By David L. Phillips
NEW YORK, Dec 22 2023 – Benjamin Netanyahu must go. Under the guise of judicial reform, Netanyahu has undermined the rule of law and divided the country. He is toxic to Arab states, even those which have signed the Abraham Accords. Netanyahu has become an impediment to Israel’s democratic development and regional relations.

Israel needs a new government committed to peace and a cabinet that champions reconciliation. Perpetual war plays into the hands of Hamas. It placates Jewish hardliners who oppose the national aspirations of Palestinians. War also serves Netanyahu by distracting voters and delaying accountability for his government’s intelligence failures on October 7.

It took up to ten hours for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to react to Hamas’ invasion. Known for its security and intelligence services, Israel was caught flat-footed. Panicked residents of kibbutzim cowered in safe rooms, while 1,200 Israelis were killed, butchered in their homes and on the grounds of the Nova Music Festival. Hundreds were taken hostage by Hamas, gang-raped and turned into sexual slaves. One hundred and thirty remain in captivity.

It is impossible to reconcile Israel’s objectives. Israel cannot eradicate Hamas and free hostages captive in the subterranean world of Gaza’s tunnel network. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin just visited Jerusalem to discuss priorities and scaling back Israel’s offensive.

In the fog of war, the IDF killed three Israeli hostages last week displaying a white flag and speaking in Hebrew. Shooting people, even Hamas members who surrender, violates the laws of war and Israel’s military code. Exhausted and trigger happy, the incident is under investigation. The Israeli army chief of staff and the intelligence chief issued apologies. Netanyahu prevaricated, delaying his meeting with hostage families.

The incident caused outrage across Israel, raising questions about Israel’s conduct of the war. The Hamas Ministry of Health claims that 20,000 Palestinian civilians have died as a result of IDF activities. Hostage families are demanding an investigation.

There is a growing clamor to bring the hostages home. Hostage families are also demanding a plan to end the war. They have generally been supportive of Netanyahu’s response, but they are wavering. They believe that continued action in Gaza risks the lives of the remaining 130 hostages. The bungled operation has brought Israeli institutions – the IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad – into disrepute.

Even President Joe Biden, Israel’s biggest backer, criticized the IDF for its “indiscriminate bombing.” France, Germany and Britain are also fed up and have demanded a “sustainable ceasefire.”

Netanyahu said there will be a time and place for an inquiry into the Hamas attack and Israel’s response. He believes that the longer it takes for an inquiry, the more the passions of hostage families will be mollified.

Israel’s slow grinding war with Hamas must stop. Israel was justified in launching a reprisal after October 7, especially as details of the brutality came to light. Two months later, the IDF seems to be flailing about. Israel has been characterized as the aggressor and has lost the moral high ground. For sure, Israel has every right to defend itself. But what started as calculated counterterrorism now seems more like rage and revenge.

Can Hamas even be defeated? Hamas is more than an organization. It is a movement. For every Hamas terrorist that Israel kills, more Palestinian militants are waiting in the wings.

It’s time for a new approach. An interim government overseen by the Palestinian Authority should be established and make plans for an eventual Palestinian state living side-by-side at peace with Israel.

Indiscriminate bombing is counterproductive. A more surgical approach would differentiate between Hamas and Gazans, addressing claims of collective punishment.

Internationally mediated talks would ensue when the hostages are freed. Palestinians need a national horizon to separate themselves from the clutches of Hamas.

Israeli elections would likely repudiate Netanyahu and lead to the creation of a peace cabinet, putting Israel back on track as a democracy that respects minority rights and values good neighborly relations.

It is unimaginable that Netanyahu can survive his putrid performance. Prosecutors are waiting to charge Netanyahu with corruption. Israelis can debate the details of government formation for months, but polling suggests that regime change is something that Israelis agree on now.

David Phillips is an Adjunct Professor at the Security Studies Program of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2023 – As the killings of civilians in Gaza rose to over 20,000, the besieged city—which has been virtually reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardments—is also being ravaged by hunger and starvation.

In new estimates released on December 21, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership that includes the World Health Organization (WHO), said Gaza is facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” with the risk of famine “increasing each day.”

An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food, and high levels of malnutrition.

At least 1 in 4 households are facing “catastrophic conditions”: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.

The World Food Programme warns that these levels of acute food insecurity are unprecedented in recent history and that Gaza risks famine.

Shaza Moghraby, Spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said: “I have been exposed to many IPC reports on various countries throughout my time at WFP and I have never seen anything like this before. The levels of acute food insecurity are unprecedented in terms of seriousness, speed of deterioration and complexity.”

