” A total blockade of the Gaza Strip was announced on 9 October 2023 by the Defence Minister of Israel, Yoav Gallant. “We are putting a complete siege on Gaza … No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed” he announced.[2][26] “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he added”
WIKIPEDIA/ISRAELI BLOCKADE OF THE GAZA STRIP (2023-PRESENT)//BLOCKADE
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says blockade will include ban on admission of food, electricity and fuel.
Israel has announced a “total” blockade of the already besieged Gaza Strip, including a ban on food and water, after Hamas carried out the biggest attack on the country in decades.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel as part of “a complete siege” on Hamas-run Gaza, where about 2.3 million people live in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The Israeli blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip, in its current form, has been in place since June 2007. Israel controls Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters, as well as two of the three border crossing points; the third is controlled by Egypt.
“We are putting a complete siege on Gaza … No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” Gallant said in a video statement.
Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, told reporters on Monday that Israel has “control” of its communities following Saturday’s mass incursion of Hamas fighters into its territory.
Hagari said there had been some isolated incidents on Monday morning, but that “at this stage, there is no fighting in the communities”.
He added that “there might still be terrorists in the region”.
Israeli tanks and drones were guarding openings in the fence to prevent more infiltrations, Hagari said, adding that 15 of 24 border communities had been evacuated, with the rest expected to be evacuated over the next 24 hours.
Earlier, Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua told The Associated Press news agency that the group’s fighters continued to battle outside Gaza and had captured more Israelis as recently as Monday morning.
He said the group aims to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which in the past has agreed to lopsided exchange deals in which it released large numbers of prisoners for individual captives or even the remains of soldiers.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says he has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, as Israel fights the Hamas terror group.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant says following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he adds.
[47]
‘“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,””
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says he has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, as Israel fights the Hamas terror group.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant says following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he adds.
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Everyone in Gaza is going hungry. About 2.2 million people are surviving day by day on almost nothing, routinely going without meals. The desperate search for food is relentless, and usually unsuccessful, leaving the entire population – including babies, children, pregnant or nursing women and the elderly – hungry.
“There are no greens, fruit and dairy products here like I had before. Prices are very high because of the food shortage in the markets, so instead of three meals a day, we’ve gone down to one or two. My four-year-old has osteoporosis and needs to drink milk every day, but now I can’t get it for her.” Wisal Abu ‘Odeh, 34, a pregnant mother of two from Beit Hanoun, is a displaced person currently sheltering in the Khan Yunis area
The hunger in Gaza is not a byproduct of the war but a direct result of Israel’s declared policy, says B’Tselem in its new position paper. Residents now depend entirely on food supplies from outside Gaza, as they can no longer produce almost any food themselves. Most cultivated fields have been destroyed, and accessing open areas during the war is dangerous in any case. Bakeries, factories and food warehouses have been bombed or shut down due to lack of basic supplies, fuel and electricity. Stockpiles in private homes, stores and warehouses have long since run out, leading family and social support networks that helped residents at the start of the war to collapse, too.
Yet Israel is deliberately denying the entry of enough food into Gaza to meet the population’s needs. Only a fraction of the amount of food entering before the war is now allowed in, with limitations on the types of goods, how they are brought in and how they are distributed within Gaza.
Israel can choose to change this reality. The images of children begging for food, people waiting in long lines for paltry handouts and hungry residents charging at aid trucks are already inconceivable. The horror is growing by the minute, and the danger of famine is real. Still, Israel persists in its policy.
Changing this policy is not just a moral obligation. Allowing food into the Gaza Strip is not an act of kindness but a positive obligation under international humanitarian law: starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited, and when a civilian population lacks what it needs to survive, parties to the conflict have a positive obligation to allow rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid – including food. These two rules are considered customary law and violating them constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
EINDE
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
ISRAEL: UNLAWFUL GAZA BLOCKADE DEADLY FOR CHILDREN
Denial of Water, Fuel, Electricity Endangers Lives
Update October 19, 2023: President Joe Biden announced that the United States mediated an agreement allowing the movement of up to 20 trucks of food, medicine, and water into Gaza. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has urged negotiators to raise their “level of ambition.” OCHA reported that, in August 2023 alone, 12,072 truckloads of “authorized goods entered Gaza through the Israeli and Egyptian-controlled crossings.” After the total siege on the civilian population on October 9, a single dispatch of 20 truckloads does not adequately address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Israel’s international partners should press the Israeli government to restore water and electricity supplies and lift its unlawful restrictions on aid delivery and closure.
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government should immediately end its total blockade of the Gaza Strip that is putting Palestinian children and other civilians at grave risk, Human Rights Watch said today. The collective punishment of the population is a war crime. Israeli authorities should allow desperately needed food, medical aid, fuel, electricity, and water into Gaza, and let sick and wounded civilians leave to receive medical treatment elsewhere.
Israel announced on October 18, 2023, that it would allow food, water, and medicine to reach people in southern Gaza from Egypt, but without electricity or fuel to run the local power plant or generators, or clear provision of aid to those in the north, this falls short of meeting the needs of Gaza’s population.
The Israeli bombardment and total blockade have exacerbated the longstanding humanitarian crisis resulting from Israel’s unlawful 16-year closure of Gaza, where more than 80 percent of the population relies on humanitarian aid. Doctors in Gaza report being unable to care for children and other patients because the hospitals are overwhelmed by victims of Israeli airstrikes. On October 17, a munition struck al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, causing mass casualties; Hamas blamed Israel for the strike, while Israel said it was a rocket misfire by Palestinian militants. Human Rights Watch is looking into the strike.
Public health officials said the lack of water, contamination of areas by sewage, and many bodies that cannot be safely stored in morgues could trigger an infectious disease outbreak.
“Israel’s bombardment and unlawful total blockade of Gaza mean that countless wounded and sick children, among many other civilians, will die for want of medical care,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “US President Joe Biden, who is in Israel today, should press Israeli officials to completely lift the unlawful blockade and ensure the entire civilian population has prompt access to water, food, fuel, and electricity.”
Senior Israeli officials have said the total blockade of the Gaza Strip, where children comprise nearly half of the population of 2.2 million, is part of efforts to defeat Hamas, following its October 7 attack on Israel. Hamas-led Palestinian fighters killed more than 1,300 people, according to Israeli authorities, and took scores of civilians, including women and children, as hostages. On October 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced “a complete siege … no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported, as of October 18, that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed. The Palestinian rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine reported that more than 1,000 children are among those killed.
The laws of war do not prohibit sieges or blockades of enemy forces, but they may not include tactics that prevent civilians’ access to items essential for their survival, such as water, food, and medicine. Parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid passage of impartial humanitarian aid for all civilians in need. Aid may be inspected but not arbitrarily delayed.
In addition, during military occupations, such as in Gaza, the occupying power has a duty under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to the fullest extent of the means available to it, “of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population.” Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited and is a war crime.
Under international human rights law, states must respect the right to water, which includes refraining from limiting access to, or destroying, water services and infrastructure as a punitive measure during armed conflicts as well as respecting the obligations to protect objects indispensable for survival of the civilian population.
Israel’s total blockade against the population in Gaza forms part of the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution that Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians.
News media reported on October 17 that Israel had refused to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while Egypt was refusing to allow Palestinians to cross into the Sinai. Egypt and Israel should permit civilians to pass through their respective crossings to seek at least temporary protection or life-saving medical care, while also ensuring that anyone who flees is entitled to voluntary return in safety and dignity.
Lack of Medical Care
Shortages of medical equipment, supplies, and medication in the face of overwhelming casualties are causing avoidable deaths in hospitals in the Gaza Strip. More than 60 percent of patients are children, Dr. Midhat Abbas, director general of health in Gaza, told Human Rights Watch. An intern emergency room doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital wept while speaking to Human Rights Watch by phone on October 15:
Yesterday, in the intensive care unit, it was full, and all ventilators were in use. A child came in with head trauma who needed a ventilator. They had to choose between two children, who would die. He [the doctor] made a decision that one child was more promising to treat, so we were forced to switch the ventilator, and the other child died.
