Asia
Chattogram seaport handles 3.1 mln TEUs in 2023
Bangladesh's premier Chattogram seaport registered a container volume of 3.1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in 2023, local English newspaper the Financial Express reported Thursday.
The figure was compared to those for container traffic handled at the main port in the South Asian country, at 2.9 million, 3.1 million, 2.8 million, 3.2 million and 3.1 million TEUs in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Despite impacts from the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, the port in Chattogram city, some 242 km southeast of capital Dhaka, has demonstrated remarkable resilience, maintaining its upward trajectory in container volume, according to Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) Chairman Rear Admiral Mohammad Sohail.
He told journalists on Wednesday that the port "is on its way to becoming a smart and modern international seaport, serving the global community."
"Its strategic location and expansion plans, encompassing the deep seaport at Matarbari, Bay Terminal, Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) and New-mooring Container Terminal, position it to be one of the world's largest seaports," he said.
The CPA chairman said the service quality and capacity of Chattogram seaport are steadily increasing, in line with international standards. "We are continuously enhancing our service quality, expanding operational areas and developing new sea routes," he noted.
As part of the efforts to strengthen Bangladesh's energy security, plans are underway to construct a gas and oil terminal as the fourth terminal at the port, Sohail added.
Students in Indonesia protest the growing numbers of Rohingya refugees in Aceh province
Students in Indonesia's Aceh province rallied on Wednesday (December 27, 2023), demanding the government drive away Rohingya refugees who have been arriving by sea in growing numbers. The protest came as police named more suspects in human trafficking of refugees.
Over 1,500 Rohingya — who fled violent attacks in Myanmar to subsequently leave overcrowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh in search of a better life elsewhere — have arrived in Aceh, on the tip of the island of Sumatra, since November. They have faced some hostility from fellow Muslims in Aceh.
About 200 students protested in front of the provincial parliament in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, calling on lawmakers to turn away the Rohingyas, saying their presence would bring social and economic upheaval to the community.
"Get out Rohingya," the protesters chanted. Many criticized the government and the U.N. refugee agency for failing to manage the refugee arrivals. Some protesters burned tires on the street.
"We urged the parliament speaker to immediately take a firm action to remove all Rohingya refugees from Aceh," said Teuku Wariza, one of the protest organizers.
The protesters marched to a local community hall in Banda Aceh, where about 137 Rohingya are taking shelter. The demonstrators threw out clothes and household items belonging to the refugees, forcing authorities to relocate them to another shelter.
Also read: Hundreds of residents on Indonesian island protest the growing arrival of Rohingya refugees by sea
Footages obtained by The Associated Press shows a large group of refugees, mostly women and children, crying and screaming as a mob, wearing university green jackets, is seen breaking through a police cordon and forcibly putting the Rohingya on the back of two trucks.
The incident drew an outcry from human rights group and the UNHCR, which said the attack left the refugees shocked and traumatized.
"UNHCR reminds everyone that desperate refugee children, women and men seeking shelter in Indonesia are victims of persecution and conflict, and are survivors of deadly sea journeys," the agency said in a statement released late Wednesday.
The statement called on local authorities to urgently act to protect the refugees and humanitarian workers.
Indonesia had once tolerated the refugees while Thailand and Malaysia pushed them away. But the growing hostility of some Indonesians toward the Rohingya has put pressure on President Joko Widodo's government to take action.
Also read: US finds Rohingya situation a priority, pledges to increase number of resettled refugees from Bangladesh in 2024
Widodo earlier this month said the government suspected a surge in human trafficking for the increase in Rohingya arrivals.
Also Wednesday, police in Banda Aceh named two more suspected human smugglers from Bangladesh and Myanmar, following the Dec. 10 arrival of another boat with refugees. One of the suspects, the boat's captain, himself a refugee, was charged with trafficking.
"This is not an easy issue, this is an issue with enormous challenges," Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.
About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign carried out in 2017 by security forces. Accusations of mass rape, murder and the burning of entire villages are well documented, and international courts are considering whether Myanmar authorities committed genocide and other grave human rights abuses.
Efforts to repatriate the Rohingya have failed because of doubts their safety can be assured. The Rohingya are largely denied citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and face widespread social discrimination.
Also read: Holy See to Bangladesh urged to encourage Myanmar for sustainable Rohingyas repatriation
Bus collides head-on with truck in central India, killing at least 13
A bus caught fire after colliding head-on with a truck on a highway in central India, killing at least 13 people, police said on Thursday.
Twelve bus passengers died in the blaze and the truck driver was killed by the impact of the accident in Guna district in Madhya Pradesh state on Wednesday night, said police officer Anoop Bhargava.
