At least three children, including two infants and a nine-year-old, died from hypothermia or cold exposure within a 24-hour period. Another five were crushed after a house sheltering displaced civilians collapsed due to the storm. As of Friday, at least 14 people were reported dead from the storm, and several more are injured, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security.
“Civilians are now wading through sewage, mud, and debris, with no proper shelter,” said Bushra Khalidi, the policy lead for Oxfam in the occupied Palestinian territories. “This is not a failure of preparedness or capacity; it’s the direct result of the systematic obstruction of aid.”
“The Israeli authorities continue to block the entry of basic shelter materials, fuel, and water infrastructure, leaving people exposed to entirely preventable harm,” Khalidi continued. “When access is denied, storms become deadly. This suffering is being manufactured by policy, not weather.”…
What is the solution to dealing with an enemy that shows a history of attacking, dispossessing and oppressing Palestinians with no sign of stopping?
It’s foolish to pretend that this conflict has only come about because one side (whichever side that may be) has simply spontaneously chosen to be evil. There are sufficient valid grievances on both sides to fuel decades of violence, just as there were in, e.g., Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka. But pretending that only one side is responsible for the conflict is just going to make it harder to achieve any actually effective solution.
I mean, you cannot possibly be ignorant of the fact that Palestinians were killed or displaced by Israel before Oct 7th, so I don’t understand what the function of such an obviously hollow rhetorical question actually is.
Massacring civilians is always unjustifiable, whether by Hamas or the IDF. Similarly, restricting lifesaving aid to civilians in desperate circumstances is also always unjustifiable.
IDF members (and at least one US mercenary) have personally reported witnessing and being given orders to shoot unarmed civilians who posed no threat.
Gaza has no functioning government right now, aside from Israel, which controls access to food and aid. Gazan civilians are humans with human rights, and many are desperate and dying of very avoidable causes, and they would be surviving instead of dying if only the Israeli government would allow lifesaving aid to reach them.