International mediation bid underway as Gaza seethes

Prolonged crisis

Farsakh said they continued to see repeated attacks on civilians and schools, even UN-sponsored ones, and that the citing of some militants could not justify Israeli strikes on medical facilities, refugee camps and other UN-affiliated schools over the past months.

The prolonged conflict, now in its 11th month, has been catastrophic for young Palestinians, with more than 14,000 children reportedly killed, according to UNICEF.

In a July 22 report, UNICEF estimated that on average, one Palestinian child was killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, every two days since October, or a nearly three-and-a-half-fold increase from the previous nine months.

A total of 143 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since October, a spike of nearly 250 percent compared with the preceding nine months, during which 41 Palestinian children were killed.

Two Israeli children had been killed in the West Bank in conflict-related violence during the same period.

The Palestinian death toll in the ongoing Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip has risen to 39,699, according to the Palestine health authorities on Thursday.

On the Israeli side, about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas surprise attack on Israel on Oct 7.

But The Lancet, a well-respected medical journal based in the United Kingdom, said in July that the actual figure could reach more than 186,000 people, which is almost 8 percent of Gaza's prewar population of 2.3 million.

The toll is higher because the official figure does not include the thousands of Palestinians buried under the rubble and the indirect deaths due to the destruction of health facilities, food distribution centers and other public infrastructure, plus the prevalent famine, and shortage of water and shelter, The Lancet study said.

The recent relocation orders have also reduced the size of Israel's unilaterally designated "humanitarian zones" in Gaza from 20 percent to 14.5 percent, the Norwegian Refugee Council, or NRC, said in its latest report on the Gaza situation on Aug 6, based on an estimate by its Health, Safety and Security team.

The relocation orders, it noted, affected the eastern areas of Khan Younis on July 22, the southern areas of Khan Younis on July 27, and most of al-Bureij and the eastern areas of Nuseirat on July 28.

The UN estimates that 86 percent of Gaza is subject to Israeli-issued orders. Following that estimate, Israeli authorities issued new relocation orders in southern Khan Younis on Aug 5, further shrinking the "humanitarian zones", the NRC noted.

"Humanitarian partners on the ground estimate that over 200,000 people were displaced from Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah between 22-28 July following Israel's latest relocation orders," it said.

"Honestly, many families have been forced to flee six, seven or even 10 times. They are seeking shelter, searching for safety assuming they will be safe. But it turns out not because of dozens, or several attacks at all of the schools," Farsakh told China Daily.

Even civilian tents have been targeted, she said. "There are no safe places for civilians in Gaza.

"Because of the displacement of 2 million people, there is a new need to provide relief assistance for 2 million people. We need to get tents to accommodate these families, we need to get mattresses, blankets and whatever relief items, even hygiene kits. Unfortunately, because of the restrictions, not enough is getting into Gaza," Farsakh said.

Hassan Morajea, NRC's regional access adviser, said in the Palestinian city of Deir al-Balah that humanitarian aid in Gaza is trickling through "nowhere near enough to meet the dire needs of the population here".

Morajea added they are faced with "multiple layers of bureaucracy when attempting to bring basic aid items", pointing at Israeli restrictions and that "a breakdown of law and order "continues to hinder aid access.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking at a conference in Yad Binyamin, a community settlement in central Israel, hosted by the right-wing Israel Hayom media outlet, said that blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is "justified and moral" even if it causes 2 million civilians to die of hunger, but said the international community will not allow that to happen, the Times of Israel reported on Aug 5.

"These statements and many others, which are issued by the extremist ministers of the Israeli government and other Israeli officials, are very clear evidence that they have an intent to commit genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. And it is strange that the International Criminal Court still has no legal reaction to these statements," Abdalfatah Asqool, an international law lecturer at the University of Palestine, told China Daily.

The European Union strongly condemns recent declarations of Smotrich, said a statement of the European External Action Service.

The EU continues urging Israel to implement the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and binding orders of the International Court of Justice, it said.