Gaza risks famine. The population falling into the “catastrophe” classification of food security in Gaza or IPC Level 5 is more than four times higher than the total number of people currently facing similar conditions worldwide (577,000 compared to 129,000 respectively).

A family cooks a meal in a temporary accommodation in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Credit: WFP

“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the opening of all border crossings and the resumption of commercial cargo to provide relief, put an end to the suffering and avert the very serious threat of famine. We cannot wait for famine to be declared before we act,” she said.

On recent missions to north Gaza, WHO staff say that every single person they spoke to in Gaza is hungry. Wherever they went, including hospitals and emergency wards, people asked them for food.

“We move around Gaza delivering medical supplies and people rush to our trucks hoping it’s food,” they said, calling it “an indicator of the desperation.”

Meanwhile, in a new report released this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Israeli government of using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”

“Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival”.

Since Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, high-ranking Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Energy Minister Israel Kat have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel – statements reflecting a policy being carried out by Israeli forces, HRW said.

Other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza would be conditioned either on the release of hostages unlawfully held by Hamas or Hamas’ destruction.

“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.

“World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 displaced Palestinians in Gaza between November 24 and December 4. They described their profound hardships in securing basic necessities. “We had no food, no electricity, no internet, nothing at all,” said one man who had left northern Gaza. “We don’t know how we survived.”

Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America said the shocking figures describing the high levels of starvation in Gaza are a direct, damning, and predictable consequence of Israel’s policy choices – and President Biden’s unconditional support and diplomatic approach.

“Anyone paying attention cannot be surprised by these figures after more than two months of complete siege, denial of humanitarian aid, and destruction of residential neighborhoods, bakeries, mills, farms, and other infrastructure essential for food and water production,” she said.

“Israel has the right to defend its people from attacks, but it does not have the right to use starvation as a weapon of war to collectively punish an entire civilian population in reprisal. That is a war crime.”

“The US government has repeatedly given Israel diplomatic cover, but now must urgently change course and put politics aside to prioritize the lives of civilians”, said Maxman.

“ As humanitarians, we know no amount of aid can meaningfully address this spiraling crisis without an end to the bombing and siege, but it is unconscionable to deny it to Palestinian families who are starving”.

She argued the Biden administration must use all of its influence to achieve an immediate ceasefire to stop the bloodshed, allow for the safe return of hostages to Israel, and allow aid and commercial goods in, “so we can save lives now.”

“The US cannot continue to stand by and allow Palestinians to be starved to death.”

According to WHO, Gaza is also experiencing soaring rates of infectious diseases. Over 100, 000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported since mid-October. Half of these are among young children under the age of 5 years, case numbers that are 25 times what was reported before the conflict.

Over 150 000 cases of upper respiratory infection, and numerous cases of meningitis, skin rashes, scabies, lice and chickenpox have been reported. Hepatitis is also suspected as many people present with the tell-tale signs of jaundice.

“While a healthy body can more easily fight off these diseases, a wasted and weakened body will struggle. Hunger weakens the body’s defences and opens the door to disease,” WHO warned.

Meanwhile, HRW said international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.

Criminal intent does not require the attacker’s admission but can also be inferred from the totality of the circumstances of the military campaign.

In addition, Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza, as well as its more than 16-year closure, amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, a war crime. As the occupying power in Gaza under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel has the duty to ensure that the civilian population gets food and medical supplies.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Farhana Haque Rahman
TORONTO, Canada, Dec 22 2023 – The year 2023 has brought so much tragedy, with incomprehensible loss of lives, whether from wars or devastating ‘natural’ disasters, while our planet has seen yet more records broken as our climate catastrophe worsens.

And so as the clock ticks towards the (mostly western) New Year, readers are traditionally subjected by media outlets like ours to the ‘yearender’ – usually a roundup of main events over the previous 12 months, one horror often overshadowed by the next.

Farhana Haque Rahman

So forgive us if for 2023 IPS takes a somewhat different approach, highlighting how humanity can do better, and how the big depressing picture should not obscure the myriad small but positive steps being taken out there.

COP28, the global climate conference held this month in Dubai, could neatly fit the ‘big depressing’ category. Hosted by a petrostate with nearly 100,000 people registered to attend, many of them lobbyists for fossil fuels and other polluters, it would be natural to address its outcomes with scepticism.

However, while Yamide Dagnet, Director for Climate Justice at the Open Society Foundations, described COP28 as “imperfect”, she said it also marked “an important and unprecedented step forward in our ‘course correction’ for a just transition towards resilient and greener economies.”