A doctor at the Northern Medical Complex said that on the night of October 14, intensive-care unit medics had to disconnect an adult patient from a ventilator to use it for a 10-year-old. He said a lack of medical supplies had obliged him to stitch a woman’s head wound without gloves or sterile equipment.
In a voice message on October 14, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital described a group of patients with “back wounds, including compound fractures, that can be really painful.” He said that the hospital had run out of painkillers to administer to them.
Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British surgeon volunteering at al-Shifa hospital, posted on social media on October 10, that “the hospitals, because of the siege, are so short of supplies that we had to clean a teenage girl with 70 percent body surface burns with regular soap because the hospital is out of chlorhexidine (antiseptic).” On October 14, he said in a voice note shared with Human Rights Watch: “We are no longer able to do anything but the most life-saving surgeries” because medical supplies were exhausted, and deaths and injuries had caused staff shortages.
More than 5,500 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are expected to deliver within the next month, but face “compromised functionality of health facilities” and lack of “lifesaving supplies,” the United Nations Population Fund said on October 13.
“We need insulin [for diabetics],” said the head of a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) shelter on October 15. “People are dying.” The shelter was overwhelmed with 15,000 internally displaced people.
The UN World Health Organization stated on October 14 that it had flown medical and basic health supplies for 300,000 patients to Egypt, near the Gaza Strip’s southern border, and more than 1,000 tons of other humanitarian aid had been shipped to the area. As of October 17, though, humanitarian workers and aid remain blocked via the Rafah border crossing. Israeli attacks have reportedly hit the crossing repeatedly, rendering it unsafe. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said four Egyptian aid workers were injured in the Israeli strikes and that “there is not yet any sort of authorization for a safe passage from the other side of the crossing.”
Israel’s order on October 13 to all civilians located in the north of the Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south exacerbated the medical crisis: 21 hospitals currently holding more than 2,000 patients are located in this region. The World Health Organization said the evacuations “could be tantamount to a death sentence” for the sick and injured and said hospitals were already beyond capacity in the southern Gaza Strip. A pediatric doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital said evacuating would likely cause the deaths of seven newborns in the ICU who were connected to ventilators.
Dr. Abu Sitta said that Israel’s evacuation order forced the Mohammed al-Durra Pediatric Hospital east of Gaza City to close, including a neonatal intensive care unit supported by the charity he volunteers with, Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The sick and wounded, including children and pregnant women, have not been allowed to cross Rafah into Egypt or the Erez crossing into Israel to receive treatment. Dr. Abbas, the director general of health, said, “We are in desperate need of a safe humanitarian passage for patients immediately, [and] we need field hospitals immediately.”
Electricity
On October 7, Israeli authorities cut the electricity it delivers to Gaza, the main source of electricity there. Israeli authorities also cut fuel necessary to run Gaza’s only power plant. The power plant has since run out of fuel and shut down. On October 17, Dr. Abbas told Human Rights Watch by phone that hospitals’ emergency generators will run out of fuel “within hours.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross regional director warned on October 11 that the power cuts are “putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk. Kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken. Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”
Water and Sewage
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that 97 percent of the groundwater in Gaza is “unfit for human consumption,” leaving people dependent on the supply of water from Israel and on the territory’s desalination plants. Israel cut off all water on October 11, and most desalination also stopped that day due to the cutoff in electricity, leaving about 600,000 people without clean water, Omar Shatat, deputy director general of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told Human Rights Watch.
The last functioning desalination plant stopped operating on October 15. Israel partially resumed water delivery that day, but only to the eastern Khan Younis area, and it amounted to less than 4 percent of the water consumed in Gaza prior to October 7, according to OCHA.
UNRWA warned that “people will start dying of severe dehydration” unless access to water is resumed. The Associated Press reported on October 15 that a doctor had treated 15 cases of children with bacterial dysentery due to lack of clean water, which can also cause diseases like cholera, particularly in children under 5.
“Israel has cut off the most basic goods necessary for survival in Gaza, where there are more than a million children at risk,” Van Esveld said. “Every hour that this blockade continues costs lives.”
EINDE
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
ISRAEL/OPT: ISRAEL MUST LIFT ILLEGAL AND INHUMANE BLOCKADE
The shutdown of Gaza’s only power plant will exacerbate an already desperate humanitarian crisis for more than 2.2 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip, amid a massive bombing campaign by Israel that has killed at least 1,350 people and injured more than 6,000 people.
The airstrikes were launched in retaliation to the attack on 7 October by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups from Gaza who fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and injuring more than 2,700 and taking hostages, including many civilians.
“The Israeli authorities must immediately restore Gaza’s electricity supply and suspend the increased restrictions imposed as a result of the Minister of Defence’s order of 9 October 2023 and lift its illegal 16-year blockade on the Gaza Strip. The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population amounts to a war crime – it is cruel and inhumane. As the occupying power, Israel has a clear obligation under international law to ensure the basic needs of Gaza’s civilian population are met,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard.
The blackout has plunged the Gaza strip into darkness and will exacerbate an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. It will further limit communications and access to the internet. The power cuts will have a severe impact on essential services, access to clean water and will cause a public health disaster leaving Gaza’s already depleted hospitals without vital medical equipment at a time when medics are struggling to treat thousands gravely wounded in Israeli attacks. It will also endanger the lives of hospital patients, including people with chronic conditions or those in intensive care, including newborn babies on life support.
An Israeli minister said today that the authorities will not restore power or allow water or fuel to enter until Hamas releases hostages. This is an explicit confirmation that these acts have been taken to punish civilians in Gaza for the actions of Palestinian armed groups. Amnesty reiterates that Palestinian civilians are not responsible for the crimes of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups and Israel must not, under international law, make them suffer for acts they play no role in and cannot control.
“Palestinian armed groups’ horrific mass killing of Israeli civilians and other serious violations do not absolve Israel from upholding its obligations to respect international humanitarian law and to protect civilians. The collective punishment of civilians in Gaza will not bring justice to the victims of war crimes by Hamas and other armed groups or security to civilians in Israel,” said Agnes Callamard.
Amnesty International is also concerned by the repeated attacks on the Rafah border crossing. It calls on Israel to facilitate the establishment of humanitarian corridors for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and to allow safe passage for those in need of medical care outside the Gaza Strip. It urges the international community to work towards an agreement over humanitarian corridors.
Israeli authorities must refrain from committing unlawful attacks that kill or injure civilians and destroy civilian homes and infrastructure. Israeli officials must refrain from incitement to violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and ensure the safety of all civilians living under its control. All Palestinian armed groups in Gaza must release all civilian hostages unconditionally and immediately.
Amnesty International is currently investigating Israeli air strikes in Gaza, including the air strike on a residential building in al-Zeitoun neighbourhood, which killed 15 members of the same family, including seven children – five siblings and their two cousins, in addition to their elderly grandparents; the destruction of Burj Palestine, a high-rise building in al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza; and the bombing of a crowded market street in Jabalia refugee camp, which killed at least 69 people, including at least 15 Children.
Amnesty International is calling on Israel and Palestinian armed groups to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians, in line with their obligations under international humanitarian law.
This output is part of a series of articles by Amnesty International into the escalating violence and human rights violations in Israel, Gaza and elsewhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Amnesty International has published its initial findings on war crimes committed by Hamas and Palestinian armed groups including mass summary executions, hostage-taking, and the firing of inherently indiscriminate rockets. With evidence still emerging of the violations committed in southern Israel, Amnesty International will continue its investigations to determine the full range of crimes committed under international law.
