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doctors without borders
'A Disgrace': Italy Issues New Detention Order for Ship Saving Lives in Mediterranean
"This is unacceptable for a country under the rule of law," said a representative for Doctors Without Borders.
Sep 26, 2024
International aid group Doctors Without Borders said Wednesday that it plans to appeal the latest detention orders placed by Italian authorities on its search and rescue vessel, Geo Barents, arguing the directives were aimed at preventing it from saving the lives of refugees in the Mediterranean Sea.
"This is unacceptable for a country under the rule of law," said Juan Matias Gil, a representative for the organization, which is also known by the French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The latest orders against the group and its ship were issued on Monday, days after MSF helped 206 refugees disembark in Genoa, Italy on September 19.
After that rescue, the group received a distress alert from a plane that monitors the passage of asylum-seekers across the Mediterranean, where thousands of people have drowned in the past decade while attempting to reach Europe after fleeing violent conflicts, political unrest, and poverty.
The Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center gave the Geo Barents crew approval to proceed to the overcrowded wooden boat detected by the plane, which was holding around 110 people from Syria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Egypt.
But as MSF was about to complete the rescue, with just 20 people left in the boat, a Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat that had been donated by Italy arrived at the scene.
"They arrived, threatened to shoot, and carried out unsafe and intimidating maneuvers around the people in distress and the MSF rescue team," said Fulvia Conte, search and rescue team leader for MSF.
The group said the order, which requires the Geo Barents to be detained at a port for 60 days, is based on "twisted logic" and MSF's "alleged failure to comply with instructions from unreliable and often dangerous Libyan coast guards," said Judith Sunderland, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, who was aboard the Geo Barents as it completed the rescue.
"It is a disgrace that the Italian authorities still consider the Libyan Coast Guard to be a reliable actor and source of information."
"People fleeing Libya often tell us about violent interceptions at sea carried out by the E.U.-backed Libyan Coast Guard," said Gil. "It has been documented by the United Nations and independent investigative journalists that the Libyan Coast Guard is complicit in serious human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity, and collusion with smugglers and traffickers. It is a disgrace that the Italian authorities still consider the Libyan Coast Guard to be a reliable actor and source of information."
Sunderland noted that earlier this month, a judge lifted a previous 60-day detention order against the ship, with Italian authorities claiming MSF had caused "a dangerous situation by rescuing dozens of people from the water at night."
"The judge concluded the rescue had been 'urgent and unavoidable' and the detention jeopardized the organization's humanitarian objectives," wrote Sunderland.
Even though MSF had approval to complete the rescue on September 19, the first detention order was issued under the Piantedosi Decree, a law introduced in 2023 which requires non-governmental rescue ships to sail to the assigned port after a rescue, without picking up people from other boats in distress.
The second order was issued Monday following an in-depth inspection of Geo Barents by the Port State Control, which said it found eight technical deficiencies on the vessel.
Conte said such inspections "are another layer of administrative and technical instrumentalization of laws and regulations that the authorities have been using for the past seven years to obstruct the work of humanitarian search and rescue vessels in the Mediterranean."
"This one seems to have the intention to ensure we don't operate anytime soon," she said. "We are moving to quickly address these deficiencies and to go back to prevent deaths at sea."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of HRW, said the latest orders suggest the Italian government is doing everything in its power "to stop NGO rescue ships from operating in the Mediterranean because rescuing migrants gets in the way of Italy's (and the E.U.'s) preferred approach of using the risk of drowning as a deterrent to migration."
MSF has helped rescue more than 91,000 people in search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, including 12,540 people who have been saved by the Geo Barents crew since 2021.
U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawlor said in 2023 that the punishment and criminalization of people working to save refugees from drowning was "a darkening stain on Italy and the E.U.'s commitment to human rights," after the Italian authorities brought criminal charges for "aiding and abetting unauthorized immigration" against nearly two dozen rescue crew members and rights advocates.
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'It Felt Like Gaza': West Bank Residents Describe Brutality of IDF's Assault
"We can only imagine what the people in Gaza are enduring."