Also read: Road accident leaves two dead in Barishal
Another 16 people suffered burns or bone fractures and were taken to a hospital, Bhargava said.
The region is nearly 900 kilometers (565 miles) south of New Delhi.
Deadly road accidents are common in India, often due to reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles. More than 110,000 people are killed every year in road accidents across India, according to police.
Also read: Road accidents leave four people dead in 3 districts
Bangladesh's mobile users reach 190.36 mln
The total number of Bangladesh's mobile phone users hit over 190 million at the end of November this year, showed the latest statistics of the country's telecom regulator.
According to data from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the number of subscribers in the South Asian country reached 190.36 million in November 2023.
Read: Beijing sees most hours of sub-freezing temperatures in December since 1951
Currently, Bangladesh has four mobile companies, three of which are foreign-backed cell phone operators.
The number of subscribers of mobile operators, Grameen Phone, Robi Axiata, Banglalink Digital Communications and Teletalk Bangladesh, stood at 82.14 million, 58.38 million, 43.38 million and 6.46 million respectively at the end of November, the BTRC data showed.
Read: Coal mine cart runs off the tracks in northeastern China, killing 12 workers
The number of Bangladesh's mobile phone subscribers stood at 180.20 million at the end of December 2022.
Beijing sees most hours of sub-freezing temperatures in December since 1951
Beijing recorded the most hours of sub-freezing temperatures in December in more than seven decades as a cold wave has enveloped northern and central swathes of China, bringing snowstorms and record-breaking temperatures.
A weather observatory in the Chinese capital as of Sunday had recorded more than 300 hours of sub-freezing temperatures since Dec. 11 – the most since records began, in 1951, according to the official newspaper Beijing Daily.
Read: Americans beg for help getting family out of Gaza. "I just want to see my mother again,' a son says
The city saw nine consecutive days with temperatures below minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), the paper added.
Parts of northern and central China have shivered under frigid cold snaps this month, with authorities closing schools and highways several times due to snowstorms.
Read: UN is seeking to verify that Afghanistan's Taliban are letting girls study at religious schools
Temperatures at 78 weather stations across the country hit record lows for the month of December, while average temperatures this month in northern and some central parts of China hit record lows set in 1961, according to the National Meteorological Centre.
At least 68 killed in central Gaza in airstrike, adding to weekend's bloodshed
At least 68 people were killed by an Israeli strike in central Gaza, health officials said Sunday, while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in combat over the weekend rose to 15.
Associated Press journalists at a nearby hospital watched frantic Palestinians carry the dead, including a baby, and wounded following the strike on the Maghazi refugee camp east of Deir al-Balah. One bloodied young girl looked stunned while her body was checked for broken bones.
The 68 fatalities include at least 12 women and seven children, according to early hospital figures.
“We were all targeted,” said Ahmad Turokmani, who lost several family members including his daughter and grandson. “There is no safe place in Gaza anyway.”
Earlier, the Health Ministry in Gaza gave the death toll as 70. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
As Christmas Eve fell, smoke rose over the besieged territory, while in the West Bank Bethlehem was hushed, its holiday celebrations called off. In neighboring Egypt, tentative efforts continued on a deal for another exchange of hostages for Palestinians held by Israel.
The war has devastated parts of Gaza, killed roughly 20,400 Palestinians and displaced almost all of the territory’s 2.3 million people.
The mounting death toll among Israeli troops — 154 since the ground offensive began — could erode public support for the war, which was sparked when Hamas-led militants stormed communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking 240 hostage.
Read: A weekend of combat in Gaza kills more than a dozen Israeli soldiers, a sign of Hamas' entrenchment
Israelis still largely stand behind the country’s stated goals of crushing Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and releasing the remaining 129 captives. That's despite rising international pressure against Israel’s offensive, and the soaring death toll and unprecedented suffering among Palestinians.
HAMAS EXACTS A PRICE“The war exacts a very heavy price from us, but we have no choice but to continue fighting,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
In a nationally televised speech, Israeli President Isaac Herzog appealed for the country to remain united. “This moment is a test. We will not break nor blink,” he said.
There has been widespread anger against his government, which many criticize for failing to protect civilians on Oct. 7 and promoting policies that allowed Hamas to gain strength over the years. Netanyahu has avoided accepting responsibility for the military and policy failures.
“Over time, the public will find it hard to ignore the heavy price paid, as well as the suspicion that the aims that were loudly heralded are still far from being attained, and that Hamas is showing no signs of capitulating in the near future," wrote Amos Harel, military affairs commentator for the Haaretz newspaper.