Background
Since 2007, Israel has imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip collectively punishing its entire population. The current fighting is the sixth major military operation Israel and Gaza-based armed groups since then. On 9 October Israel’s minister of defence Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege on Gaza… No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” as part of the Israeli retaliatory attack following the attack by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that killed 1,200 people.
In June, Amnesty International published its investigation into the May 2023 offensive on the Gaza strip, finding that Israel had unlawfully destroyed Palestinian homes, often without military necessity in what amounts to a form of collective punishment against the civilian population.
In its February 2022 report, Amnesty International set out how Israeli forces have committed in Gaza (as well as in the West Bank and Israel) acts prohibited by the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Apartheid Convention, as part of a widespread and systemic attack against the civilian population with the aim of maintaining a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians, thereby constituting the crime against humanity of apartheid.
Previous reports by Amnesty International on violations and crimes committed in the context of fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed groups can be found here.
Amnesty International is an impartial human rights organization and seeks to ensure that all parties to an armed conflict comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Accordingly, in future briefings, Amnesty International will be investigating Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip to determine whether it is complying with the rules of international humanitarian law, including by taking necessary precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects and refraining from unlawful attacks and from collective punishment of the civilian population, as required under international law. Amnesty International will also continue to monitor the activities of Hamas and Palestinian armed groups.
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In June 2007, following the military takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the Israeli authorities significantly intensified existing movement restrictions, virtually isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and the world. This land, sea and air blockade has significantly exacerbated previous restrictions, limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings. ”
UNICEFTHE GAZA STRIP/THE HUMANITARIAN IMPACT OF15 YEARS OF BLOCKADE-JUNE 2022
In June 2007, following the military takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the Israeli authorities significantly intensified existing movement restrictions, virtually isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and the world. This land, sea and air blockade has significantly exacerbated previous restrictions, limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings.
Prior to the Second Intifada in 2000, up to half a million exits of people from Gaza into Israel, primarily workers, were recorded in a single month. For the first seven years of the blockade, this number declined to just over 4,000 on average, rising to 10,400 monthly over the next eight years.
So far in 2022, the Israeli authorities have approved only 64% of patients’ requests to exit Gaza mainly for specialized treatment in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by the time of the scheduled medical appointment. In previous years, patients have died while awaiting a response to their application.
The Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for long periods after 2014 following political unrest in Egypt. Rafah has been mostly operational since mid-2018, and was open for 95 days out of 151 in the first five months of 2022.
After the blockade, the number of truckloads of commercial goods exiting Gaza dropped significantly to only two truckloads on average per month in 2009. Following the 2014 escalation of hostilities, commercial transfers from Gaza to the West Bank resumed, and from March 2015 exports to Israel also resumed. In August 2021, exports to Egypt started for the first time, boosting the monthly average of exports to 787 in the first five months of 2022. Pre-blockade, the average monthly high was 961.
The volume of truckloads entering Gaza in the first five months of 2022, around 8,000 per month, was about 30% below the monthly average for the first half of 2007, before the blockade. Since then, the population has grown by more than 50%.
Israeli forces have largely restricted access to areas within 300 metres of the Gaza side of the perimeter fence with Israel; areas several hundred metres beyond are deemed not safe, preventing, or discouraging, agricultural activities.
Israeli forces restrict access off the Gaza coast, currently only allowing fishermen to access 50% of the fishing waters allocated for this purpose under the Oslo Accords.
Unemployment levels in Gaza are amongst the highest in the world: the Q1 jobless rate in 2022 was 46.6%, compared with an average of 34.8% in 2006. Youth unemployment for the same period (age 15-29) stands at 62.5%. (PCBS)
31% of households in Gaza have difficulties meeting essential education needs such as tuition fees and books, due to lack of financial resources.
1.3 million out of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza (62%) require food assistance.
At its current operating capacity, the Gaza Power Plant can only produce up to 80 megawatts (MW), supplemented by 120 MW purchased from Israel, meeting about 50% of the electricity demand in Gaza (400-450MW). In 2021, rolling power cuts averaged 11 hours per day.
78% of piped water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption.
EINDE HUMAN RIGHTS WATCHLETTER TO OLMERT: STOP THE BLOCKADEOF GAZA20 NOVEMBER 2008
November 20, 2008 Dear Prime Minister Olmert, We are writing to express our deep concern about Israel’s continuing blockade of the Gaza Strip, a measure that is depriving its population of food, fuel, and basic services, and constitutes a form of collective punishment.
The latest measures, a complete closure of all Gaza border crossings since November 5, are part of an ongoing policy by your government that has prevented the normal flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza since January 2006. It has contributed to a humanitarian crisis, deepened poverty and ruined the economy. We urge your government to abandon this policy.
Your government states that this latest blockade was in response to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, in which two Israel civilians were injured (on November 14 and 16), and over a dozen others treated for shock. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly condemned deliberate and indiscriminate Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli communities as violations of the laws of war. We recently sent a letter to Hamas leaders calling on them to renounce such attacks, and arrest and prosecute those who carry out or encourage attacks on civilians.
However, violations of the laws of war by one party to a conflict do not justify violations by the other. As such, illegal attacks by Palestinian armed groups do not justify an illegal Israeli response. Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, an occupied territory under the Fourth Geneva Convention, constitutes collective punishment in violation of the laws of war. While your government has eased the restrictions for one day on November 17 the humanitarian situation in Gaza is now critical as the borders remain closed. Food distribution by the United Nations to 750,000 people—half of Gaza’s population—was forced to a halt last week, and remains severely disrupted.
Israel permitted 30 trucks to enter Gaza on November 17, delivering just eight trucks of food aid for the United Nations relief agency distribution centers, enough to feed 20,000 people. Those supplies are now almost gone, according to UN officials. The agency has to import at least 15 truckloads of food daily to meet the territory’s needs. Food stocks in three UN warehouses have also been emptied.
Gaza’s main power station needs over 21 million liters of industrial diesel before it can restart power production, according to the relief agency. Gaza is currently suffering widespread power shortages with power cuts of up to 16 hours a day. On average 650,000 people–over a third of the population—are without power at any one time amid rolling power cuts throughout the territory.
The fuel and power shortages have disrupted the pumping of water from 80 percent of Gaza water wells according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Twenty percent of the population has access to water for six hours five times a week. Forty percent have access to water four days a week, and the remaining 40 percent have water for just three days a week.
No wheat grain has entered Gaza for 16 days, prompting Gaza’s largest flour mill al-Philistiniya to close, according to OCHA. A lack of cooking gas has closed 28 out of 47 pita-bread bakeries in Gaza, and bread is being rationed. There are no bakeries in production in Rafah in the south of Gaza.
The latest closures have compounded the already severe effects of a longer term blockade your government implemented when Hamas took full control of Gaza in June 2007. Other restrictions have been in place since December 2005, when Hamas won legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Over the last year, this policy has deepened poverty in Gaza and cut its industrial production by over 90 percent, according to the World Bank. The Palestinian Federation of Industries estimates that as a result of import restrictions and the inability to export, only 23 of the 3,900 industries in Gaza are operating, six of which produce wheat flour, one clothing, and the remainder food processing.
These restrictions are impacting a population that is already among the poorest in the world. Close to 70 percent of the population lives in deep poverty, according the UN relief agency, UNRWA. (The agency defines deep poverty as a family of six persons or more living on income of less than US$467 per month.) Egypt has been complicit in the blockade by keeping its borders with Gaza closed for much of the past year, in cooperation with your government.
Israel made a commitment in June to ease some of these restrictions – but the movement of goods into Gaza and people in and out the territory remains a fraction of what it was when borders were last opened for free trade. October’s imports represented only 21 percent of the December 2005 level (13,430 truckloads), that is prior to the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, and 26 percent of the May 2007 level, immediately before the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, according to OCHA. Exports from Gaza are not allowed by your government.
