Gaza Strip

Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future."-George Orwell, 1984 In the summer of 2014, at the height of the Israeli Defence Force's 'Operation Protective Edge', The Lancet published 'An open letter for the people in Gaza' signed by Paola Manduca, Iain Chalmers, Derek Summerfield, Mads Gilbert and Swee Ang, on behalf of 24 signatories. The letter denounced what it called "the aggression of Gaza by Israel" and condemned the humanitarian impact of the incursion and of other Israeli actions such as the blockade on Gaza (Manduca et al 2014a). The publication of the letter stimulated vigorous debate with a further twenty published responses divided equally in either support of, or opposition to, the original letter (Lancet 2014). The letter was branded 'anti-Jewish bigotry, pure and simple' by some (Marmor & Spirt 2014), while others claimed that the authors had failed to declare 'conflicts of interest' (Stall et al 2014; Wolf et al 2014). Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, later expressed regret for the "unnececsary polarisation" caused by the Manduca letter (Horton 2014). A subsequent report from The Lancet's independent Ombudsman concluded that the letter had some shortcomings (including missing references and its failure to acknowledge the use of armed violence by Palestinian factions), but noted that it had been written at a time of great tension and that efforts to correct these flaws had been made. The Ombudsman also noted that the authors' conflict of interest statements were incomplete and gave recommendations to prevent this from occurring again (Wedzicha 2014). However, the Ombudsman deemed that these issues were not considered sufficient grounds for withdrawal of the letter. On the 15 th of April 2015, Professor Sir Mark Pepys and colleagues, along with 395 (now over 750) signatories, wrote a letter to The Lancet's publisher Reed Elsevier asking it 'to behave ethically by retracting the Manduca letter, apologizing for its publication and ensuring that any further editorial malpractice at The Lancet is prevented' . Within twenty-four hours, a response to this complaint asking Reed Elsevier to

Palestine House of Freedom works towards a free, democratic Palestine where everyone enjoys equal rights. They envision “Peace in a free Palestine, where all people who reside between the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea can enjoy freedom, equal rights and a peaceful, productive and healthy life.”
- daralhurriya.org

The possibility that the process that started with Netanyahu's decision to dismiss the chief of Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence service that was conducting an investigation against him, could lead to a civil war between different ideological groups in Israel and the consequences of Netanyahu's moves to discredit the army, judiciary and intelligence institutions for his own survival are discussed.

This paper examines Israel's distinctive dual-purpose policing model, which emerged following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and its effectiveness in addressing contemporary hybrid security threats, as dramatically demonstrated during the October 7, 2023, attacks. It explores how the formal transfer of internal security responsibilities to the police in 1974 created a unique law enforcement structure that combines traditional policing with counterterrorism operations.
Drawing from primary sources and institutional documentation, the research explores two critical dimensions of this model: the organizational structure that enables rapid transition between civilian policing and security operations, including specialized units like the Special Patrol Units (SPU) and Border Police; and the integration of civilian defense components, particularly Stand-by Squads and municipal security units, into the broader internal security framework. It then examines the model's performance under extreme stress and documents for the first time the central role the Israel Police played during the October 7, 2023, attacks, when police forces faced an unprecedented military-style invasion.
The research highlights how some aspects of the dual-purpose policing model and its fundamental organizational choices —such as maintaining universal firearms proficiency among officers and establishing specialized counterterrorism units within the police force—created institutional resilience against hybrid threats. The October 7 events served as a critical test case, demonstrating both the model's strengths and areas that required adaptation or further refinement.
Tracing the evolution of Israel’s dual-purpose police force and considering the often ignored role it played during the October 7th attacks, this study contributes to scholarly discussions about the evolving nature of internal security and the increasing convergence of law enforcement and defensive military operations. It is relevant to those examining the understudied intersection of civilian law enforcement, security planning, and military operations within military history.

A considerable amount of hostility that resulted with the increase of Jewish immigration to Palestine did not begin when the British government issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, as has been noted. Yet there were brief moments when some Arab support existed for Zionist aspirations before political realities emerged. Matthias Küntzel, a German political scientist and historian, said he found there were significant representatives of the Arab world who backed the Zionists in their efforts to return to their ancestral homeland.

