April 23, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

The US State Department’s annual report on human rights raises sharp concerns about the conflict between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, citing allegations of war crimes.

The report noted that “human rights groups reported extensive and in many cases unprecedented conflict-related abuses and alleged the commission of war crimes by Israel, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Palestinian militant groups.”

Those abuses include the killings, torture, abductions and sexual violence carried out by Hamas, PIJ and others on October 7, according to the report, which covers the year 2023.

They also include “reports of systemic torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment of Palestinian detainees in prison facilities after October 7” and the forced disappearance of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza.

While the report does not represent the US government’s own conclusions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in remarks Monday that “we have processes within the department that are looking at that incidents that have been raised.”

Melanie Ward still remembers the terrified mother in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, who begged her to expose the plight of Palestinians trying to survive Israel’s bombardment in Gaza.  

"How do you tell a mother of a child in hospital that the problem isn't that the world doesn't know what's being done to them? It's that the world has no will to stop it,” Ward, the CEO for the relief group Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), told CNN by phone on Wednesday.  

Scores of displaced patients and their relatives covered the grounds of Al-Aqsa hospital, said Ward, who visited the medical facility in central Gaza earlier this month.

Ward described scenes of injured children screaming in pain and overwhelmed doctors struggling to prevent infections among wounded patients.

Israel’s severe aid restrictions have drained water and medical supplies, Ward added.  

Local staff displaced by Israel’s military offensive are facing the grief of relatives killed by bombardment, while others shelter in homes that Israeli missiles have partially destroyed, Ward told CNN.

Those in the north are struggling to find food, she said.    

An independent review of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has said the agency's neutrality must be strengthened.

Earlier this year, Israel accused at least 12 UNRWA staffers of being involved in Hamas' October 7 attacks and has alleged that about 12% of the agency's 13,000 staffers are members of Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups.

The review, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and published Monday, was not tasked with addressing Israel's allegations but had a broader mandate to "assess whether UNRWA is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality."

Despite UNRWA adopting a "robust framework" in 2017 to address issues of neutrality, the issues persist, the review said.

However, the report did note that "Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence" for their allegations that "a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations."

The review also found that “UNRWA's facilities have sometimes been misused for political or military gains, undermining its neutrality.”

Israel's response: “The Colonna report ignores the severity of the problem, and offers cosmetic solutions that do not deal with the enormous scope of Hamas' infiltration of UNRWA,” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said, adding this is not what a “genuine and thorough review looks like. This is what an effort to avoid the problem and not address it head on looks like.”

Israel has longstanding issues with UNRWA, accusing it of aiding Hamas and calling for it to be entirely dismantled.

Efforts to reach two hospitals in northern Gaza over the weekend were only partly successful because of delays at checkpoints and ongoing fighting, according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

"On 20 April, WHO and partners could only partially complete their mission to Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals due to severe delays at checkpoints and ongoing hostilities," Tedros wrote Monday.

The mission was nonetheless able to evacuate four critically sick patients from Kamal Adwan, along with their caretakers, including one at possible risk of having a leg amputated, he said.

Children desperately looking for food hold empty plates and saucepans in the streets and raw sewage spills in between rows of tents.

These are among the memories Melanie Ward has of Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than 1 million people have been forced to flee Israel’s bombardment, according to the United Nations.

"Every morning you wake up to the sound of gunfire from battleships off the coast,” Ward, the CEO for the relief group Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), told CNN by phone on Wednesday. “You literally never know if something is about to hit you.” 

placed Palestinians who have been uprooted from their homes and packed into the tiny area of land fear they will have nowhere to escape to ahead of an anticipated bloody Israeli ground offensive, said Ward, who visited Rafah earlier this month. 

Displaced Palestinians who have been uprooted from their homes and packed into the tiny area of land fear they will have nowhere to escape to ahead of an anticipated bloody Israeli ground offensive, said Ward, who visited Rafah earlier this month. 

“Where over a million people are supposed to go from Rafah, I do not know. It’s impossible to see.”  

A UN expert warned on Monday that the psychological terror of Israel’s offensive in Gaza could manifest years from now in the form of increased mental health illnesses among Palestinians there.

Ward told CNN that Gazans are “completely exhausted” by more than six months of persistent bombardment, displacement and siege.  

A mass grave with nearly 300 bodies has been uncovered at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Gaza Civil Defense workers said Monday, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.

Col. Yamen Abu Suleiman, Director of Civil Defense in Khan Younis told CNN Monday that “today, 73 bodies were recovered” in the courtyard at the Nasser Medical Complex which brought the “total number to 283.”

A CNN stringer who visited the scene Sunday said people had buried the bodies of family members who had been killed on the grounds of the hospital in January as a temporary measure.

When they returned after the Israeli withdrawal, they found the bodies had been exhumed – apparently because the IDF was using DNA testing to determine whether any of the hostages held in Gaza were among the dead.

The bodies were then placed in at least one collective grave, the stringer said.

One man at the scene told CNN that he was yet to find the body of his 21-year-old son, who was killed in January.

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The European Union’s foreign ministers have agreed to expand existing sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile program, the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said Monday.

Borrell said the new sanctions enlarge "the geographical area of this framework to cover drone and missile deliveries not only to Russia” but also Iran's proxies in the region.

The sanctions will broaden the list of components blocked from being exported from the EU that are used to produce drones and missiles.

The EU’s decision comes after Iran’s recent unprecedented attack on Israel, which came after a suspected Israeli attack on an Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria earlier this month.

The US last week announced new sanctions on 16 people and two entities associated with Iran’s drone program.