In September and October, Egypt and Israel allowed around 6000 pilgrims, hospital patients and some businessmen to pass through the Rafah and Erez border crossings. However, the Israeli and Egyptian governments have prevented over 800 students from leaving the territory to study abroad. Restrictions on freedom of movement for the large majority of the population remain in place, preventing their access to work, healthcare, and family outside of Gaza.
Even though Israel withdrew its permanent military forces and settlers in 2005, it remains an occupying power in Gaza under international law because it continues to exercise effective day-to-day control over key aspects of life in Gaza. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is obliged to ensure the provision of food and medical supplies to the civilian population to the fullest extent possible.
We urge your government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow into Gaza of food, medicines, and other supplies essential for the well-being of the civilian population and to cease all measures that amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, including disruptions to the electricity supply and fuel cuts. We also urge your government to respect the right to freedom of movement, especially for those who need to travel for reasons of health or education.
We look forward to your response to this matter.
Yours sincerely,
SarahLeah Whitson Executive Director Middle East and North Africa Division Human Rights Watch
[50]
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,””
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says he has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, as Israel fights the Hamas terror group.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant says following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he adds.
De driehoek – burgemeester, justitie en politie – heeft voorwaarden gesteld aan de organisatoren van de pro-Palestina mars van aankomende zondag. Zo moet de organisatie zelf de orde houden over de demonstranten. Daarnaast is het zwaaien van vlaggen van terreurorganisaties zoals Hamas of Hezbollah verboden, mag gezichtsbedekkende kleding niet worden gedragen en mogen er geen voorwerpen worden verbrand. De gemeente zegt dat er tussen de 2500 tot 10.000 deelnemers worden verwacht.
“De driehoek zal haatzaaien, oproepen tot geweld en andere bedreigingen van onze vreedzame en open samenleving niet tolereren”, zo laat de driehoek weten. Vlaggen van terreurgroepen mogen bijvoorbeeld niet worden getoond en een oproep tot geweld mag niet worden gedaan. Gezichtsbedekkende kleding is ook verboden om de orde te bewaren, religieuze kleding mag wel. Het verbranden van voorwerpen tolereert de driehoek ook niet: “Aangezien dit tot wanordelijkheden kan leiden en voor andere demonstranten en omstanders een gevaar kan zijn.”
Zelf orde houden
Omdat er bij eerdere pro-Israël en pro-Palestina protesten incidenten en confrontaties zijn geweest, is er bij de driehoek nu ook zorgen over de kans op nieuwe incidenten. “Het verleden leert dat demonstraties over dit thema vaak over en weer tegenreacties oproepen, waarbij strafbare feiten en confrontaties met tegendemonstranten kunnen plaatsvinden”, schrijft burgemeester Halsema aan de organisatie.
De driehoek wijst de organisatoren daarom scherp om de mars in goede banen te leiden en zelf mensen te regelen die de ervoor zorgen dat er geen strafbare feiten worden gepleegd. De Amsterdamse politie is ook ter begeleiding aanwezig. Halsema liet gisteren al weten dat het Openbaar Ministerie meeluistert tijdens de protesten, bijvoorbeeld bij de speeches. Als de voorwaarden worden overtreden of als er niet naar de politie wordt geluisterd, zal er worden opgetreden door de politie.
Pro-Israël demonstratie
Op het moment van de Palestina-mars is er ook een pro-Israël demonstratie op het Beursplein. De mars loopt niet langs de demonstratie en de demonstranten mogen niet afwijken van de afgesproken route. Vanaf de Dam loopt de Palestina-mars via de Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal en de Haarlemmerstraat naar het Westerpark.
Joodse buurt
Toen begin deze week de mars werd aangekondigd werd er op sociale media met afschuw gereageerd op de route. De protestmars zou namelijk vanaf de Dam richting het Jonas Daniël Meijerplein lopen, midden in de oude Joodse buurt. “In het hart van de oude Jodenbuurt, tussen de synagoges. Dit zou een gigantische schandvlek zijn voor onze stad. Nu en in de toekomst”, reageerde stadsdeelcommissielid uit Zuid Michael Vis (VVD).
Een van de organisatoren van de mars liet aan AT5 weten niet stil te hebben gestaan bij de gevoeligheid van het plein en dat de route was gekozen omdat het een makkelijke looproute is die vaker wordt gebruikt. De organisatie gaf aan de route te wijzigen en ook de politie en de gemeente verzochten de organisatie om dat te doen. Het eindpunt werd vervolgens verplaatst naar het Westerpark.
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More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on Hamas following the group’s October 7 attack, the health ministry in the enclave said Thursday, yet another darkmilestone in the 10-month-old conflict.
The ministry said 40 people had died in Gaza during the past 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths since October 7 to 40,005 – about one in every 55 people in the enclave.More than 92,401have been injured.
The health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its figures but says most of the dead are women and children. Israel said last month that it had killed more than 17,000 combatants in Gaza since the start of the war. CNN cannot independently verify the ministry’s numbers.
In addition, at least another 10,000 people are missing and believed to be buried under rubble in Gaza, the Gaza government’s media office said earlier this week.
The soaring figures give a window into the daily suffering, malnutrition and volatility in Gaza after 10 months of conflict.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has described it as “a very grim milestone at the world’s watch,” on X, adding that it is “a direct result of a collective failure to reach a ceasefire.”
And the milestone has been passed at a particularly unpredictable point in the conflict. A new round of ceasefire talks are due to begin Thursday, after the killings of senior figures in Hamas and the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah upended the leadership of both organizations and made the negotiations appear precarious.
The news follows an especially deadly weekend for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. At least 93 people were killed overnight into Saturday when an Israeli strike hit a school and mosque in the eastern part of Gaza City where displaced people were sheltering, according to local officials. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed to CNN that it hit the compound, saying its air force “precisely struck Hamas terrorists operating within a Hamas command and control center embedded” in the building.
Israeli military officials have said they try to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza and that Hamas bears the blame for using civilians as “human shields.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed to CNN that it hit the compound and said that “at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were eliminated” in the strike. It later said it had identified 12 more militants who were killed in the strike.
The strike was almost universally condemned, including by some of Israel’s closest allies.
Thursday marks “a grim milestone for the world,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said after the figures were announced. “Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war.”
Fading hopes for a ceasefire
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the militant group’s cross-border October 7 attacks, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. More than 100 of those hostages remain in Gaza, their families back home pleading for a breakthrough to secure their safe return.
Hopes of a hostage-for-ceasefire agreement seemed todiminish in recent weeks after Israel launched a series of strikes against senior figures in Hamas and in Hezbollah, which has been sparring with Israel on a near-daily basis since October, in solidarity with Hamas.
But Egyptian and Qatari mediators have conveyed to Israeli officials in recent days that Yahya Sinwar, the new head of its political bureau following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, wants a ceasefire deal, an Israeli source familiar with the matter said.
Israel said it would send a delegation to the talks. Hamas, however, has said it will not participate in talks Thursday but is willing to speak to mediators afterwards if there are “developments or a serious response from Israel,” the source told CNN.
A hardliner and, according to Israel, one of the masterminds behind the deadly October 7 terror attacks, Sinwar was previouslybelieved to be dismissive of a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Hamas said Sunday it has asked mediators to implement a ceasefire plan based on previous ceasefire talks such as those put forward by US President Joe Biden and the UN Security Council in July.
International pressure is intensifyingfor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement with Hamas.
A drumbeat of Western criticism of Netanyahu’s actions has grown louder in recent weeks, with the election of a Labour government in the United Kingdom and the confirmation of US Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for November’s presidential election. Harris’ comments on Gaza signal a shift in tone from Biden’s steady support of Israel.
Harris said Saturday that “far too many” civilians have been killed in Gaza, saying a deal “needs to get done now.”
