GAZA —
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement issued Sunday that
approximately 110,000 Palestinians are reported killed, missing, and
injured, leaving many suffering long-term disabilities, four months into
Israel’s war on Gaza.
اضافة اعلان
A total
of 35,096 Palestinians in the Strip have been killed as of Friday evening,
Euro-Med Monitor estimated. Of those killed in the Israeli air and artillery
attacks on the Strip, 32,220 were civilians, including 12,345 children, 7,656
women, 309 health personnel, 41 civil defense personnel, and 121 journalists.
Meanwhile, 67,240 individuals have been injured, hundreds of them critically.
Within a week of the
International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling, the
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed over 1,048 Palestinians, most of them civilians,
injured over 1,800 others, and carried out 108 massacres.
The
rights group explained that, in addition to the statistics provided by the
Palestinian Health Ministry, its own figures include people who went missing
after being arrested and forcibly disappeared by the IOF, as well as those who
have been trapped beneath the debris of buildings hit by Israeli air and
artillery strikes for more than 14 consecutive days now and are therefore
presumed dead. Hundreds of bodies that cannot be recovered due to the ongoing
Israeli violence remain on the roads, said
Euro-Med Monitor, particularly in
areas where Israel’s army has conducted ground incursions. The Euro-Med Monitor
team further reported that about two million Palestinians, approximately 90
percent of the total population of the Strip, have been displaced from their
homes and residential areas amid a lack of safe shelters, as 79,200 housing
units have been completely destroyed and 207,000 housing units have been
partially damaged.
Euro-Med
Monitor warned that Israel has targeted more than 245 square kilometers, or 67
percent of the entire
Gaza Strip. This includes all of Gaza City and the
Strip’s northern regions, where residents have been ordered to evacuate since
October 2023. The majority of them have not yet been able to return; neither
have residents of large areas in the central and southern sections of the Strip
that Israel had designated as safe areas.
Euro-Med
Monitor stated that Israel continues to escalate its military assaults against
Palestinian civilians in an apparent attempt to expand its territory to include
the entire Gaza Strip, uprooting the vast majority of the Strip’s population in
violation of international law. This likely amounts to war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide, the rights group said.
Euro-Med
Monitor emphasized that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian
infrastructure in order to cause as many casualties, material losses, and as
much general destruction as possible as a form of retaliation and collective
punishment. This is against international humanitarian law, the 1949 Geneva
Convention, and amounts to war crimes according to the Rome Statute, which
governs the
International Criminal Court (ICC). According to Euro-Med Monitor’s
team, the facilities targeted by Israel during its ongoing attacks include 334
schools, 1,720 industrial facilities, 183 health facilities, 478 mosques, three
churches, 171 press offices, and 199 archaeological sites.
Two
hundred thirty-five health facilities have been targeted so far, including 26
hospitals, 63 clinics, and 146 ambulances. Thus, out of 36 hospitals in the
Gaza Strip, only 13 are partially functional, while less than 17 percent of
primary health care centers in the Strip are still partially operating.
A week
after the ICJ’s ruling, which required Israel to take all possible measures to
prevent genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and to take
immediate steps to ensure humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians there,
Euro-Med Monitor reported that the IOF was still killing civilians at the same
rate as before the ruling, as well as starving them, denying aid supplies, and
depriving them of their most basic human rights; destroying their property to
make it impossible for them to return to their homes; forcibly arresting them;
and torturing them.
The
human rights group also documented that the IOF is still besieging and bombing
Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. During the past
few days, the building of the
Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), which
also houses the hospital, was bombed several times, killing at least seven
civilians, including a hospital employee.
Euro-Med
Monitor contended that Israel continues to specifically target civilians. Three
civilians were slain and four others were injured on January 29; all were
internally displaced refugees who sought safety near the PRCS headquarters in
the west of Khan Yunis. Two were killed while attempting to remove the body of
a woman who had been killed by Israeli forces a few meters away from the
hospital.
In
addition, the IOF issued fresh evacuation orders on January 29, requiring
residents and internally displaced people living in the neighborhoods of
Al-Nasr, Sheikh Radwan, Al-Shati camp, Northern Sands, Southern Sands, and
Al-Sabra, Sheikh Ajlin, and Tal Al-Hawa in
Gaza City to evacuate to Deir
Al-Balah in the middle of the Strip.
Euro-Med
Monitor confirmed that Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon of war,
noting that the amount of aid supplies entering the Gaza Strip, especially the
northern Gaza Valley, does not meet the population’s growing needs, while
civilians gathering for the few aid trucks arriving in the area were
deliberately targeted by IOF soldiers. Of the 61 humanitarian relief operations
scheduled to arrive in the northern Gaza Valley in January, only 10 were
allowed entry by Israeli authorities.
Euro-Med
Monitor has been closely tracking the continued inflammatory statements of
Israeli officials, which express a clear premeditated intention to commit the
crime of genocide. Israeli ministers continue to issue and condone statements
inciting the extermination of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, said the
human rights organization, pointing to a conference attended by 12 ministers
from Israel's ruling
Likud Party, at which settler leader Daniela Weiss called
for the return of settlement construction in Gaza, saying “the Arabs will not
stay in Gaza.”
As in
the past, said Euro-Med Monitor, Israel is failing to hold responsible
individual Israeli citizens who encourage the genocide of the Palestinian
people in the Gaza Strip, regardless of the individual’s degree of political
power or level of celebrity or influence.
Israel
has flagrantly broken the terms of international humanitarian law, Euro-Med
Monitor reiterated, which forbids property damage as a “preventive means” and
property destruction as a means of deterrence, even for military purposes.
Euro-Med
Human Rights Monitor renewed its call for an international investigation into
Israel’s widely documented violations of international law since it began its
military attacks on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023; for an end to the state
of impunity that Israel enjoys; and for a process that will hold accountable
the perpetrators of human rights violations as well as ensure that all victims
receive compensation.
Euro-Med
Monitor warned of the dangerous repercussions of many donor countries’ decision
to suspend their funding for
UNRWA in light of the current catastrophic
conditions and the impending famine, as
UNRWA is the main humanitarian agency
in the Gaza Strip, serving more than two million people. The suspension is a
dangerous violation of their international obligations, added the rights group,
especially with regard to protecting the Palestinian people from the crime of
genocide. Additionally, the suspension furthers Israeli policies and projects
aimed at eradicating the Palestinian cause and depriving the Palestinian
people, especially the refugees, of their guaranteed rights under international
law and pertinent
UN resolutions.
The
international community must act swiftly to impose a binding executive decision
on the ICJ’s ruling, establish an immediate ceasefire, guarantee the safety of
civilians and their return to their homes, and step up efforts by international
organizations to monitor, record, and document Israel’s breathtaking violations
of the ICJ’s ruling. These violations must be reported and widely disseminated
in order for the Republic of South Africa and other countries involved in the
lawsuit to prepare and submit a comprehensive report backed by evidence
regarding the grave and pervasive violations happening to Palestinian
civilians.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News