The Israeli military said it had completed the dismantling of Hamas’ underground headquarters in northern Gaza, part of an operation to take down the vast tunnel network and kill off top commanders that Israeli leaders have said could take months.
Efforts toward negotiations continued. The head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, arrived in Egypt for talks. The militant group, which also took part in the Oct. 7 attack, said it was prepared to consider releasing hostages only after fighting ends. Hamas’ top leader Ismail Haniyeh traveled to Cairo for talks days earlier.
INSIDE GAZAIsrael’s offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than two-thirds of the 20,000 Palestinians killed have been women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
On Friday, Israeli airstrikes on two homes in Gaza killed 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, according to rescuers and hospital officials. One of the homes, located in Gaza City, became one of the deadliest airstrikes in the war after 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family were killed, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense department.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed in an Israeli drone attack while inside al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, a part of Gaza where Israel's military believes Hamas leaders are hiding.
An Israeli strike overnight hit a house in a refugee camp west of the city of Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt. At least two men were killed, according to Associated Press journalists in the hospital where the bodies were taken.
At least two people were killed and six others wounded when a missile stuck a building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
And Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment and gunfire in Jabaliya, an area north of Gaza City that Israel had claimed to control. Hamas’ military arm said its fighters shelled Israeli troops in Jabaliya and Jabaliya refugee camp.
Israel faces international criticism for the civilian death toll but it blames Hamas, citing the militants’ use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel has launched thousands of airstrikes since Oct. 7. It says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, without presenting evidence.
Israel also faces allegations of mistreating Palestinian men and teenage boys detained in homes, shelters, hospitals and elsewhere during the offensive. It has denied abuse allegations and said those without links to militants are quickly released.
Speaking to the AP from a hospital bed in Rafah after his release, Khamis al-Burdainy of Gaza City said Israeli forces detained him after tanks and bulldozers partly destroyed his home. He said men were handcuffed and blindfolded.
“We didn’t sleep. We didn’t get food and water,” he said, crying and covering his face.
Another released detainee, Mohammed Salem, from the Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyah, said Israeli troops beat them. “We were humiliated,” he said. “A female soldier would come and beat an old man, aged 72 years old.”
INTERNATIONAL PRESSUREThe United Nations Security Council has passed a watered-down resolution calling for the speedy delivery of humanitarian aid for hungry and desperate Palestinians and the release of all the hostages, but not for a cease-fire.
But it was not immediately clear how and when deliveries of food, medical supplies and other aid, far below the daily average of 500 before the war, would accelerate. Trucks enter through two crossings: Rafah, and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority, said 123 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday,
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated U.N. calls for a humanitarian cease-fire, adding on social media that “the decimation of the Gaza health system is a tragedy.”
Amid concerns about a wider regional conflict, the U.S. Central Command said a patrol ship in the Red Sea on Saturday shot down four drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, a while two Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired into international shipping lanes.
The Iran-backed Houthis say their attacks are aimed at Israel-linked ships in an effort to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Americans beg for help getting family out of Gaza. "I just want to see my mother again,' a son says
Fadi Sckak has already lost his father to the violence in Gaza. He wants to help his mother escape that fate.
“I just want to see my mother again, that’s the goal,” said Sckak, a university student in Sunnyvale, California. The 25-year-old is one of the Palestinian couple's three American sons, including an active-duty U.S. soldier serving in South Korea. “Being able to hold her again. I can’t bear to lose her.”
His mother, Zahra Sckak, 44, was holed up Saturday with an older, ailing American relative in a Gaza City building along with 100 others. She is among what the State Department says are 300 American citizens, permanent legal residents or their parents and young children still trapped by the fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.
Relatives in the United States and other advocates are pleading for the Biden administration and Congress to help them flee.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported more than 20,000 deaths in the fighting and more than 53,600 wounded. According to the United Nations, more than a half-million people are starving in Gaza because of the war.
Read: Israel strikes 2 homes, killing more than 90 Palestinians
Fadi Sckak's mother was on her sixth day with only water from the sewers to drink and with little or no food and rescue hopes waning, he said. His dad, Abedalla, was shot and wounded last month, after a bombing forced the family to flee the building where they had been sheltering, and died days later without treatment, he said.
Their son had listened over the phone as his mother begged for help after the shooting. He could hear his 56-year-old father, who had diabetes and corresponding health problems, in the background, crying out in pain.
“He didn’t deserve a painful experience like that. To die, with no help, no one even trying to help,” Sckak said.
Some U.S. citizens and legal residents and their immediate family are stranded near Gaza's Rafah crossing into Egypt, desperately waiting for placement on a list of U.S.-government-provided names that would authorize them to leave Gaza.
