NGO Action News – 29 August 2024

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Middle East

• On 28 August, Al Mezan, Al Haq and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights issued a press release to express their concerns for Palestinian communities in the occupied northern West Bank after the Israel Defense Forces launched a major military operation, mainly in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas, and the refugee camps therein. The NGOs informed that this attack involved the extensive deployment of military force, including hundreds of Israeli soldiers, the air force, and an array of military vehicles, including bulldozers, in what has been described by the media as the biggest operation in the West Bank since 2002.
• On 27 August, Al Shabaka published the policy brief “Food Sovereignty in a Palestinian Economy of Resistance”. The paper described how Palestinians have long worked towards establishing a resistance economy and how food sovereignty was constituting a natural continuation of such resistance, building upon the principles of agricultural self-sufficiency.
• On 27 August, Al Mezan and Al Haq published an article informing that the Israel Defense Forces issued five new displacement orders targeting central Gaza between 16 and 25 August, especially the city of Deir Al-Balah and its surrounding areas – all locations that had previously been designated as part of the so-called ‘humanitarian safe zone’. According to the NGOs, Israel had issued nine displacement orders, in August alone, targeting various areas of Khan Younis and an additional four orders for northern Gaza. These latest orders were issued on top of displacement directives that have been in effect in northern Gaza since 13 October 2023. Since then, UN OCHA estimates that Israel put 88.5% of Gaza’s territory under displacement orders.
• On 26 August, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights published a new report calling for international pressure on Israel to cease the destruction of cultural property of the Palestinian people. The report provided an overview of Israel’s major violations and acts of hostility directed against historical monuments and cultural properties in the Gaza Strip.
• On 26 August, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies published a letter from several human rights groups addressed to representatives of the European Union requesting that the EU take action against the Israeli authorities’ unprecedented killing of journalists and other violations of media freedom. The letter further highlighted the widespread and systematic abuses committed by Israeli authorities in Gaza, the West Bank, inside Israel and elsewhere, adding that these violations should trigger the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and further EU targeted sanctions against those responsible.

Africa, Asia and Europe

• On 27 August, Amnesty International informed that its new investigations concluded that the Israel Defense Forces had failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimise harm to civilians sheltering at camps for internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip while carrying out two attacks targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and fighters in the south of the Strip in May. According to the NGO, these attacks likely were indiscriminate, and one attack likely also was disproportionate. Amnesty International added that the presence of military targets did not absolve Israeli forces of their obligations under international humanitarian law, including their duty to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality, as well as their obligation to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians.
• On 26 August, Association Belgo-Palestinienne published an article (in French) on the situation of farmers and agricultural land in Gaza. The article stressed that many farmers had lost their farms and lands, destroyed during the bombing campaigns, which contributed to the risk of famine affecting all the inhabitants of the Strip.
• On 23 August, the Norwegian Refugee Council published an article titled “A life in ruins”, presenting the testimony of a Palestinian family from Al-Mawasi, a narrow strip of land stretching 14 kilometres along the southern Gaza Strip. The article described how their lives had been shattered on the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks, and how Al-Mawasi sheltered many Palestinians displaced from other parts of Gaza during the current conflict.

North America

• On 28 August, Americans for Peace Now published a statement supporting the imposition of new sanctions by U.S. Government on extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The NGO urged the U.S. State Department to continue its investigations into these violent settlers and their organizations, and to implement further sanctions, which should also include the leaders of the settler movement.
• On 26 August, Human Rights Watch issued a press release informing that Israeli military attacks in Gaza on healthcare infrastructure and water supplies and ongoing aid obstruction were contributing to a potentially catastrophic polio outbreak. The NGO stated that Israel’s partners should press its government to lift the blockade on Gaza immediately and ensure unfettered humanitarian access to enable the timely distribution of vaccines to contain the unfolding polio outbreak.
• On 26 August, Churches of Middle East Peace published a statement supporting the public appeal of Patriarchs and Heads of Church in Jerusalem for an urgent end of the current war. The statement further reads that the United States and all international parties should demand positive movement toward a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire without delay and promote a constructive diplomatic pathway to address longstanding core issues of the conflict such as the decades long occupation of the Palestinian people.
• On 23 August, Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) published the webinar “The Accountability Archive”. During the event, Nour Joudah, FMEP Non-Resident Fellow, Philip Proudfoot and Mahdi Zaidan, from the Accountability Archive initiative, discussed the project that keeps records of journalists, politicians, and public figures who are encouraging the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and defaming pro-Palestinian activists, and the challenges of working with such graphic material.

United Nations

• On 30 August at 3 p.m., the UN Palestinian Rights Committee will convene a Committee Meeting in the United Nations Trusteeship Council Chamber at UNHQ in New York. At this meeting the Committee will adopt its Annual Report for 2024. Live streaming of the meeting will be available on UN Web TV.
• On 22 August, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, briefed the Security Council on the Situation in the Middle East. The Special Coordinator recalled that the scale of destruction in Gaza was immense, and that it will take years, if not decades, to recover. He added that the UN was working to repair and improve almost entirely defunct water, sanitation, and hygiene systems in Gaza. Mr. Wennesland also stated that the UN remained committed and ready to scale up humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire and support the implementation of a deal. He added that only a sustained ceasefire could enable a full-scale humanitarian and early recovery response in Gaza.