expands, displacing Palestinian herders and farmers. The outposts are backed by the IOF and government, and disrupt Palestinian access to their land and resources, leading to forced displacement and land confiscation.

Settler violence, harassment, and theft of resources like water from Palestinian communities are common tactics used to enforce control and drive Palestinians out, facilitating the expansion of these outposts into larger settlements.

Violence and land theft used to displace Palestinians from their land

Since October 2023, military and settler actions have caused nearly 770 fires in the occupied West Bank, over 200 of which damaged private property while the rest destroyed farmland. These incidents damaged more than 48,000 trees. The violence and land seizures have displaced entire Bedouin communities, uprooting thousands of people from their homes.

The number of checkpoints and barriers in the occupied West Bank, along main routes and at the entrances and exits of villages and towns-which restrict movement of people and goods and isolate communities- now stands at 916, including more than 240 new gates installed since October 2024.

Israeli authorities carried out more than 1,000 demolitions, destroying almost 3,680 Palestinian structures, including over 1,200 inhabited homes and hundreds of agricultural and commercial facilities, while a further 1,670 demolition orders were issued targeting buildings across the West Bank.

CWRC: West Bank a testing ground for Israel’s colonial policies

In a recent press conference, Muayyad Shaaban, Head of CWRC, said the occupied Palestinian territories have become a testing ground for new colonial policies over the past two years. He accused the Israeli occupation of deploying policies that combine violence, territorial control, and legal measures to empower settlers while denying Palestinians basic rights such as housing, movement, and dignity.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.

Israel has plunged Gaza City into an even deeper humanitarian disaster than it was already in, as many major international aid organizations, which have already been battered by months of siege and bombardment, have now withdrawn or dramatically reined in their operations because of the relentless Israeli military offensive, and systematic displacement orders. This has left most of Gaza City’s Palestinian population, of hundreds of thousands, to face this catastrophe on their own.

MSF: “our clinics are encircled by Israeli forces”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), whose international medics provided life saving wound care, surgeries, and malnutrition treatment to Palestinians battered by siege and displacement. announced the suspension of its activities in Gaza City in late September, blaming the continued airstrikes and advancing tanks less than one kilometre from their healthcare facilities for creating ‘an unacceptable level of risk’ to their staff.

Jacob Granger, MSF Emergency Coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement:

We have been left with no choice but to stop our activities, as our clinics are encircled by Israeli forces… This is the last thing we wanted.

MSF has highlighted the critical needs of the most vulnerable in Gaza City, including infants in neonatal care and patients with severe, life-threatening injuries who could not be evacuated. It has described hospitals as overwhelmed and facing severe shortages in staff, supplies, and fuel. Until its withdrawal, MSF carried out over 3,640 consultations and treated 1,655 patients suffering from malnutrition and severe trauma injuries and burns, as well as pregnant women and others requiring ongoing medical care who were unable to leave the city.

“With us gone, those left behind face catastrophe with little or no medical help at all,” the organisation warned.

15 MSF staff members have so far been killed in Gaza

ICRC suspends operations at Gaza City office as genocide has intensified

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked in Gaza City for decades, but it too, as of 1 October, has now been forced to suspend its operations there, relocating to central and Southern Gaza for safety.

The ICRC’s departure is seismic – its workers have long coordinated evacuation corridors, distributed food and water, and kept what little remained of public health infrastructure alive. It also supported baking facilities in 14 displacement camps that provided 45,000 loaves of bread per day. ICRC teams also supported water and wastewater network repairs.

Sarah Davies from the ICRC Jerusalem told the Canary:

We have temporarily suspended operations from out of our Gaza City office – however, we continue to provide operational support to Gaza City, alongside local partners like the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, and ongoing programmes continue.

As an organisation that works in conflict zones around the world, we are constantly assessing the risk to our staff, as well as the ability to reach civilians in need in these areas, and as military operations intensified in Gaza City, we were forced to make this decision.

Civilians facing a genocide are left without protection or humanitarian support

In a statement on 6 October Gaza’s Government Media Office expressed its ‘deep astonishment and strong condemnation’ of the ICRC’s decision, calling it ‘catastrophic, dangerous and irresponsible’, and saying:

It represents a painful retreat from the humanitarian and moral role entrusted to the ICRC, and it does not serve the Palestinian people who are facing daily acts of genocide. Rather, it abandons defenseless civilians without protection or genuine humanitarian support in one of the most dangerous and devastated areas on earth.

We affirm that the International Committee of the Red Cross is a body protected under international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions. It has a duty to operate in conflict zones, not to withdraw from them. Such a step at this critical time contradicts the very essence of its humanitarian mandate and the purpose for which it was established.

Although the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which has been providing lifesaving clean drinking water at about a dozen sites within Gaza City, reports that even these critical activities are being threatened by heavy bombardments and restricted access, it is still managing to continue with its operations at the moment, although the number of sites are changing every day, based on the conditions, and the ability to access areas. There has also been so much displacement that some of the sites that NRC has been serving are now empty, so they have stopped delivering to them.

