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Another Report from Human Rights Watch: Ignore Hamas, Blame Israel
November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
On November 14, Human Rights Watch released a report titled “Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged,” which accuses Israel of numerous war crimes in Gaza.
The report is based primarily on interviews with 39 Gaza residents, along with analysis of photographs, satellite imagery, and evacuation orders the IDF published on social media.
Of course the war has caused tremendous suffering for Gaza. While fighting against Hamas in a densely urban setting makes this largely inevitable, Israel should not be immune from scrutiny as to whether it has done enough to respect the rights of Gaza civilians. So investigation and analysis of Israel’s conduct is certainly in order.
However, as we’ve unfortunately become accustomed to from Human Rights Watch, this report is biased against Israel at every turn.
Standard of Perfection
Humanitarian law is extraordinarily demanding in the protections it affords civilians — so much so, that no army has ever succeeded at upholding humanitarian law completely. In fact, most do a terrible job. A reasonable question might be to ask how Israel’s humanitarian score compares with other Western nations in their own recent conflicts. But Human Rights Watch holds Israel to a standard of complete perfection — any time Israel falls the slightest bit short of what they believe humanitarian law requires, no matter how impossible the situation, this report immediately accuses Israel of a war crime.
For example, in declaring most evacuations of civilians illegal, the report says, “failure to ensure the security and the guarantee of protections of displaced persons as they fled and in the places to which they were displaced would still render the displacement unlawful.”
In other words, the IDF told civilians to leave a residential area where it was planning to operate against Hamas missiles and tunnels, where they would be in enormous danger should they remain.
But even though evacuation was clearly a good idea and would make them much, much safer, since Israel couldn’t guarantee that they would be completely safe while traveling and at their destination, Human Rights Watch says the evacuation was a war crime.
But how can anywhere in Gaza be completely safe, with Hamas popping up all over? This demand that Israel ensure complete safety for evacuees is impossible, and that would be the case for any other army as well.
The report even criticizes Israel for this: “The evacuation orders also failed to take into account the needs of people with disabilities, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance.”
Of course it would be best if Gaza residents had plenty of time to leave in an organized fashion, with special consideration for those with disabilities. But rockets were raining down on Israel’s cities, with hostages languishing in captivity and Israeli soldiers in danger of attack by Hamas as they wait. Human Rights Watch makes it sound as if Palestinian civilians are the only ones whose rights need to be considered. They’re not.
The report describes Israel’s system for issuing evacuation orders like this:
On December 1, the Israeli military published an online map on its website, that could be accessed using a QR code from a mobile phone, that divided Gaza into a grid of 620 numbered blocks, allowing the user to know in which of these blocks they are located, using the location services of their phone, assuming one had a phone with sufficient battery charge and internet connection. The Israeli military then continued to publish leaflets and social media posts indicating the blocks slated for evacuation.
That might sound like a pretty elaborate, good faith effort to give Gaza civilians continuously updated information to help them avoid the fighting. But not according to Human Rights Watch. The group repeatedly criticizes Israel’s evacuation instructions as incomplete or misleading.
For example, regarding one order on Dec. 3, they write:
The caption in the X post instructed people living in blocks 36, 38 through 54, and 219 through 221 to evacuate, but the heading on the map provided a different list of block numbers: 36, 47 through 54, and 221 through 219, which resulted in the omission of nine blocks.
The appropriate conclusion to draw here is that Israel is not perfect. Getting real-time information from army units actually in Gaza to the people issuing the notices was not seamless. And yes, this certainly did cause stress and uncertainty for Gaza residents, perhaps even leading some to harm. But what government would have done better?
Any new website or system has kinks and mistakes, let alone something as complex as this, being done hurriedly in the midst of a war. The alerts Israel gives to its own citizens to protect themselves from incoming missiles are hardly error-free either. By condemning Israel for even these simple missteps, Human Rights Watch reveals that its agenda is simply to blame Israel for everything, no matter what.
What About Hamas?
The report acknowledges that the Hamas Oct. 7 atrocities precipitated the war. But beyond that, Hamas is hardly mentioned at all.
Doesn’t Hamas bear any responsibility for all the suffering? What about Hamas stealing aid and therefore making its distribution impossible? Or Hamas preventing evacuations in order to drive up civilian casualties to exploit as propaganda and create human shields? Hamas deliberately putting its military tunnels under civilian infrastructure, and using the tunnels to shelter only its fighters but not civilians? For that matter, what about Hamas’ crimes in firing tens of thousands of missiles at Israeli civilian targets and holding hundreds of innocent hostages?
The only place any of this is mentioned is in a brief section that discusses allegations that Hamas prevented people from fleeing. This is probably because in June, a United Nations Human Rights Council report found reasonable grounds to conclude that Hamas has made attempts to discourage and potentially obstruct the evacuation of civilians, so the report had to at least bring it up.
Human Rights Watch dismisses this, though, because none of the 39 people they interviewed claimed it had happened to them (although even they acknowledge that these people may not have felt comfortable revealing derogatory information about Hamas for fear of reprisal). The report then claims that even if Hamas did obstruct the evacuations, Israel should also still be guilty.
Most telling is that the report contains a rather pompous set of recommendations, with separate sections telling Israel, Egypt, all other governments, the United Nations, and other humanitarian organizations, and the International Criminal Court what they should do to comply with international law and stop the suffering of Gazans.
But there is nothing for Hamas.
Absolutely nothing — no demands for Hamas at all. Not to release the hostages, not even to allow the hostages to be visited by the Red Cross. No demand that Hamas allow the unimpeded flow of humanitarian assistance. According to this report, Hamas isn’t doing anything wrong or in any way part of the problem at all.
That’s the bias we’ve unfortunately come to expect from Human Rights Watch. And it’s a shame. An honest, objective report reviewing the conduct of both sides in the current war should be welcomed. It would explain what humanitarian law demands, and make clear that Hamas has purposefully violated and made a mockery of everything it stands for. And it would also show that while Israel has made a tremendous effort to uphold humanitarian values, it has sometimes fallen short. But giving Israel feedback to improve is clearly not the goal of this report — leveling war crimes accusations to ramp up political pressure and hatred of Israel are all that Human Rights Watch is after.
What a pity that what is supposed to be a human rights group has sunk to that.
Shlomo Levin has a Master’s in International Law and Human Rights, and he is the author of the Human Rights Haggadah.
The post Another Report from Human Rights Watch: Ignore Hamas, Blame Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.