The 2005 Israeli Disengagement from the Gaza Strip has left this region in a political and legal limbo. No longer strictly and fully complying with the definition of an occupied territory, the Strip, which has been under siege from 2007, cannot similarly be considered as fully independent. This paper argues that the Israeli control of Gaza is predicated on relegating this control to the past. Accordingly, it offers 'post-occupation' as a conceptual framework for deciphering Israel's modalities of power over the Strip, claiming that rather than signifying a clear break from a now defunct occupation, post-occupation demarcates the persistence of Israeli domination. By rendering Gaza to the status of a post-occupation Israel can infer that Gaza's future has already arrived, and relinquish its responsibilities towards the Strip and its residents through a fabrication of Palestinian political agency, while holding the Palestinian futures captive. The post-occupation condition therefore confounds normative narrations of time, while disrupting the distinction between past, present and future. This examination of the Disengagement and the siege as operating in tandem reveals that Israel substituted a burdensome and costly occupation with a more parsimonious spatial containment of Gaza, which allowed it to retain its grasp of Palestinian futurity.

In January 2025, Haaretz (Israel’s gift to antisemites around the world) published an op-ed by two scholars, Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, claiming Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The picture that accompanied the story was of people “running away from the site of Israeli bombardment.” The people were all supposedly children. The strangest thing about the picture is that they were all boys. No girls. No mothers. No fathers. Staged? Why this picture? It is the first clue that what follows will be propaganda.

In January 2025, Haaretz (Israel’s gift to antisemites around the world) published an op-ed by two scholars, Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, claiming Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The picture that accompanied the story was of people “running away from the site of Israeli bombardment.” The people were all supposedly children. The strangest thing about the picture is that they were all boys. No girls. No mothers. No fathers. Staged? Why this picture? It is the first clue that what follows will be propaganda.

A fresh round of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza which has killed more than 400 Palestinians has destroyed any hope that the ceasefire negotiated in January would hold. A statement from the child rights group Defence for Children Palestine claimed that 174 children had been killed in the bombing, claiming: "Today is one of the deadliest days for Palestinian Children in history." The renewed bombing follows repeated violations of the ceasefire terms by Israel and comes days after a report commissioned by the United Nations said Israel is "deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group".

testo, rivolto all'opinione pubblica israeliana, è stato pubblicato due settimane fa con un senso di urgenza: la guerra poteva riprendere in qualsiasi momento. È successo. Ma questa non è solo una continuazione della guerra: tutti i segnali indicano che i piani per l'espulsione di massa dei palestinesi fa Gaza non sono stati abbandonati.

Logic suggests it may only be a matter of weeks before Donald J. Trump pressures Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to end the Gaza war. The realisation that the clock may be ticking is potentially one reason why Israel this week stepped up the pressure on Hamas by announcing the displacement of Gazan Palestinians in large areas of the Strip that would be declared part of enhanced Israeli security zones.

A comprehensive investigation into the mechanical properties of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC), considering various influential factors, is imperative in order to obtain fundamental information for its practical utilization. Therefore, this paper reviewed the early-age strength (or setting) development and mechanical properties of hardened UHPFRC. In connection with the latter, the effects of the curing conditions, coarse aggregate, mineral admixtures, fiber properties, specimen size, and strain-rate on the mechanical performance of UHPFRC were specifically investigated. It was obvious that (1) heat treatment accelerates the hydration process, leading to higher strength; (2) a portion of the silica fume can be replaced by fly ash, slag, and rice husk ash in mechanical perspective; (3) the use of deformed (hooked and twisted) or long straight steel fibers improves the mechanical properties at a static rate; and (4) high rate loading provides a noticeable increase in the mechanical properties. Alternatively, there are some disagreements between the results from various 'size effect' tests and the effectiveness of using twisted steel fibers at static and high rate loadings. Further research to reduce the production cost of UHPFRC is also addressed in an attempt to make its widespread use more practical.