Norwegian Refugee Council: “most of our staff have fled” Gaza City

The Canary spoke with Shaina Low from the Norwegian Refugee Council. She said:

Providing water is the only in person we are doing at the moment. While we are continuing to operate, the water is being delivered by contractors. We have very limited staff that have remained in Gaza city, and most of those are not in conditions where they are able to work, because of lack of connectivity and security.

Most of our staff have fled, we cannot tell them to stay. They have a right to withdraw and we have a duty of care. But I need to make clear, our staff are not the ones going out daily and delivering water. That’s being done by contractors that are connected to the desalination devices, but many have now relocated to the South and brought their equipment with them.

So we have shortages of equipment and fuel, and a limited number of service providers we are still able to work with in Gaza City, to continue providing  clean drinking water.

According to Low, the NRC has managed to keep providing support for some of its services over the phone to the people in Gaza City, such as its Legal Aid Programme, and its Protection from Violence Programme, and has also helped some families who have wanted to move to the South but have been unable to do so – maybe because of injury or disability, by paying for their journey.

She says:

But now we are in a situation where we are not sure if that is feasible anymore, because Israel has closed the Northbound route, so if the trucks take Palestinian to the South they will be unable to return to the North.

Twice in September, within a couple of days of each other, NRC staff were confronted by about 40 armed individuals at its premises in Gaza City, while preparations were underway to relocate contingency supplies for operational needs. This had not happened before, in the past two years, and shows how desperate the situation has become.

The group seized 250 litres of fuel, a number of food parcels and also water bottles. Although NRC staff were unharmed, desperate, starving Palestinians, and also armed gangs supported by the occupation are becoming a growing problem in Gaza, while the teams which used to escort aid supplies and act as security, be at the warehouses and at the distribution points, have all been intentionally attacked or threatened by the Israeli occupation.

Palestine Red Crescent Society: intentional targeting of ambulances and clinics

While MSF and ICRC have halted their work in Gaza City, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) continues to operate, although many of its clinics, hospitals and ambulances have been intentionally damaged or destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, and their staff, along with the Palestinian Civil Defense – who are responsible for providing emergency and relief services – take extreme risks responding to emergencies amid the bombs.

They have been targeted in attacks while responding to airstrikes targeting shelters, schools, and residential towers filled with displaced families. They are often the only medical and rescue providers accessible to civilians in Gaza city.

PRCS staff have been killed since October 2023, while on duty, and in a statement marking two years since the start of the genocide, the PRCS said:

The suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza has reached shocking levels: The stench of death filling every corner, and the rubble of destroyed homes, schools, roads, and other civilian infrastructure dominating the landscape… the occupation directly targeted its staff without any regard for their humanitarian mission or the internationally protected emblem of the Red Crescent.

Palestinian Civil Defense have rescued almost 126,000 Palestinians in Gaza during the genocide

The Palestinian Civil Defense teams in Gaza are the last emergency responders operating in Gaza City, trying to find survivors who have been buried under the rubble, with no specialist equipment and hardly any supplies or fuel left for vehicles.

On 7 October the Civil Defense announced that their teams had recovered the bodies of more than 53,700 and rescued around 125,750 wounded in Gaza, since the beginning of the genocide, and in this time they received 635,000 emergency calls. They were not able to reach 52,000 of these, either due to fuel shortages or due to the areas being targeted by the occupation

The situation is desperate and it is getting much worse every day. As international aid organizations fall silent, not by choice but because of the relentless bombing, encirclement, and systemic destruction, the population of Gaza City has been abandoned to catastrophe. Hospitals are destroyed, water is scarce, and the means of survival for Palestinians are rapidly deteriorating.

The institutions designed to help civilians in times of conflict – MSF, the ICRC, the NRC – are being pushed out one by one. This is not a natural disaster, but the outcome of policy which is deliberate and has been emboldened by global silence.

The Israeli regime has faced no consequences for any of its actions, since its formation in 1948, and acts with total impunity.

This genocide has erased thousands of families from the civil registry, and entire neighborhoods, starved the entire Palestinian population of Gaza, crushed civil infrastructure, and terrorized and murdered medics, aid workers, and civilians. The systematic targeting of these humanitarian personnel is part of the architecture of the occupation, a form of control that does not leave any pathway for accountability.

It’s time to make Israel and all its allies face the consequences and pay for their crimes

Shielded by its powerful allies, and insulated from all international legal mechanisms, the occupation has been given the strength to continue pursuing its crimes by a global order that has completely failed to hold it to the same standards that it claims to impose on others.

While the world debates wording, international law is being ripped to pieces. It is time for the illegal Israeli occupation to be held to account and to pay the price for its continuing violations of international law, and its complete disregard for humanity, before it succeeds in its goal of genocide, of erasing Palestinian life in Gaza. All those responsible for these atrocities – the individuals, states and corporations who order them, justify them, and supply them – must face consequences for their crimes.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.