Sep 06, 2024
Israeli forces reportedly withdrew from the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday after launching the largest military assault on the illegally occupied territory in more than two decades, leaving in their wake destroyed roads, homes, medical infrastructure, and Palestinian lives.
The 10 days of raids in Jenin as well as Tulkarem and other areas of the West Bank have killed dozens of people, including a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, and wounded and displaced many more, compounding damage done by preceding months of violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Israeli forces were also accused of targeting journalists and healthcare workers during their raids.
Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said in a statement Thursday that the large-scale West Bank assault "severely" hindered "Palestinians' ability to access medical care" and forced the humanitarian group to suspend some of its operations.
One volunteer paramedic trained by MSF said she was "hit by munitions from the air and was injured above my eye and got shrapnel wounds" even though she was clearly identifiable as medical personnel. Another paramedic said Israeli forces stormed his home and assaulted him despite his efforts to make clear he was a healthcare worker.
"I informed them several times that I was a volunteer for medical organizations," the paramedic said, "but they dragged me out and kicked my back before pointing a weapon at my head."
Doctors Without Borders says they have to suspend operations in some parts of the WEST BANK.
Israel has normalized attacking medical workers and obstructing access to healthcare.
pic.twitter.com/SRUgKZeLvI
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) September 5, 2024
While Israeli soldiers appeared to have withdrawn from Jenin and other areas by Friday morning, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) signaled that the assault was not yet over.
"Israeli security forces are continuing to act in order to achieve the objectives of the counterterrorism operation," the IDF said in a statement.
Residents who witnessed the latest raids and their aftermath firsthand described the indiscriminate nature of the IDF's assault, saying Israeli forces wantonly bulldozed roads, cut off water and electricity services, and attacked homes. The IDF said it ripped up roads to unearth explosives.
"It felt like Gaza," 36-year-old Lina Al Amouri toldCNN by telephone from Jenin. "All the streets were destroyed. Soldiers were everywhere, continuing to bulldoze everything around them, not just the streets."
Duha Turkman, an 18-year-old West Bank resident who sheltered in her aunt's home during the assault, said Thursday that "when we look at Gaza, we realize that we have been going through this for nine days, and it is already incredibly difficult for us."
"We can only imagine what the people in Gaza are enduring," said Turkman. "The situation here mirrors Gaza with airstrikes, bulldozing, and it doesn't seem like the situation will change anytime soon.”
Abu Sarur, a father of seven, toldThe New York Times that "there is no humanity."
"They uprooted the trees, broke the buildings," he continued. "The sewer mains meters under the ground, they ripped them up. The electricity, the water—they didn't leave anything untouched."
Reports of the IDF's withdrawal from Jenin came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to obstruct cease-fire talks to end the U.S.-backed war on Gaza and free the remaining hostages.
In a statement posted to Facebook late Thursday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said that "in full view of the international community and countries that claim to uphold the principles of human rights, protection of civilians, and the two-state solution, the occupying state continues to reproduce its brutal crimes and scenes of destruction and devastation that it committed in the Gaza Strip, now transferring them to the occupied West Bank, as seen in Jenin and Tulkarm and their refugee camps."
"This is a clear targeting of Palestinian civilians and the foundations of their national and human existence on their homeland," the ministry added.
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'A Living Hell': Desperate Gazans Flee Yet Again After Latest Israeli Evacuation Orders
"It's a war on children," said a UNRWA spokesperson. "All we see here is children dying, children being killed."
Aug 22, 2024
Israel's U.S.-armed military struck another devastating blow to Gaza's increasingly weary, sick, and starving population on Wednesday by issuing evacuation orders for parts of Deir al-Balah, a city in the center of the enclave that was previously deemed a "safe zone."
Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian group known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), expressed outrage at Israel's latest forced evacuation of Palestinian civilians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times since last October. In the wake of the new orders, many Palestinians—children among them—were seen fleeing on foot with whatever belongings they could carry.
The forcible transfer of civilians is a crime against humanity under international law.