Others, like Zahra Schkak, are trapped by fighting, and some are too ill or wounded to reach the crossing. They tell their families in voice messages and sporadic phone calls and texts of danger, hunger and fear.
“This is the part of the missile that fall down on our heads yesterday,” American citizen Borak Alagha, 18, texted his cousin, Yasmeen Elagha, a law student in Chicago, sending a photo of him holding a jagged chunk of metal.
Read: US tensions with China are fraying long-cultivated academic ties. Will the chill hurt US interests?
“This is the hole next to the place we are living now,” Alagha said in another text. It showed a deep bomb crater next to their building near Khan Younis, where the family of 10 fled after Israeli officials identified the area as a safe place for civilians.
Yasmeen Elagha has reached out to State Department officials and members of a special task force. She has sued to force the U.S. government to do more after hearing from American officials that there is noting more they can do at the moment.
“They are fully leaving them for dead,” she said.
The State Department said Friday it has helped more than 1,300 people who were eligible for U.S. assistance — American citizens, green-card holders and their immediate family members — make it through the Rafah crossing to Egypt. The department is tracking 300 more still seeking U.S. help to escape; that includes what it says are fewer than 50 U.S. citizens.
“U.S. citizens and their families will make their own decisions and adjust their plans as this difficult situation changes,” the department said in a statement.
The case of Sckak's family in Gaza has gotten more attention in Washington, given 24-year-old Ragi Sckak's Army duty in South Korea.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he has pushed the administration to get Americans out of Gaza. “I know this is a top priority for the administration,” he said in a statement, adding that U.S. officials would “exhaust every option.”
Maria Kari is an immigration lawyer in Houston working on behalf of the stranded American citizens and legal residents. She points to the air and sea charters that the U.S. helped arrange to bring out more than 1,000 Americans and others from Israel after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that started the war.
She has filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. government of failing to protect Americans in danger abroad and unconstitutionally denying Palestinian Americans the kind of assistance it gave Israeli Americans.
“We're not asking them to do anything political here,” she said. “We're simply saying the State Department has a job. And it's not doing that job, for one class of citizens.”
Israel strikes 2 homes, killing more than 90 Palestinians
More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes in Gaza, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned that nowhere is safe in the territory and that Israel’s offensive creates “massive obstacles” to distribution of humanitarian aid.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, calling it a long and private conversation a day after the Biden administration again shielded Israel in the diplomatic arena. On Friday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution that calls for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza, but not for a cease-fire.
“I did not ask for a cease-fire,” Biden said of the call. Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister “made clear that Israel would continue the war until achieving all its goals.”
Also Saturday, the Israeli military said troops arrested hundreds of alleged militants in Gaza over the past week and transferred more than 200 to Israel for further interrogation, providing rare details on a controversial policy of mass roundups of Palestinian men. The army said more than 700 people with alleged ties to the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have so far been sent to Israeli lockups.
Israel declared war after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostages. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war to destroy Hamas and more than 53,000 have been wounded, according to health officials in Gaza, a besieged territory ruled by the Islamic militant group for the past 16 years.
The Health Ministry in Gaza on Saturday evening said 201 people had been killed over the past 24 hours.
Airstrikes on Friday flattened two homes, including one in Gaza City, where 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family were killed, making the attack one of the deadliest of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense department.
Among those killed were Issam al-Mughrabi, a veteran employee of the U.N. Development Program, his wife, and their five children.
Read: Israeli strike kills 76 members in one Gaza family, rescue officials say as combat expands in south
“The U.N. and civilians in Gaza are not a target,” said Achim Steiner, the head of the agency. “This war must end.”
And a strike pulverized the home of Mohammed Khalifa, a local TV journalist, killing him and at least 14 others in the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, according to officials at the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital where the bodies were taken.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, citing the militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel has launched thousands of airstrikes since Oct. 7, and has largely refrained from commenting on specific attacks.
Israel’s offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history, displacing nearly 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and leveling wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave. More than a half million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a report this week from the United Nations and other agencies.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, men walking through the rubble tried to shoo away cats feeding on unclaimed bodies. One man covered a body with a blanket. Another wished to call an ambulance but had no phone signal.
Read: Israel creates massive obstacles to aid distribution in Gaza -- UN chief
The Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said forces were expanding their offensive in northern and southern Gaza and troops were fighting in “complex areas” in Khan Younis.
The army's statement on detentions followed earlier Palestinian reports of large-scale roundups of teenage boys and men from homes, shelters and hospitals in northern Gaza where troops have established firmer control. Some of the released detainees have said they were stripped to their underwear, beaten and held for days with minimal water.