UN climate chief Simon Stiell acknowledged shortcomings in the compromise resolutions on fossil fuels and the level of funding for the Loss and Damages Fund. But the outcome, he said, was also the “beginning of the end” for the fossil fuel era.

Imperfect as it was and still based on old structures, COP28 hinted at the possible: a planetary approach to governance where common interests spanning climate, biodiversity and the whole health of Earth outweigh and supersede the current dominant global system of rule by nation states.

As we have tragically witnessed in 2023, the existing system – as vividly reflected in the repetitive stalemate among the five veto-bearing members of the UN Security Council – is failing to find resolution to the major conflicts of this year, Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. Not to mention older and half-forgotten conflicts in places like Myanmar (18.6 million people in need of humanitarian aid) and in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (seven million displaced).

The unrestrained destruction of Gaza and the disproportionate killings of over 17,000, (now the death toll is “at least 20,000 people” according to Palestinian officials) mostly civilians– in retaliation for 1,200 killings by Hamas and 120 hostages in captivity– have left the Palestinians in a state of deep isolation and weighed down by a feeling of being deserted by the world at large.

The United Nations and the international community have remained helpless– with UN resolutions having no impact– while American pleas for restrained aerial bombings continue to be ignored by the Israelis in an act of defiance, wrote IPS senior journalist Thalif Deen.

The hegemony of the nation-state system is surely not going to disappear soon but – without wanting to sound too idealistic — its foundations are being chipped away by civil society where interdependence prevails over the divide and rule of the existing order. And so for a few examples encountered in our reporting:

CIVICUS Lens, standing for social justice and rooted in the global south, offers analysis of major events from a civil society perspective, such as its report on the security crisis gripping Haiti casting doubt over the viability of an international plan to dispatch a Kenya-led police contingent.

Education Cannot Wait, a global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, lobbied at COP28 for a $150 million appeal to support school-aged children facing climate shocks, such as the devastating drought in Somalia and Ethiopia, and floods in Pakistan where many of the 26,000 schools hit in 2022 remain closed.

Leprosy, an ancient but curable disease, had been pegged back in terms of new case numbers but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 made it harder for patients to get treatment and for new cases to be reported. Groups such as the Sasakawa Health Foundation are redoubling efforts to promote early detection and treatment.

With 80 percent of the world’s poorest living closer to the epicenters of climate-induced disasters, civil society is hammering at the doors of global institutions to address the challenges of adaptation and mitigation.

Lobbying on the sidelines of COP28 in Dubai was activist Joshua Amponsem, co-director of the Youth Climate Justice Fund who questioned why weather-resilient housing was not yet a reality in Mozambique’s coastal regions despite the increasing ferocity of tropical cyclones.

“My key message is really simple. The clock is ticking for food security in Africa,” Dr Simeon Ehui told IPS as the newly appointed Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture which works with partners across sub-Saharan Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.

Dr Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which has received record-breaking pledges in support of its largest ever replenishment, warns that under current trends 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030.

“Hunger remains a political issue, mostly caused by poverty, inequality, conflict, corruption and overall lack of access to food and resources. In a world of plenty, which produces enough food to feed everyone, how can there be hundreds of millions going hungry?” he asked.

Empowering communities in a bid to protect and rejuvenate the ecosystems of Pacific communities is the aim of the Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity conservation effort launched at COP28 by Palau’s President Surangel Whipps who noted that the world was not on track to meet any of the 17 sustainable development goals or climate goals by 2030.

A scientist with a life-long career studying coral reefs, David Obura was appointed this year as the new chair of IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

“We really have reached planetary limits and I think interest in oceans is rising because we have very dramatically reached the limits of land,” says Dr Obura, “What the world needs to understand is how strongly nature and natural systems, even when highly altered such as agricultural systems, support people and economies very tangibly. It’s the same with the ocean.”

An ocean-first approach to the fight against climate change is also the pillar of a Dalhousie University research program, Transforming Climate Action, launched last May and funded by the Canadian government. Traditional knowledges of Indigenous People will be a focus.

As Max Roser, an economist making academic research accessible to all, reminds us: for more people to devote their energy to making progress tackling large global problems, we should ensure that more people know that it is possible.

Focusing on the efforts of civil society and projecting hope amidst all the heartbreak of 2023 might come across as futile and wasted, but in its coverage IPS will continue to highlight efforts and successes, big and small, that deserve to be celebrated.

Farhana Haque Rahman is the Executive Director of IPS Inter Press Service Noram and Senior Vice President of IPS; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015 to 2019. A journalist and communications expert who lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development IFAD.

IPS UN Bureau

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