And Netanyahu faces anger from some quarters at home. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum, a powerful voice in Israel, has for months repeatedly called on Israel and Hamas to finalize a hostage-and-ceasefire deal.
“A deal is the only path to bring all hostages home. Time is running out. The hostages have no more to spare. A deal must be signed now!” the forum said in a statement last week.
A humanitarian catastrophe
A ceasefire deal would provide a reprieve for the approximately 2.2 million Palestinians who have been living in nightmarish conditions in Gaza.
Nearly everyone living in Gaza has been displaced in the conflict, with many people forced to flee repeatedly as the Israeli military operation expanded, often into placesitpreviously said had been cleared of Hamas fighters.
In recent days, some 75,000 people southwest Gaza after Israeli evacuation orders were issued, according to UNRWA chief Lazzarini.
Less than a sixth of the area of Gaza is not under Israeli evacuation orders, Lazzarini said late last month.
“Quite often, people have just a few hours to pack whatever they can & start all over again, mostly on foot or on a crowded donkey cart for those who can afford it,” he said Sunday on the social media platform X.
So dire are conditions in Gaza that gravediggers in the enclave are struggling to find space to bury those who have died. A grave digger in Khan Younis, Najy Abu Hateb, told Reuters he is “exhausted.”
“Since the war began, we haven’t stopped for even a minute, and we hope the war ends … there’s no place (to bury people),” Hateb said.
Hateb said gravediggers have been forced to dig up old graves to bury the new bodies. “We have reached a situation that forced us to bury people even with sand, placing bodies on top of one another,” he added.
Earlier this week Fikr Shalltoot, the Gaza Director for aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians, said the impending milestone “means that 40,000 families are grieving, and their hearts are broken.”
“Many people are losing hope and some are losing faith, but mostly people are losing trust in the international community. They are angry and disappointed and believe that the world has failed them and let them down,” she said in a statement.
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Hierdoor nemen kwetsbare bevolkingsgroepen hun toevlucht tot niet-drinkbare waterbronnen, waaronder water met een hoog zoutgehalte en brak water uit landbouwputten. Dat kan leiden tot ernstige ziektes en uitbraken van virusziektes.
Onmiddellijk staakt-het-vuren en toegang voor humanitaire hulp noodzakelijk
Ongekend lijden van kinderen
In de afgelopen drie weken heeft het conflict tussen Israël en Hamas een tragische tol geëist van vele kinderen, met 2.360 dodelijke kinderslachtoffers en 5.364 gewonde kinderen als gevolg van aanvallen en zeer slechte omstandigheden in Gaza zelf. Meer dan vierhonderd kinderen komen elke dag om of raken gewond. Daarnaast zijn meer dan dertig Israëlische kinderen omgekomen, en tientallen bevinden zich nog steeds in gevangenschap in de Gazastrook.
Overleven en grote trauma’s
Bijna elk kind in de Gazastrook heeft te dagelijks te maken met grote aanvallen, ontheemding en ernstige tekorten aan essentiële levensbehoeften zoals voedsel, water en medicijnen. De schrijnende gebeurtenissen en wijdverbreide vernietigingen leiden tot grote trauma’s bij de kinderen in Gaza, een plek waar al langer veel kinderen hevig worstelen met depressies door de uitzichtloze situatie in de Gazastrook.
Oproep voor menselijkheid
Het doden en verwonden van kinderen, ontvoeringen van kinderen, aanvallen op ziekenhuizen en scholen en het weigeren van humanitaire toegang zijn ernstige schendingen van kinderrechten. UNICEF roept dringend alle betrokken partijen op tot een staakt-het-vuren, het verlenen van humanitaire toegang en de vrijlating van alle gijzelaars. Burgers, vooral kinderen, moeten worden beschermd onder alle omstandigheden.
Escalatie op de Westelijke Jordaanoever
Ook op de Westelijke Jordaanoever is het aantal slachtoffers onder kinderen alarmerend gestegen, met bijna honderd Palestijnse slachtoffers, waaronder 28 kinderen, en minstens 160 gewonde kinderen.
Noodzaak van humanitaire hulp
Het aantal kinderslachtoffers is simpelweg onthutsend en lijkt alleen maar erger te worden. Als de spanningen niet verminderen en humanitaire hulp niet snel wordt toegestaan – inclusief voedsel, water, medische voorraden en brandstof – zal het dagelijkse aantal kinderen dat omkomt en gewond raakt blijven stijgen.
Kritieke behoefte aan brandstof en water
Brandstof is essentieel voor de werking van essentiële voorzieningen zoals ziekenhuizen, water-ontziltingsinstallaties en waterpompstations. Honderd jonge baby’s in ziekenhuizen in Gaza kunnen alleen overleven als mechanische ventilatie van couveuses ononderbroken stroomvoorzieningen hebben. De toegang tot elektriciteit is letterlijk een kwestie van leven of dood.
Ook worden de 2,3 miljoen mensen in Gaza geconfronteerd met groot gebrek aan water. De meeste watersystemen zijn vernietigd of beschadigd. Ook zijn vele watersystemen buiten werking doordat er geen brandstof is om ze draaiende te houden. Momenteel bedraagt de waterproductiecapaciteit slechts 5 procent van de gebruikelijke dagelijkse productie. Hierdoor nemen kwetsbare bevolkingsgroepen hun toevlucht tot niet-drinkbare waterbronnen, waaronder water met een hoog zoutgehalte en brak water uit landbouwputten. Dat kan leiden tot ernstige ziektes en uitbraken van virusziektes.
Oproep tot onmiddellijke maatregelen
De schrijnende realiteit is dat het dodental in Gaza flink zal blijven stijgen als couveuses beginnen te falen, als ziekenhuizen donker worden en als kinderen onveilig water blijven drinken en geen toegang hebben tot medicijnen als ze ziek worden.
Daarom is onmiddellijk nodig dat er:
Een humanitair staakt-het-vuren komt.
Medische evacuaties per direct mogelijk zijn.
Civiele infrastructuur beschermd wordt, om zo verdere slachtoffers onder burgers en kinderen te voorkomen.
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As Israeli forces continue to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.
The organization spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families. Here the organization presents an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.
“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity. Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza. For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard. We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed.”
Since 7 October Israeli forces have launched thousands of air bombardments in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 3,793 people, mostly civilians, including more than 1,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Approximately 12,500 have been injured and more than 1,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble.
In Israel, more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed and some 3,300 others were injured, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health after armed groups from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on 7 October. They fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel who committed war crimes including deliberately killing civilians and hostage-taking. The Israeli military says that fighters also took more than 200 civilian hostages and military captives back to the Gaza Strip.
“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets. There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” said Agnès Callamard.
Hours after the attacks began, Israeli forces started their massive bombardment of Gaza. Since then, Hamas and other armed groups have also continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel in attacks that must also be investigated as war crimes. Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers amid a spike in excessive use of force by the Israeli army and an escalation in state-backed settler violence, which Amnesty International is also investigating.
Amnesty International is continuing to investigate dozens of attacks in Gaza. This output focuses on five unlawful attacks which struck residential buildings, a refugee camp, a family home and a public market. The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.
“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Agnès Callamard.
“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”
The relentless bombardment of Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to people who are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. After 16 years under Israel’s illegal blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is already close to ruin, and its economy is in tatters. Hospitals are collapsing, unable to cope with the sheer number of wounded people and desperately lacking in life-saving medication and equipment.
Amnesty International is calling on the international community to urge Israel to end its total siege, which has cut Gazans off from food, water, electricity and fuel and urgently allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. They must also press Israel to lift its longstanding blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s system of apartheid. Finally, the Israeli authorities must rescind their “evacuation order” which may amount to forced displacement of the population.