Français : Cette contribution porte sur le travail de sensibilisation et d'initiation des étudiant·es et collaborateur·rices du projet Intiqal 2030 aux principes de l'archéologie funéraire et de la bianthropologie. Ce travail a été entrepris dans le cadre de la fouille et de l'étude de la nécropole de Ard Moarbin, située à Jabalyia, au nord de la bande de Gaza (Territoires palestiniens occupés). En guise d'introduction, cette contribution montre, d'une part, comment ce travail de sensibilisation s'inscrit pleinement dans les objectifs de développement humain et de protection du patrimoine prônés par les instances humanitaires internationales. D'autre part, elle présente les modalités concrètes de mise en œuvre de ces objectifs dans le cadre du projet Intiqal 2030. Une courte section de contextualisation présente les principales données archéologiques et historiques qui guident notre compréhension actuelle de la nécropole de Ard Moarbin, notamment en termes chronologiques et socioculturels. Ensuite, cette contribution présente les fondements d'une approche ordinaire en archéologie funéraire de terrain et en bianthropologie, ainsi que la forme sous laquelle les chaînes opératoires y relatives ont été mises en œuvre dans le cadre du projet Intiqal 2030, et plus spécifiquement dans le cas de l'opération archéologique entreprise au sein de la nécropole de Ard Moarbin. Ces aspects concernent principalement la fouille, la documentation et l'étude des sépultures, en termes d'architecture, de mobilier funéraire et de caractérisation biologique des défunts. En conclusion, cette contribution passe en revue les principaux apports de cette démarche, visant à sensibiliser les membres du projet Intiqal 2030, notamment en termes de valeur ajoutée à l'opération de fouille de la nécropole de Ard Moarbin, mais aussi plus globalement, en explorant les synergies positives émergeant d'une telle approche inclusive et coopérative, à la lumière des objectifs de développement humain et de protection du patrimoine à l'échelle mondiale.

English: This contribution focuses on the work of awareness-raising and initiation of students and collaborators of the Intiqal 2030 project to the principles of funerary archaeology and bianthropology. This work was undertaken as part of the excavation and subsequent study of the Ard Moarbin necropolis, located in Jabalyia, in the north of the Gaza Strip (Occupied Palestinian Territores. By way of introduction, this contribution shows, on the one hand, how this awareness-raising effort fully aligns with the objectives of human development and heritage protection advocated by international humanitarian bodies. On the other hand, it presents the concrete ways in which these objectives have been implemented as part of the Intiqal 2030 project. A short contextualization section presents the main archaeological and historical data guiding our current understanding of the Ard Moarbin necropolis, particularly in chronological and socio-cultural terms. Subsequently, this contribution presents the foundations of an ordinary approach to funerary field archaeology and bianthropology, and the form in which the corresponding analytical processes or « chaînes opératoires » were implemented within the Intiqal 2030 project, and more specifically in the case of the archaeological operation undertaken at the Ard Moarbin necropolis. These aspects mainly pertain to the excavation, documentation and study of burials, in terms of architecture, grave goods and the biological characterization of the deceased. In its conclusion, this contribution reviews the main inputs of this approach, aimed at raising awareness among members of the Intiqal 2030 project, notably in terms of added value to the excavation operation of the Ard Moarbin necropolis, but also more globaly speaking, by exploring the positive synergies emerging from such an inclusive and cooperative approach, in light of the objectives of human development and heritage protection on a global scale.

Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli pinpointed the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as he reflected on a post-interview conversation with Yasser Arafat, the late chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), more than two decades ago. A one-time secular security official who became a religious West Bank settler and called on air for the slaying of 100,000 Gazans in the wake of Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Mr. Yehezkeli said it took him years to understand what he believed the Palestinian leader was telling him once the camera stopped rolling. "I don't recognize your right to the land, and your logic is completely different from mine. The end of the conflict is your invention... I never agreed to it," Mr. Yehezkeli quoted Mr. Arafat as saying. In a recent email inviting recipients to subscribe to his monthly broadcasts, Mr. Yehezkeli offered an interpretation of Mr. Arafat's remark that ensures the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than acceptance of a reality that potentially holds out the promise of an eventual healing of the wounds on both sides of the divide if adequately managed.