"The continuous forced displacement of people is inhumane," MSF project coordinator Jacob Granger said in a statement. "People have no belongings left, nowhere left to go. There is no room to put tents up. The overcrowding, severe lack of water, and minimal sanitation services are fueling the spread of diseases. We are unable to keep up with the overwhelming needs."
Julie Faucon, a medical coordinator with MSF, said the group's teams in Gaza "are seeing an increase in skin conditions such as scabies" as Israel's siege and relentless bombing force Palestinians to shelter in unsanitary, overcrowded areas of the strip. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Gaza's so-called "humanitarian zone"—which in reality is anything but—has shrunk to just 11% of the enclave.
"With the constant bombardments forcing people to seek shelter in a shrinking space," said Faucon, "conditions are worsening and diseases will continue to spread, impacting the most vulnerable, such as children."
An MSF radio operator who was displaced by Israel's latest evacuation orders said he and his family "are dismantling the tent and packing our things."
"My children are gathering their toys and belongings so they don't get lost," said Khamis Amir. "We don’t know where to go. When will this war end?"
Today, Israeli forces issued evacuation orders for Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis.
Thousands of people in Gaza are fleeing to different areas in Al-Mawasi. Among those fleeing are Doctors Without Borders staff. https://t.co/EGdx1127yU pic.twitter.com/yKX3CuolFK
— Doctors w/o Borders (@MSF_USA) August 21, 2024
As the prospect of a lasting cease-fire appears increasingly remote—with the U.S. ceding to demands from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that are nonstarters for Hamas—the humanitarian emergency on the ground in Gaza continues to intensify amid ongoing Israeli bombings that are wiping out entire families.
Louise Wateridge, a senior communications officer for UNRWA, told the BBC on Wednesday that Gaza families "just do not know what to do."
"The frontline is near everybody," said Wateridge, who offered a horrifying account of the humanitarian situation in the besieged strip. "It's a war on children. All we see here is children dying, children being killed."
"The hospitals reek of blood; you can taste the blood in the air," she continued. "It's just a living hell."
"Today has been another day of horror in the #GazaStrip." @UNWateridge tells @BBCNews that #Gaza is a 'living hell' where children are killed every day.
With relentless bombings and nowhere safe to go, families don't know what to do and are constantly in fear for their lives. pic.twitter.com/wIgYeOiJ0E
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 22, 2024
UNRWA's Scott Anderson offered a similarly stark assessment of on-the-ground conditions in Gaza, telling CNN on Wednesday that "it's very disheartening when you see children looking through garbage trying to find something they can sell or eat."
Anderson also pointed to the alarming possibility of a mass polio outbreak in Gaza and noted that vaccination efforts have been made extremely difficult by the Israeli military's near-constant attacks and blockade.
Jude Senkungu, the International Rescue Committee's emergency health coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement Thursday that "the news of polio in Gaza should be an alarm bell that more infectious diseases are on the way."
"To prevent this public health crisis from leading to more preventable deaths, the vaccination campaign must be accompanied by a permanent and lasting cease-fire, and scaled-up humanitarian aid into Gaza," said Senkungu. "This requires safe and unobstructed access into and within Gaza through all crossing points for vaccinations, associated equipment such as cold chain storage, and specialist staff."
Al Jazeerareported Thursday that "the Israeli army is starting a new military incursion in the eastern areas" of Deir al-Balah, forcing families to seek out "any empty space of land to set up their makeshift tents despite the lack of humanitarian resources, including food and water."
UNRWA has said many of Gaza's water wells are located in areas newly evacuated by the Israeli military.
"We need to emphasize the fact that we have continued to hear loud explosions from last night until this morning, where the Israeli artillery units and fighter jets continue to target residential squares and key civil infrastructure in the city of Deir al-Balah," wrote Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from the area.
"The grim reality," he added, "is that bombardment is not only here in the central areas, but it continues to expand to the northern parts and to the south, where the military operations are still ongoing in Rafah and in the city of Khan Younis."
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