Gaza’s civilians pay the price
Amnesty International investigated five Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which took place between 7 and 12 October. Between 2012 and 2022, the Israeli authorities have denied, or failed to respond to, all of Amnesty International’s requests to gain access to Gaza. For this reason, the organization worked with a Gaza-based fieldworker who visited attack sites and collected testimony and other evidence. Amnesty International researchers interviewed 17 survivors and other eyewitnesses, as well as six relatives of victims over the phone, for the five cases included in this report. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab analysed satellite imagery and verified photos and videos of attack sites.
In the five cases described below Amnesty International found that Israeli forces carried out attacks that violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.
Under international humanitarian law, all parties to the conflict must, at all times, distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and fighters and military objectives and direct their attacks only at fighters and military objectives. Direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects are prohibited and are war crimes. Indiscriminate attacks – those which fail to distinguish as required – are also prohibited. Where an indiscriminate attack kills or injuries civilians, it amounts to a war crime. Disproportionate attacks, those where the expected harm to civilians and civilian objects is excessive in comparison with the “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” also are prohibited. Knowingly launching a disproportionate attack is a war crime.
Whole families wiped out
At around 8:20pm on 7 October, Israeli forces struck a three-storey residential building in the al-Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, where three generations of the al-Dos family were staying. Fifteen family members were killed in the attack, seven of them children. The victims include Awni and Ibtissam al-Dos, and their grandchildren and namesakes Awni, 12, and Ibtissam, 17; and Adel and Ilham al-Dos and all five of their children. Baby Adam, just 18 months old, was the youngest victim.
Mohammad al-Dos, whose five-year-old son Rakan was killed in the attack, told Amnesty International:
“Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it. My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine-months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed.”
Amnesty International interviewed a neighbour whose home had been damaged in the attack. Like Mohammad al-Dos, he said that he had not received warning from Israeli forces, and nor had anyone in his family.
“It was sudden, boom, nobody told us anything,” he said.
The fact that the building was full of civilians at the time of the air strike further supports the testimony of survivors who said Israeli forces did not issue any warnings. It took relatives, neighbours and rescue teams more than six hours to remove the bodies from beneath the rubble.
Amnesty International’s research has found no evidence of military targets in the area at the time of the attack. If Israeli forces attacked this residential building knowing that there were only civilians present at the time of the attack, this would be a direct attack on a civilian object or on civilians, which are prohibited and constitute war crimes. Israel offered no explanation on the incident. It is incumbent on the attacker to prove the legitimacy of their military conduct. Even if Israeli forces targeted what they considered a military objective, attacking a residential building, at a time when it was full of civilians, in the heart of a densely populated civilian neighbourhood, in a manner that caused this number of civilian casualties and degree of destruction would be indiscriminate. Indiscriminate attacks that kill and injure civilians are war crimes.
On 10 October, an Israeli air strike on a family home killed 12 members of the Hijazi family and four of their neighbours, in Gaza City’s al-Sahaba Street. Three children were among those killed. The Israeli military stated that they struck Hamas targets in the area but gave no further information and did not provide any evidence of the presence of military targets. Amnesty International’s research has found no evidence of military targets in the area at the time of the attack.
Amnesty International spoke to Kamal Hijazi, who lost his sister, his two brothers and their wives, five nieces and nephews, and two cousins in the attack. He said:
“Our family home, a three-storey house, was bombed at 5:15 pm. It was sudden, without any warning; that is why everyone was at home.”
Ahmad Khalid Al-Sik, one of the Hijazi family’s neighbours, was also killed. He was 37 years old and had three young children, who were all injured in the attack. Ahmad’s father described what happened:
“I was at home in our apartment and Ahmad was downstairs when the house opposite [belonging to the Hijazi family] was bombed, and he was killed. He was going to have his hair cut at the barber, which is next to the entrance of our building. When Ahmad left to go get a haircut, I could not imagine that I would not see him again. The bombing was sudden, unexpected. There was no warning; people were busy with their daily tasks.”
The barber who was going to cut Ahmad’s hair was also killed.
According to Amnesty International’s findings there were no military objectives in the house or its immediate vicinity, this indicates that this may be a direct attack on civilians or on a civilian object which is prohibited and a war crime.
Inadequate warnings
In the cases documented by Amnesty International, the organization repeatedly found that the Israeli military had either not warned civilians at all, or issued warnings which were inadequate. In some instances, they informed a single person about a strike which affected whole buildings or streets full of people or issued unclear “evacuation” orders which left residents confused about the timeframe. In no cases did Israeli forces ensure civilians had a safe place to evacuate to. In one attack on Jabalia market attack, people had left their homes in response to an “evacuation” order, only to be killed in the place to which they had fled.
On 8 October, an Israeli air strike struck the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip, killing Mohammed and Shuruq al-Naqla, and two of their children, Omar, three, and Yousef, five, and injuring their two-year-old daughter Mariam and their three-year-old nephew Abdel Karim. Around 20 other people were also injured in the strike.
Ismail al-Naqla, Mohammed’s brother and the father of Abdel Karim, told Amnesty International that their next-door neighbour received a call from the Israeli military at around 10:30am, warning that his building was about to be bombed. Ismail and Mohammed and their families left the building immediately, as did their neighbours. By 3:30pm, there had been no attack, so the al-Naqlas and others went home to collect necessities. Ismail explained that they had thought it would be safe to do so as five hours had elapsed since the warning, though they planned to leave again very quickly.
But as they were returning to their apartments, a bomb struck the building next door, destroying the al-Naqlas’ home and damaging others nearby. Mohammed and his family were still in the courtyard of their building when they were killed. Ismail described seeing part of his five-year-old nephew Yousef’s brain “outside of his head” and said that three-year-old Omar’s body could not be recovered from under the rubble until the next day. He told Amnesty International that Mariam and Abdel Karim, the two surviving children, were released from hospital quickly as Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed with the volume of casualties.
Giving a warning does not free armed forces from their other obligations under international humanitarian law. Particularly given the time that had elapsed since the warning was issued, those carrying out the attack should have checked whether civilians were present before proceeding with the attack. Furthermore, if, as appears, this was a direct attack on a civilian object, this would constitute a war crime.
‘Everyone was looking for their children’
At around 10:30am on 9 October, Israeli air strikes hit a market in Jabalia refugee camp, located a few kilometres north of Gaza City, killing at least 69 people. The market street is known to be one of the busiest commercial areas in northern Gaza. That day it was even more crowded than usual, as it was filled with thousands of people from nearby areas who had fled their homes empty-handed earlier that morning after receiving text messages from the Israeli army.
Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab reviewed six videos showing the aftermath of the airstrike on Jabalia camp market. The images show a densely populated area with multi-storey buildings. Videos of the aftermath and satellite imagery show at least three multi-storey buildings completely destroyed and several structures in the surroundings heavily damaged. Numerous deceased bodies are also seen under the rubble in the graphic footage.
According to the Israeli military, they were targeting “a mosque in which Hamas members had been present” when they struck Jabalia market, but they have provided no evidence to substantiate their claim. Regardless, membership in a political group does not in itself make an individual targetable. Satellite imagery analysed by Amnesty International showed no mosque in the immediate vicinity of the market street.
Based on witness testimony, satellite imagery, and verified videos, the attack, which resulted in high civilian casualties was indiscriminate and must be investigated as a war crime.
Imad Hamad, aged 19, was killed in the strike on the Jabalia market while he was on his way to buy bread and mattresses for the family. His father, Ziyad Hamad, described to Amnesty International how a day earlier their family had left their home in Beit Hanoun after receiving a warning message from the Israeli army, and had walked almost five kilometres to a UNRWA-run school, which was operating as a shelter, in Jabalia camp.
On the walk, his son, Imad, had carried his toddler brother on his shoulders. The next day, Ziyad told Amnesty International, he was carrying Imad’s dead body on his own shoulders, taking his son to be buried.
