Amnesty chief calls out West’s double standards over Gaza as 70 per cent of its 2.3 million residents are now displaced

SHAH ALAM - Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard has called out the West’s approach to the aggression and wars happening in Gaza and Ukraine.

Labelling the situation as a “double standard”, she said this could be seen on how the Western bloc had demanded the world to rush to the defence and helped Ukraine but ignored Gaza and Palestine despite multiple bombings and sufferings seen.

Callamard said the double standard was a bigger threat to human rights than anything else at the moment.

“It is reflected right now in the Western bloc we are witnessing, the Western bloc demanding we rush to the defence of Ukraine, as we should because Ukraine has been aggressed by Russia and there is unbelievable suffering in Ukraine and at the same time telling us not to act on the multiple bombing and absolute suffering of the people of Gaza.

“The double standard of those governments to me is the bigger threat to human rights right now,” she said during a public event.

The aggression on the Palestinians entered day 38 today with no signs of slowing down as Israel continued to target hospitals in Gaza from the air as its ground forces have also surrounded several hospitals in the northern part of the besieged enclave.

Ahmad Mokhallalati, a surgeon at the al-Shifa Hospital was quoted by Al-Jazeera saying that medical staff and patients “are in the middle of the warzone”.

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the bombardment started but the official tally will be difficult following the United Nations statement on Sunday that the “collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north of Gaza” was delaying Gaza’s Health Ministry from updating the numbers.

The World Health Organisation has also said it has lost communication with its contacts inside al-Shifa Hospital and people have been targeted and killed while trying to get out.

Tens of thousands have fled the northern parts of Gaza in recent days as the Israeli military ramped up its operations there.

But the Israeli forces also continued to pound Rafah and other spots in the south, leaving no safe place in the strip with more than 70 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents now displaced.