As the world cautiously welcomes a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the spectre of violence in Gaza hasn't completely disappeared. The announcement of a truce, ostensibly meant to end the brutal, genocidal violence that Israel has been committing against Palestinians for 15 months, has not quelled the fears of many who know all too well the precariousness of such agreements.  Observers are right to worry that Israel will exploit this moment, using the days leading up to the ceasefire as an opportunity to inflict even more harm on an already traumatized Palestinian population.

The United Arab Emirates is betting that recent anti-Hamas protests in Gazan towns, supported by influential tribes and clans, will strengthen Abu Dhabi-based Mohammed Dahlan’s chances of playing a prominent role in the territory’s post-war administration.

This research examines Israel's military actions in Palestine and Lebanon, focusing on their humanitarian, political, and strategic consequences. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, along with Israel's involvement in Lebanon, has deepened regional instability. Military operations have worsened humanitarian conditions, causing widespread civilian casualties, mass displacement, and significant damage to vital infrastructure in both regions. Politically, these actions have weakened the sovereignty of Palestine and Lebanon, fueling further conflict and instability. Strategically, the escalating tensions have hindered regional peace efforts and contributed to a more volatile security environment. Using a mixedmethods approach, including literature reviews, case studies, and interviews with key stakeholders, the study provides a comprehensive analysis of the multifaceted impacts. It highlights the need for immediate international intervention to address humanitarian concerns, foster diplomatic solutions, and ensure accountability for human rights violations. Key recommendations emphasize prioritizing human security and conflict resolution to build a more stable and peaceful future for the region.

Landfills are one of the main soil and groundwater pollution sources in Gaza Strip/Palestine. By addressing Deir Al Balah landfill, this study aims to quantify the generated and percolated leachate quantities through the landfill's lining system toward the groundwater aquifer. Leachate volumes have been quantified using two different approaches, namely the hydraulic evaluation of landfill performance (HELP) model and the water balance method (WBM), and then compared with the measured quantities by the landfill's management. Results of the HELP model showed that the average annual generated leachate volumes were 8,087 m 3 from 1997 to 2014, while the average annual percolated leachate volumes were 717 m 3 , which represented 8.9% of the generated leachate amounts. However, WBM results for the average annual leachate during the same period were 7,568 m 3 . The landfill's leachate was mainly originated from the moisture content of the dumped wastes, whereas the rest came from the infiltration of the rainfall and re-circulated leachate. The cumulative modelled leachate amounts by HELP model and WBM were close, and with a difference percentage of 6.6%. However, both methods' results were higher than the measured leachate amounts. In conclusion, suitable mitigation measures are required to minimise the potential threats on to groundwater due to leachate percolation.

This article draws upon a research project on intercultural language education conducted online between 2014 and 2017 with people living in the Gaza Strip (Palestine). Because the Gaza Strip has been under blockade since 2007, people cannot travel in and out freely. This context thus prompts educators and scholars to reflect on intercultural competence from a context of protracted crisis and of forced immobility. This study considers pre-service and in-service English teachers' understandings of intercultural competence and how these educators encourage intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in their classrooms in the Gaza Strip, where neither teachers, nor students, may have travelled abroad or experienced a face-to-face intercultural encounter. Based on this analysis, this article argues that frameworks for intercultural education and ICC need to capture non-movement and the lack of face-to-face intercultural encounters as agentic in definitions of interculturality. In other words, ICC should be conceptualised in terms of the actual freedoms and opportunities that individuals have to develop and nurture it. In order to propose such a model, this article connects ICC with the capabilities approach , the capability of mobility (de Haas, 2010), and with the capacity to aspire .

The moment of reckoning for Iran’s nuclear dreams seems very near. All signs point in that direction, most notably Trump’s messianic resurgence and his new arrangements with Netanyahu and Putin. As such, after a decades-long standoff between the West and Iran’s Islamist fanatics, finally a decisive resolution is looming on the horizon.