Ziyad described the hellish scenes he encountered at the morgue where he found his son’s body, along with many others.
“The bodies were burned, I was scared of looking. I didn’t want to look, I was scared of looking at Imad’s face. The bodies were scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son and got him out. I carried him.”
When Amnesty International spoke to Ziyad and his displaced family, they were at a UNRWA-run school which was sheltering displaced people. He said there were no basic services or sanitation, and that they had no mattresses.
Ziyad’s despair at the injustices he has suffered is palpable.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked.
“To lose my son, to lose my house, to sleep on the floor of a classroom? My children are wetting themselves, of panic, of fear, of cold. We have nothing to do with this. What fault did we commit? I raised my child, my entire life, for what? To see him die while buying bread.”
While Amnesty’s researcher was talking to Ziyad over the phone, another air strike hit nearby.
Since Amnesty researchers interviewed Ziyad on 10 October, conditions for internally displaced people have deteriorated further, due to the scale of the displacement and the extent of the destruction and the devastating effects of the total blockade imposed since 9 October. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of internally displaced people in Gaza had reached 1 million by 19 October, including over 527,500 people who are staying in UNRWA emergency shelters in central and southern Gaza.
‘We cannot even count our dead’
On 10 October an Israeli air strike hit a six-storey building in Sheikh Radwan, a district of Gaza City, at 4:30pm. The strike completely destroyed the building and killed at least 40 civilians.
Satellite imagery suggests damage to buildings on this street sometime between 12:11UTC on 10 October and 7:30UTC on 11 October. The Crisis Evidence Lab geolocated two videos posted to social media that corroborate the destruction of homes in Sheikh Radwan. One of the videos, which was posted online on 10 October, shows people pulling the body of a dead infant from the rubble.
Amnesty International spoke to Mahmoud Ashour whose daughter, Iman, and her four children, Hamza, six months, Ahmad, two years, Abdelhamid six, and Rihab, eight, were all killed in the attack.
He said:
“My daughter and her children came here to seek safety because this area was relatively safe in previous attacks. But I couldn’t protect them, I have no trace left of my daughter.”
Mahmoud described the extent of the devastation:
“I’m talking to you now as I’m trying to remove the rubble with my hands. We cannot even count our dead.”
Fawzi Naffar, 61, said that 19 of his family members, including his wife, children and grandchildren, were all killed in the air strike. When Amnesty International spoke to Fawzi five days after the air strike, he had only been able to retrieve the remains of his daughter-in-law and his “son’s shoulder.”
Amnesty International’s research found that a Hamas member had been residing on one of the floors of the building, but he was not there at the time of the air strike. Membership in a political group does not itself make an individual a military target.
Even if that individual was a fighter, the presence of a fighter in a civilian building does not transform that building or any of the civilians therein into a military objective. International humanitarian law requires Israeli forces to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians and civilian property, including by cancelling or postponing the attack if it becomes apparent that it would be indiscriminate or otherwise unlawful.
These precautions were not taken ahead of the air strike in Sheikh Radwan. The building was known to be full of civilian residents, including many children, and the danger to them could have been anticipated. This is an indiscriminate attack which killed and injured civilians and must be investigated as a war crime.
Amnesty International is calling on;
The Israeli authorities to:
Immediately end unlawful attacks and abide by international humanitarian law; including by ensuring they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects and refraining from direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.
Immediately allow unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilians.
Urgently lift its illegal blockade on Gaza, which amounts to collective punishment and is a war crime, in the face of the current devastation and humanitarian imperatives.
Rescind their appalling “evacuation” order, which has left more than one million people displaced.
Grant immediate access to the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory to carry out investigations, including collecting time sensitive evidence and testimonies.
The international community and particularly Israel’s allies, including EU member states, the US and the UK, to:
Take concrete measures to protect Gaza’s civilian population from unlawful attacks.
Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict given that serious violations amounting to crimes under international law are being committed. States must refrain from supplying Israel with arms and military materiel, including related technologies, parts and components, technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance. They should also call on states supplying arms to Palestinian armed groups to refrain from doing so.
Refrain from any statement or action that would, even indirectly, legitimize Israel’s crimes and violations in Gaza.
Pressure Israel to lift its illegal 16-year blockade of the Gaza strip which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s apartheid system.
Ensure the International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation into the situation of Palestine receives full support and all necessary resources.
The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to:
Urgently expedite its ongoing investigation in the situation of Palestine, examining alleged crimes by all parties, and including the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians.
Hamas and other armed groups to:
Immediately end deliberate attacks on civilians, the firing of indiscriminate rockets, and hostage-taking. They must release civilian hostages unconditionally and immediately.
END
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noot 54/KLEUR BEKENNEN!
As Israeli forces continue to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.
The organization spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families. Here the organization presents an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.
“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity. Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza. For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard. We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed.”
Since 7 October Israeli forces have launched thousands of air bombardments in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 3,793 people, mostly civilians, including more than 1,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Approximately 12,500 have been injured and more than 1,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble.
In Israel, more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed and some 3,300 others were injured, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health after armed groups from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on 7 October. They fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel who committed war crimes including deliberately killing civilians and hostage-taking. The Israeli military says that fighters also took more than 200 civilian hostages and military captives back to the Gaza Strip.
“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets. There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” said Agnès Callamard.
Hours after the attacks began, Israeli forces started their massive bombardment of Gaza. Since then, Hamas and other armed groups have also continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel in attacks that must also be investigated as war crimes. Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers amid a spike in excessive use of force by the Israeli army and an escalation in state-backed settler violence, which Amnesty International is also investigating.
Amnesty International is continuing to investigate dozens of attacks in Gaza. This output focuses on five unlawful attacks which struck residential buildings, a refugee camp, a family home and a public market. The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.
“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Agnès Callamard.
“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”
The relentless bombardment of Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to people who are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. After 16 years under Israel’s illegal blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is already close to ruin, and its economy is in tatters. Hospitals are collapsing, unable to cope with the sheer number of wounded people and desperately lacking in life-saving medication and equipment.
Amnesty International is calling on the international community to urge Israel to end its total siege, which has cut Gazans off from food, water, electricity and fuel and urgently allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. They must also press Israel to lift its longstanding blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s system of apartheid. Finally, the Israeli authorities must rescind their “evacuation order” which may amount to forced displacement of the population.
Gaza’s civilians pay the price
Amnesty International investigated five Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which took place between 7 and 12 October. Between 2012 and 2022, the Israeli authorities have denied, or failed to respond to, all of Amnesty International’s requests to gain access to Gaza. For this reason, the organization worked with a Gaza-based fieldworker who visited attack sites and collected testimony and other evidence. Amnesty International researchers interviewed 17 survivors and other eyewitnesses, as well as six relatives of victims over the phone, for the five cases included in this report. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab analysed satellite imagery and verified photos and videos of attack sites.
In the five cases described below Amnesty International found that Israeli forces carried out attacks that violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.
Under international humanitarian law, all parties to the conflict must, at all times, distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and fighters and military objectives and direct their attacks only at fighters and military objectives. Direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects are prohibited and are war crimes. Indiscriminate attacks – those which fail to distinguish as required – are also prohibited. Where an indiscriminate attack kills or injuries civilians, it amounts to a war crime. Disproportionate attacks, those where the expected harm to civilians and civilian objects is excessive in comparison with the “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” also are prohibited. Knowingly launching a disproportionate attack is a war crime.
Whole families wiped out
At around 8:20pm on 7 October, Israeli forces struck a three-storey residential building in the al-Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, where three generations of the al-Dos family were staying. Fifteen family members were killed in the attack, seven of them children. The victims include Awni and Ibtissam al-Dos, and their grandchildren and namesakes Awni, 12, and Ibtissam, 17; and Adel and Ilham al-Dos and all five of their children. Baby Adam, just 18 months old, was the youngest victim.