In May, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan had sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes, including the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and two others. However, US congressmen, among others, have threatened Khan with sanctions for trying to have the Israeli leaders arrested.

On Aug 7, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying it submitted its declaration of intervention in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, following its announcement in May. Turkiye joined other countries such as Colombia, Nicaragua, Spain, Libya, Palestine and Mexico in the case.

"I think there is a belief now among many decision-makers within this government that only by force can they achieve their own political objectives," Ayman Talal Yousef, a professor of international relations at the Arab American University in Jenin in the West Bank, told China Daily.

"This will certainly delay any political deal, political diplomatic track that can be reached with Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has no option but to simply tell the world that Palestinians have been slaughtered in Gaza," he added.

Israel and Hamas had been in talks to reach a cease-fire deal through their Qatari, Egyptian and United States mediators for months. But with the recent assassination of Hamas political leader Haniyeh in Teheran, Iran, on July 31, the fate of the negotiations remains unclear.

"Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza, while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? Peace needs serious partners and a global stance against the disregard for human life," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani posted on his X account on the day of Haniyeh's assassination.

Abbas blamed Israel for killing Haniyeh "to prolong its war on Gaza", also calling it a cowardly act and a dangerous development in Israeli politics, Al Jazeera reported on Aug 6. Iran accused Israel of launching the airstrike on the residence of Haniyeh with US support. Israeli officials have not commented on the assassination while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US "was not aware of or involved in" the killing.

Asqool said though the ICC warrant on Haniyeh "will die by the death of the relevant person", Haniyeh's assassination "contains two violations of international law".

"The first, killing a political personnel, which means committing a crime of political assassination, and the second is violating the Iranian sovereignty, and according to international law, Iran has the right to self-defense and their sovereignty," said Asqool.

Veteran Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi said: "Gangster-style assassinations and extrajudicial executions are a matter of policy in Israel."

The former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee expressed despair over what she called "US complicity in Israeli crimes". These are attacks not just on the capitals of sovereign states but also on significant leaders to ensure total provocation and destabilization.

Arie Afriansyah, associate professor at the Faculty of Law at Universitas Indonesia, noted that despite numerous attempts, international law enforcement against Israel has proved "ineffective" because of US support for Israel.

"Supported primarily by the United States, Israel frequently dismisses international legal standards that conflict with its national interests. From a legal perspective, Israel should be held accountable for significant and widespread violations of international law and face corresponding international responsibilities," Afriansyah told China Daily. "However, this accountability is unlikely to be realized as long as the US continues to support Israel."

Major destruction

Nonetheless, "given the incontrovertible evidence of destruction and violence against Palestinians and their properties, it will be challenging for Israel to obscure or mitigate its substantial breaches of international law through limited humanitarian efforts in Gaza", he added.

Asqool from the University of Palestine said there should be consequences and sanctions for violating international laws and resolutions.

He cited sanctions or the banning of arms sales, which has not been adopted so far because "the US does not want this to happen".

"Because they are involved in this genocide against civilians in Gaza, which indicates that we live in a world ruled by the powers not laws," said Asqool.

He added that US appeals to Israel not to kill civilians and allow humanitarian aid "are not serious", and are only "lies" in a bid to "wash their hands of the Palestinians' blood".

US government leaders "have been calling for it since Oct 7 last year and nothing has been applied on the ground, but more killing and blood", said Asqool.

Instead of pressuring Israel to meet the promised proposals for the US-proposed three-phase cease-fire, the US not only invited Netanyahu for a visit to Washington, but gave him more than 50 standing ovations in his hourlong speech to the US Congress.

"One of the great shames of American politics in recent times to see this display of pitiful obeisance of the US to the mass murderer standing at the podium and in the context of tens of thousands of innocent women and children being slaughtered to the moment that Netanyahu talked and then he gave a litany of complete lies and after that has gone on with the continued murder and provocations of a wider war in the Middle East," said US economist and geopolitical commentator Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.

Mike Gu contributed to this story.