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Gaza has been at the top of humanity's agenda for years. It has become the place where humanity ended. This small piece of land that Israel has blockaded and turned into a Warsaw Ghetto for decades has become a symbol of the resistance and suffering of the Palestinian people. Since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, all Israel has done was commit a massive massacre of civilians. For 1.5 years, the constant bombardment killed tens of thousands and demolished 80% of the urban infrastructure in Gaza.
The current situation in Gaza reveals not only a human tragedy but also serious crimes, such as violations of international law and human rights and ethnic cleansing.
Trump's project in 2020
Trump’s crazy plan for Palestine is not new. In his previous term, in 2020, he came up with a pro-Israel proposal, which he called the “Deal of the Century.” He claimed to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with this plan. It envisioned that Israel would retain control over most of the West Bank and Jerusalem as the new capital of Israel, granting only limited autonomy to the Palestinians. It also set forth certain conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state; however, this state would have a structure that prioritized Israel’s security concerns and severely restricted Palestinian sovereign rights.
The plan promised economic aid and infrastructure projects to the Palestinians. However, for these promises to be realized, the Palestinian administration had to accept Israel’s security demands and the neutralization of armed resistance groups. Trump’s plan met Israel’s demands almost completely while ignoring the Palestinians’ fundamental rights and the requirements of international law.

The current study aimed to test the association between traumatic events and psycholgocial wellbeing among Palestinians, and to explore whether mattering, anti-ant-mattering, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) moderate the association between these two variables. A total of 610 Palestinian adults participated in the study, comprising 220 males and 390 females. Participants were recruited using online methods, including emails, social media, and advertisements. Results of correlational analysis revealed that traumatic events showed a negative correlation with PTG (r =-.19, p < .01), psychological well-being (r =-.22, p < .01), and mattering (r =-.17, p < .01). In contrast, traumatic events were positively associated with anti-mattering (r =.18, p < .01). Results of regression analysis showed that psychological well-being was negatively predicted by traumatic events and anti-mattering, while it was positively predicted by mattering and PTG. The current study emphasizes the importance of creating interventions that promote PTG, allowing Palestinians to transform their traumatic experiences into opportunities for personal and communal development. Additionally, enhancing self-mattering is strongly associated with psychological well-being and resilience. Encouraging Palestinians to feel valued and connected to their communities may help mitigate the negative effects of prolonged trauma, ultimately leading to better mental health outcomes.

A stickler for language, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu twice this month remained conspicuously silent when senior Trump administration officials chose words that signalled potential changes in US policy towards Gaza, the Palestinians, and Hamas.

Construction projects located in the Gaza Strip, Palestine suffer from many problems and complex issues. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to identify the factors affecting the performance of local construction projects; and to elicit perceptions of their relative importance. A comprehensive literature review was deployed to generate a set of factors believed to affect project performance. A total of 120 questionnaires were distributed to 3 key groups of project participants; namely owners, consultants and contractors. The survey findings indicate that all 3 groups agree that the most important factors affecting project performance are: delays because of borders/roads closure leading to materials shortage; unavailability of resources; low level of project leadership skills; escalation of material prices; unavailability of highly experienced and qualified personnel; and poor quality of available equipment and raw materials. Based on these findings, the paper recommends tha...

The construction industry has acquired a poor reputation in performance issues. Project success is dependent on, amongst other factors, the performance of the contractors. The aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate the main factors affecting the performance of construction projects in the Gaza strip. Sixty questionnaires were randomly distributed to contractors and 46 questionnaires were received (77% respondent rate). Sixty three factors were identified and categorized into ten groups. The level of importance of these factors were measured and ranked by their importance index from the contractors' perspectives. The most important factors were average delay arising from closures and materials shortage, availability of resources as planned through project duration, leadership skills of the project manager, escalation of material prices, availability of personnel with high experience and qualification and quality of equipments and raw materials in project. It is recommended that construction organizations have a clear mission and vision to formulate, implement and evaluate their performance.