Channel 13 in Israel showed new footage of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear and walking in single file, with soldiers nearby. It was not clear when the footage was taken. In response to widespread criticism, the army has said detainees are stripped to check them for weapons. It has denied abuse allegations and said those without links to militants are quickly released.
Hamas called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations to pressure Israeli authorities to reveal the whereabouts and conditions of people detained.
Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including about 2,000 in the past three weeks, but has not presented evidence. It says 144 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
Following the U.N. resolution, it was not immediately clear how and when aid deliveries would accelerate. Trucks enter through two crossings — Rafah on the border with Egypt and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel. On Friday, fewer than 100 trucks entered, the U.N. said — far below the daily average of 500 before the war.
Both crossings were closed Saturday by mutual agreement among Israel, Egypt and the U.N., Israeli officials said.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan criticized the Security Council resolution that called for aid into Gaza without suspending hostilities, calling it “weak” and “insufficient."
Ahead of the council vote, the U.S. negotiated the removal of language that would have given the U.N. authority to inspect aid going into Gaza, something Israel says it must continue to do itself to ensure material does not reach Hamas.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that it’s a mistake to measure the effectiveness of the humanitarian operation by the number of trucks.
“The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza,” he said.
Netanyahu and his government also faced pressure at home, with calls to get the remaining hostages freed. “Bibi, Bibi retire. We don’t want you anymore,” a crowd of thousands chanted in Tel Aviv.
Strong earthquake in northwest China that killed at least 148 causes economic losses worth millions
The strong earthquake that hit northwest China this week, and killed at least 148 people, has caused economic losses estimated to be worth tens of millions in the agricultural and fisheries industries, state media reported Saturday.
Officials in Gansu conducted preliminary assessments that showed the province's agricultural and fisheries industries have lost 532 million yuan (about $74.6 million), state broadcaster CCTV reported. Authorities were considering the best use of the relief fund, set up days before, for the agricultural sector to resume production as soon as possible, the report said.
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck in a mountainous region Monday night between Gansu and Qinghai provinces and about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) southwest of Beijing, the Chinese capital. CCTV said that 117 were killed in Gansu and 31 others in neighboring Qinghai, while three people remained missing. Nearly 1,000 were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed.
CGTN, the Chinese state broadcaster’s international arm, said the first batch of 500 temporary housing units had been built for residents in Meipo, a village in Gansu, on Friday night.
Many had spent the night in shelters set up in the area as temperatures plunged well below freezing. Funerals were held, some following the Muslim traditions of much of the population in the affected area.
Most of China’s earthquakes strike in the western part of the country, including Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Xinjiang region and Tibet. The latest quake was the deadliest one in the country in nine years.
States are obliged to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide, UN Committee stresses
Amid the delay in voting on the Gaza resolution at the UN Security Council, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination warned of hate speech and dehumanising discourse targeted at Palestinians, raising severe concerns regarding Israel’s and other State parties’ obligation to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide.
In a decision adopted on Thursday under its Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures, the Committee said it is “gravely concerned about the resumption of the brutal hostilities in the occupied Gaza Strip on December 1 this year after a seven-day ‘pause’.”
UN report says more than 570,000 people in Gaza are now 'starving' due to fallout from war
It was deeply shocked by the intensified, brutal and indiscriminate Israeli bombardments from the air, land and sea all across the occupied Gaza Strip and the expansion of the Israeli military ground operation to the south of the occupied Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of about 20,000 Palestinians.
The catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the occupied Gaza Strip, it said, raised serious concerns regarding the obligation of Israel and other State parties to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide.
Türkiye's Erdogan, Egypt's Sisi call for efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza
It also expressed its grave concerns about the racist hate speech, incitement to violence and genocidal actions, as well as dehumanising rhetoric targeted at Palestinians since 7 October 2023 by Israeli senior government officials, Parliament members, politicians and public figures.
The Committee also raised the alarm on the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in the past few weeks, including the increase in unlawful use of lethal force by the Israeli forces, violence by settlers, arbitrary arrests and detention of Palestinians.
The Committee urged an immediate and sustained ceasefire in the occupied Gaza Strip.
US is engaging in high-level diplomacy to avoid vetoing a UN resolution on critical aid for Gaza
It called upon Israel and the State of Palestine to fully collaborate with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, in their investigations.
Highly alarmed by the killing of at least 136 UN staff, the Committee asked Israel to grant access to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to document significant violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including those committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
The Committee urged all States parties to ensure that all those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as other international crimes in the ongoing armed conflicts are promptly brought to justice.