Introduction by Croakey: In a significant development today, the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand issued a joint statement raising grave concerns about indications that Israel is planning a ground offensive into Rafah in southern Gaza, warning that this would be “catastrophic”, and calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and release of hostages.
“With the humanitarian situation in Gaza already dire, the impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating,” said the statement. “We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path. There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go.
“There is growing international consensus. Israel must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community. The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas.
“The International Court of Justice has been clear: Israel must ensure the delivery of basic services and essential humanitarian assistance and must protect civilians. The Court’s decisions on provisional measures are binding.”
Meanwhile, health and medical organisations and humanitarian agencies continue to call for ceasefire amid escalating concerns about attacks on healthcare and the life-long impacts of the violence and trauma upon the children of Gaza.
Melissa Sweet writes:
A move by Israeli Defence Forces to evacuate thousands of displaced people sheltering inside Nasser hospital, in Khan Yunis, the largest medical facility in southern Gaza, has been strongly condemned by health and medical agencies.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said medical staff, patients and displaced people are trapped inside the compound with very little access to essential supplies. Many people who were wounded by the intense bombing in Khan Yunis were also unable to reach the hospital for emergency care.
In a statement on 14 February, MSF said in recent days at least five people were believed to have been killed and ten others wounded after shots were fired directly at the hospital.
MSF said its medical teams and patients had been forced to evacuate nine different healthcare facilities since the war began in Gaza, after coming under fire from tanks, artillery, fighter jets, snipers and ground troops, or being subject to an evacuation order.
“Medical staff and patients have been arrested, abused and killed. Provision of healthcare and scaling up lifesaving assistance is being made impossible by the intensity of Israel’s bombings and shelling, as well as intense fighting,” MSF said.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was alarmed by reports from the Nasser Medical Complex, which had been under siege for around a week. Storage facilities for medical equipment and supplies were reported destroyed, and access to the hospital remains obstructed.
Two WHO missions had been denied in the last four days and the WHO had lost touch with the hospital’s personnel, he said in a statement on X/Twitter on 14 February.
“Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected,” he said. “Humanitarian access must be allowed. Hospitals must be safeguarded so that they can serve their life-saving function. They must not be militarised or attacked.”
Fears for Rafah
Meanwhile, as ceasefire talks falter, Israel is coming under growing pressure – including from Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada – over its planned military assault on Rafah, where about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now crammed.
The people in Rafah are “staring death in the face”, according to Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, warning that military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter.
In a statement on 13 February, he said the people of Gaza “are the victims of an assault that is unparalleled in its intensity, brutality and scope”.
A senior WHO representative has expressed deep concerns about “the unfathomable catastrophe” that the potential expansion of military operations could cause in Rafah.
Dr Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, said “fear and panic” are evident on everyone’s face in Rafah.
“We warn that a new wave of displacement and additional injuries will have dire consequences on people’s health and mental wellbeing and increase the trauma burden on the already ailing health system – pushing it closer to the brink of collapse,” he told a media conference on 14 February.
“The hospitals are overwhelmed, overflowing, and undersupplied. Health workers are exhausted, many cut off from their families.”
Ongoing attacks on healthcare are compounding the crisis. Since 7 October, WHO has documented 378 attacks in the Gaza Strip. Around 70 health workers remain in detention. WHO is deeply concerned about their safety and wellbeing.
WHO estimates that more than 8,000 people need medical referrals outside Gaza – 6,000 related to war injuries and 2,000 linked to other medical conditions. Since the start of the war, only 1,243 patients have been medically referred outside Gaza (798 injured and 445 sick), in addition to 1,025 companions.
After more than four months of intense Israeli bombardment, sparked by Hamas-led attacks in Israel on 7 October that left approximately 1,200 people dead and another 250 taken hostage, health authorities in Gaza reported that more than 28,000 people – mostly women and children – have been killed.
Lost childhoods
The killing of a six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, who had begged for help after being trapped by Israeli military fire, has focused attention on the dire situation for children in Gaza.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance it sent to rescue Hind Rajab after she had spent hours on the phone to dispatchers begging for help with the sound of shooting evident to listeners.
Ann Skelton, Chair of the UN Child Rights Committee, has presented a bleak picture of the present and future for Gaza’s children.
“…today no child in Gaza is free from fear, pain and hunger. In fact they will be considered lucky if they can even survive this war and have the chance to grow up,” she said on 11 February.
“All children living in the Gaza Strip have lost their childhood. They are traumatised and will forever live with a permanent impact on their mental health.”
Medical perspectives
In Australia, the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) has joined with multiple other humanitarian voices in urging “enough is enough”, stating that this war must end.
“The deprivation of healthcare for two million people, tens of thousands of them injured, countless more suffering infectious illnesses from overcrowding and lack of sanitation, in addition to all the usual medical needs of a population of that size, and now starvation as well, is the most grave and shocking criminal assault on the right to healthcare in living memory,” MAPW president Dr Sue Wareham said in a statement to Croakey.
“A military invasion of Rafah, the last possible place of refuge in Gaza for those desperately seeking safety, would be unconscionable, and would strengthen claims that the world is witnessing genocide.”
The statement also expressed MAPW despair at Australia’s ongoing withholding of aid funding from UNRWA – the organisation on which practically every citizen of Gaza now depends for life-saving services.
“Foreign Minister Wong recently commented that Australia’s decision to pause this funding was made without knowing all the facts of the allegations against UNRWA. Her comment reinforces just how cheap innocent Palestinian lives have become, when a decision that has such dire consequences for them can be made so hastily and readily,” said Dr Wareham.
“As Palestinians continue to die by the thousands, Minister Wong has still not restored desperately-needed funding for UNRWA. Australia has placed big power politics above the lives of innocent people and their right to healthcare, setting an extraordinarily dangerous and deeply shameful precedent.”
Read the joint statement on the risk of famine 
Previously at Croakey
- As humanitarian nightmare escalates in Gaza, and the world enters “an age of chaos”, we must work harder for peace
- As global leaders and aid groups speak up about “catastrophic crisis” in Gaza, health professionals are under pressure to remain silent
- Health workers and agencies document the war’s wide-ranging impacts on people in Gaza
- From Gaza: finding words for the unimaginable
- Health leaders join growing calls for permanent ceasefire in Gaza and Israel
- As the people in Gaza experience a “living hell”, medical and humanitarian leaders step up pressure for a permanent ceasefire
- This doctor is urging medical leadership on ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, as United Nations warns of threat to global security
- Amid catastrophic health threats in Gaza, health leaders urge a permanent ceasefire
- Amid ongoing health catastrophe in Gaza, why the silence?
- As Gaza hospitals become “scenes of death, devastation, and despair”, global community urged to act for peace
- Doctors who work with refugees urge medical organisations to speak up for a ceasefire in Gaza
- “Worse every day”: toll mounts in Gaza, including for children and health workers
- “This cannot go on” – a cry for an end to intolerable suffering
- Medical organisation publishes open letter expressing “extreme concern” at Australia’s failure to support ceasefire in Gaza
- Health sector urged to speak out for ceasefire in Gaza
- Calls for ceasefire amid catastrophe in Gaza – “every child everywhere deserves peace”