The resumption of Israel’s large-scale military operations in Gaza following a brief ceasefire underscores the Zionist regime’s strategic intent to prolong its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to violate the ceasefire agreement aligns with his broader political agenda, which is aimed at consolidating his grip on power and evading accountability for both his domestic failures and his inability to secure the timely release of all hostages. Furthermore, his reluctance to transition into the second phase of the ceasefire plan stems from the fact that it would necessitate an end to Israel’s war machinery and indiscriminate killing spree, something Netanyahu appears unwilling to accept.

Background The escalation of violence and oppression in Gaza, particularly following Hamas' military attack on Israeli settlements in the Gaza envelope on October 7, 2023, has intensified trauma and related disorders, especially sleep disturbances, exacerbating the already dire conditions of dispossession and exploitation faced by Palestinians. Aims The present exploratory research sought to explore the impact of war-related trauma following the recent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on sleep disturbance among Gazans. Methods Thirty participants 14 females and 16 males, aged between 18 and 58 years (mean age for males = 31.43 years, SD = 11.12; mean age for females = 31.23 years, SD = 10.13) were recruited via snowball sampling. Interviews were analyzed through thematic content analysis. Results Thematic content analysis of the interview transcripts led to the identification of five main themes. (1), sleepless nights amid constant fear (2), children' s sleep shattered by trauma. (3), the impact of overcrowded shelters on sleep. (4), mothers as guardians of sleepless nights. (5), health consequences of chronic sleep deprivation. The findings highlight the negative impact of war-related trauma on the sleep of Gazans, leading to various disturbances such as nightmares, particularly among children. Conclusions Our findings illuminate the pervasive impact of war-related trauma on the sleep patterns of Gazan refugees. This study highlights the critical importance of integrating psychological support and targeted interventions into community health initiatives, particularly for vulnerable groups such as children. Future research should focus on developing culturally sensitive interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of trauma on sleep and overall wellbeing in conflict-affected population. Keywords War-related trauma, Sleep disturbance, Mental health, Gaza Strip Theoretical background Sleep disturbances, including insomnia, nightmares, and states of hyperarousal, are prevalent in individuals exposed to severe trauma, especially in conflict zones. Unlike ordinary sleep disruptions, trauma-induced sleep disturbances are intricately linked to neurophysiological and psychological mechanisms activated by sustained exposure to violence. Evidence consistently highlights that trauma alters sleep patterns by dysregulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis,

And not be treated like an outlaw. Then I suppose, Anything goes. And claim that they all are terrorist minions, Then, God knows, Anything goes. Some people can get away with anything. They can grab women by their genitalia because they "let them," or, hypothetically, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose the support of their fans. Less hypothetically, they can violate multiple gag orders and still avoid jail time. They can do all these things-and much more-and see their approval rating rise in the polls. Some countries can get away with anything. Their leaders can search for imaginary weapons of mass destruction and boast of accomplished missions that result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents, then comfortably retire to paint clown portraits of their deceased

This week's United Nations Security Council debate spotlighted that divide, with US Interim Ambassador Dorothy Shea as the only representative to accuse Hamas rather than Israel of breaking the ceasefire, reigniting hostilities, and worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Similarly, Israel and the United States stand alone at first glance in supporting President Donald J. Trump's vision of Gaza as a high-end beachfront real estate development void of much of its indigenous population. The rest of the international community supports the Arab world's alternative plan that calls for an end to the war, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the creation of a Palestinian interim administration of the Strip, and the temporary resettlement of Gazans in safe zones in Gaza while the war-ravaged territory is reconstructed to the tune of US$53 billion. So far, it all seems straightforward. But dig a little deeper, and the fault lines begin to blur.

The ceasefire and hostage swap agreement, which entered into force on January 19 after the great suffering and massacres in Gaza, was terminated on March 18 due to Netanyahu's unwillingness to enter the second phase of the ceasefire and to cover up his domestic and foreign policy problems. This study tries to reveal why Netanyahu terminated the ceasefire.

