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The scenes in Gaza are appalling.

The Israeli government has described it as a “total siege,” cutting off delivery to Gaza of electricity, fuel, water, and food. The sole power plant has shut down for lack of fuel. And all this is on top of conditions that were already dire after 16 years of Israel’s crushing restrictions in the open-air prison for 2.2 million people known as Gaza.

Then, there’s the bombing.

Israeli authorities may claim their aerial attacks are precisely targeted, as if using high explosives in densely populated areas could ever be.

The reality is, due to Israel’s indiscriminate aerial bombardment, hospitals are running out of space and are no longer safe havens. The World Health Organization has documented 22 attacks that have affected health care facilities and ambulances in Gaza since October 7. Israeli air strikes have also damaged refugee camps, schools, and UN compounds in recent days.

Of course,  there’s a wider context – not just the long-term one of more than 16 years of extreme restrictions on Gaza and Israel’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution in the occupied territories – but also the immediate one: Hamas’s vile attacks.

Hamas-led attackers killed people in their homes, massacred party-goers at a music festival, and kidnapped children, older people, and others. Deliberately shooting civilians and taking civilians hostage are war crimes.

What the Israeli government is now doing, however, is replying to war crimes with war crimes.

Israel’s minister of Energy and Infrastructure has made it clear the recent Hamas attacks are “why we decided to stop the flow of water, electricity and fuel.” It’s collective punishment, and these tactics are war crimes, as is using starvation as a weapon of war.

To put it a different way: Hamas targeted innocent people, and Israel is targeting innocent people in response.

To make matters worse, in response to Hamas’ rampage, some European governments have suspended (or put under a new review) development aid programs in Palestine. This includes things like funding for the UN, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and civil society organizations. Israel has also reportedly threatened to block humanitarian aid entering via Egypt.

Do they all seriously think that suspending aid will punish the October 7 attackers? Hamas has long been designated as a terrorist organization by many countries and has long been ineligible for their aid anyway. Aid freezes risk further punishing Palestinian civilians who are already facing unprecedented repression an violence. 

No water. No fuel. No electricity. No assistance. No escape from the bombing.

That leaves millions of blameless people with no hope.

Regular readers will recall the case of Oleg Orlov, which we highlighted some months ago.

Orlov is one of Russia’s most prominent and outspoken human rights defenders. He’s co-chair of Memorial, a leading rights group in Russia that was co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

The Russian government shut down Memorial in 2022, yet the group’s core activists continue their human rights work, some from abroad, and some, like Orlov, from inside the country.

Yesterday, a Moscow court found Orlov guilty on charges of “discrediting” the military by speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to a fine of 150,000 rubles (about 1,500 US dollars).

You would think that after committing so many atrocities, no one’s done more to discredit Russia’s military than Russia’s military itself.

In any case, as my colleague and expert Tanya Lokshina says, Orlov’s prosecution and verdict are “a mockery to the rule of law.”

Of course, Orlov is familiar with the authorities’ tactics and knows how to respond. He turned every court hearing of his four-month trial into an opportunity to expose the Kremlin’s abuses at home and abroad.

(written by Emily Palomo) 

Two lower courts in Nepal have refused to recognize a couple’s marriage, in defiance of the Supreme Court’s recent interim order to register same-sex marriages while the legislative change is pending.

Gurung, a transgender woman who is legally recognized as male, and Pandey, a cisgender man, held a Hindu wedding ceremony in 2017. They first attempted to register their marriage last June at the Kathmandu District Court, which rejected their registration, saying it did not need to recognize a couple that was not one legal male and one legal female.

Nepal’s Supreme Court has a globally-recognized record of rulings upholding the rights of LGBT people, although implementation has been piecemeal.

By refusing to register same-sex marriages in spite of the Supreme Court ruling, lower courts are “undermining Nepal’s reputation as a legal leader on LGBT rights”, said HRW Senior Researcher Kyle Knight. This risks violating the constitutional protections for sexual and gender minorities.

(Compiled by Emily Palomo)  

• Enforced disappearances still a scourge in Philippines (HRW) 
• Corporations are paying for worker abuse audits that are ‘designed to fail’, say insiders (The Guardian) 
• The Supreme Court weighs whether South Carolina targeted Black voters in redistricting (El Pais)  
• Indian author Arundhati Roy may face prosecution for 2010 speech on Kashmir (Al Jazeera) 
• After Hamas attack, Hezbollah threatens escalation in northern Israel (Le Monde International)

It’s that time again: your opportunity to test your knowledge on the human rights news of the week. The first question should be an easy one…