There has not been a significant change on the EU's stance on the main issues regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the start of the formulation of its single foreign policy position on this issue in the 1970s. However, Israel's war on Gaza that started on October 7 th , 2023 compelled some EU states to recognise the Palestinian state. The primary goal of this study is to explore EU's policies towards Israel's war on Gaza from the angle of actor-centred institutionalism. This approach, which was designed by Renate Mayntz and Fritz Scharpf, is an analytical tool employed to investigate political facts and processes. According to this approach, institutions are viewed as rules (laws, norms), regularities (behavioural routines, power relations, distributions of power and resources), social entities (formal corporate actors and organisations) and (formal or informal loose) networks. Non-written rules, legal regulations and regularities form real (formal or informal) social structures and create the framework for the relationships among the actors by the distribution of official competences, financial or power resources. Thus, these institutions determine their definitions of the actors' situations, on which their choices of action are based. The primary argument of this article is that the current actor constellation in the EU prevents it from following a common stance towards the Gaza war. There are two opposing camps concerning EU's policy towards Israel's war on Gaza. Spain, Ireland, Slovenia are pro-Palestine whereas Germany, Austria and some eastern European states such as Hungary and the Czech Republic are supportive of Israel. Another contention of this article is that the disunity within the EU also stems from the EU's institutional plurality and diversity. In other words, the divide is both within and between the EU institutions.

If cynicism is called for, then one should be grateful for small mercies that Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, in a lengthy feature article published in Haaretz Newspaper in January of this year, 'concede' that while Israel's military offensive in Gaza was not a repeat of the Holocaust, it was nevertheless genocide. Such magnanimity is reached through a comparison of Gaza with, on the one hand, several genocide cases prosecuted internationally and, on the other, by referring to various historical instances in which some scholars, but certainly not all, attribute the genocide label. That label, coined in the last century by Raphael Lemkin, has, as Goldberg and Blatman point out, both a legal and historical context. As interesting and thought-provoking as the historical context may be, the legal aspect is paramount, for only legal proof of genocide in a court of law determines the commitment of the crime. Recognized Holocaust and Genocide studies scholars that they are, Professors Goldberg and Blatman are not legal scholars, and they fail in their attempt to label Israel's

Le 9 mars, Israël a annoncé qu’il débranchait la seule ligne électrique alimentant une usine de dessalement d’eau de mer dans la bande de Gaza afin de faire pression sur le Hamas, alors que les pourparlers sur la libération des otages semblent dans l’impasse.

ABSTRACT

Introduction
This study, in which the author has no competing interests, addresses some pertinent issues of refugee crises in Gaza in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, the assault against Israel by Hamas, and discusses some of the challenges faced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in refugee camps.
Method
This study used secondary literature sourced from the official webpages of UNRWA and other sources using random and purposive sampling techniques.
Main Findings
It was established that Gaza has emerged as one of the world’s areas with increasing humanitarian crises affecting Palestinian refugees, who attempt to seek refuge from the devastating conflict between various Palestinian resistance organizations led by Hamas and the Israeli Defence Force. Since October 7, 2023 about 1.9 million refugees in Gaza have suffered various levels of terrorizing ordeals, pointing to a need for increasing global attention to end the war. 
Conclusion
Efforts by the UNRWA have been embroiled with critical challenges in the aim of providing assistance to refugees in the Gaza Strip as a result of the increasing population size and age of Palestinian refugees catered to by the UNRWA.

Data Access Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available on the Internet, [DOI or URL], under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Key Words: refugees, humanitarian, UNRWA, Palestine, Gaza,
Ethics Statement: There Ethical approval was not required because the data were largely secondary and adequately referenced.
Funding Statement: The author self-funded this study and did not seek any grants that could be carried out under terms and conditions.
Plain Language Summary: Refugees crises in Gaza reveals continues challenges to UNRWA in the midst of hostilities between Hamas and Israeli Defence Force.

It is time to hold all Canadian leaders accountable, political, corporate, academic or otherwise, who have tried to silence and erase Palestinian voices, before another year passes and thousands more innocents are murdered in a genocide that is the most transparent in history.