Mohammad al-Dos, whose five-year-old son Rakan was killed in the attack, told Amnesty International:
“Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it. My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine-months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed.”
Amnesty International interviewed a neighbour whose home had been damaged in the attack. Like Mohammad al-Dos, he said that he had not received warning from Israeli forces, and nor had anyone in his family.
“It was sudden, boom, nobody told us anything,” he said.
The fact that the building was full of civilians at the time of the air strike further supports the testimony of survivors who said Israeli forces did not issue any warnings. It took relatives, neighbours and rescue teams more than six hours to remove the bodies from beneath the rubble.
Amnesty International’s research has found no evidence of military targets in the area at the time of the attack. If Israeli forces attacked this residential building knowing that there were only civilians present at the time of the attack, this would be a direct attack on a civilian object or on civilians, which are prohibited and constitute war crimes. Israel offered no explanation on the incident. It is incumbent on the attacker to prove the legitimacy of their military conduct. Even if Israeli forces targeted what they considered a military objective, attacking a residential building, at a time when it was full of civilians, in the heart of a densely populated civilian neighbourhood, in a manner that caused this number of civilian casualties and degree of destruction would be indiscriminate. Indiscriminate attacks that kill and injure civilians are war crimes.
On 10 October, an Israeli air strike on a family home killed 12 members of the Hijazi family and four of their neighbours, in Gaza City’s al-Sahaba Street. Three children were among those killed. The Israeli military stated that they struck Hamas targets in the area but gave no further information and did not provide any evidence of the presence of military targets. Amnesty International’s research has found no evidence of military targets in the area at the time of the attack.
Amnesty International spoke to Kamal Hijazi, who lost his sister, his two brothers and their wives, five nieces and nephews, and two cousins in the attack. He said:
“Our family home, a three-storey house, was bombed at 5:15 pm. It was sudden, without any warning; that is why everyone was at home.”
Ahmad Khalid Al-Sik, one of the Hijazi family’s neighbours, was also killed. He was 37 years old and had three young children, who were all injured in the attack. Ahmad’s father described what happened:
“I was at home in our apartment and Ahmad was downstairs when the house opposite [belonging to the Hijazi family] was bombed, and he was killed. He was going to have his hair cut at the barber, which is next to the entrance of our building. When Ahmad left to go get a haircut, I could not imagine that I would not see him again. The bombing was sudden, unexpected. There was no warning; people were busy with their daily tasks.”
The barber who was going to cut Ahmad’s hair was also killed.
According to Amnesty International’s findings there were no military objectives in the house or its immediate vicinity, this indicates that this may be a direct attack on civilians or on a civilian object which is prohibited and a war crime.
Inadequate warnings
In the cases documented by Amnesty International, the organization repeatedly found that the Israeli military had either not warned civilians at all, or issued warnings which were inadequate. In some instances, they informed a single person about a strike which affected whole buildings or streets full of people or issued unclear “evacuation” orders which left residents confused about the timeframe. In no cases did Israeli forces ensure civilians had a safe place to evacuate to. In one attack on Jabalia market attack, people had left their homes in response to an “evacuation” order, only to be killed in the place to which they had fled.
On 8 October, an Israeli air strike struck the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip, killing Mohammed and Shuruq al-Naqla, and two of their children, Omar, three, and Yousef, five, and injuring their two-year-old daughter Mariam and their three-year-old nephew Abdel Karim. Around 20 other people were also injured in the strike.
Ismail al-Naqla, Mohammed’s brother and the father of Abdel Karim, told Amnesty International that their next-door neighbour received a call from the Israeli military at around 10:30am, warning that his building was about to be bombed. Ismail and Mohammed and their families left the building immediately, as did their neighbours. By 3:30pm, there had been no attack, so the al-Naqlas and others went home to collect necessities. Ismail explained that they had thought it would be safe to do so as five hours had elapsed since the warning, though they planned to leave again very quickly.
But as they were returning to their apartments, a bomb struck the building next door, destroying the al-Naqlas’ home and damaging others nearby. Mohammed and his family were still in the courtyard of their building when they were killed. Ismail described seeing part of his five-year-old nephew Yousef’s brain “outside of his head” and said that three-year-old Omar’s body could not be recovered from under the rubble until the next day. He told Amnesty International that Mariam and Abdel Karim, the two surviving children, were released from hospital quickly as Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed with the volume of casualties.
Giving a warning does not free armed forces from their other obligations under international humanitarian law. Particularly given the time that had elapsed since the warning was issued, those carrying out the attack should have checked whether civilians were present before proceeding with the attack. Furthermore, if, as appears, this was a direct attack on a civilian object, this would constitute a war crime.
‘Everyone was looking for their children’
At around 10:30am on 9 October, Israeli air strikes hit a market in Jabalia refugee camp, located a few kilometres north of Gaza City, killing at least 69 people. The market street is known to be one of the busiest commercial areas in northern Gaza. That day it was even more crowded than usual, as it was filled with thousands of people from nearby areas who had fled their homes empty-handed earlier that morning after receiving text messages from the Israeli army.
Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab reviewed six videos showing the aftermath of the airstrike on Jabalia camp market. The images show a densely populated area with multi-storey buildings. Videos of the aftermath and satellite imagery show at least three multi-storey buildings completely destroyed and several structures in the surroundings heavily damaged. Numerous deceased bodies are also seen under the rubble in the graphic footage.
According to the Israeli military, they were targeting “a mosque in which Hamas members had been present” when they struck Jabalia market, but they have provided no evidence to substantiate their claim. Regardless, membership in a political group does not in itself make an individual targetable. Satellite imagery analysed by Amnesty International showed no mosque in the immediate vicinity of the market street.
Based on witness testimony, satellite imagery, and verified videos, the attack, which resulted in high civilian casualties was indiscriminate and must be investigated as a war crime.
Imad Hamad, aged 19, was killed in the strike on the Jabalia market while he was on his way to buy bread and mattresses for the family. His father, Ziyad Hamad, described to Amnesty International how a day earlier their family had left their home in Beit Hanoun after receiving a warning message from the Israeli army, and had walked almost five kilometres to a UNRWA-run school, which was operating as a shelter, in Jabalia camp.
On the walk, his son, Imad, had carried his toddler brother on his shoulders. The next day, Ziyad told Amnesty International, he was carrying Imad’s dead body on his own shoulders, taking his son to be buried.
Ziyad described the hellish scenes he encountered at the morgue where he found his son’s body, along with many others.
“The bodies were burned, I was scared of looking. I didn’t want to look, I was scared of looking at Imad’s face. The bodies were scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son and got him out. I carried him.”
When Amnesty International spoke to Ziyad and his displaced family, they were at a UNRWA-run school which was sheltering displaced people. He said there were no basic services or sanitation, and that they had no mattresses.
Ziyad’s despair at the injustices he has suffered is palpable.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked.
“To lose my son, to lose my house, to sleep on the floor of a classroom? My children are wetting themselves, of panic, of fear, of cold. We have nothing to do with this. What fault did we commit? I raised my child, my entire life, for what? To see him die while buying bread.”
While Amnesty’s researcher was talking to Ziyad over the phone, another air strike hit nearby.
Since Amnesty researchers interviewed Ziyad on 10 October, conditions for internally displaced people have deteriorated further, due to the scale of the displacement and the extent of the destruction and the devastating effects of the total blockade imposed since 9 October. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of internally displaced people in Gaza had reached 1 million by 19 October, including over 527,500 people who are staying in UNRWA emergency shelters in central and southern Gaza.
‘We cannot even count our dead’
On 10 October an Israeli air strike hit a six-storey building in Sheikh Radwan, a district of Gaza City, at 4:30pm. The strike completely destroyed the building and killed at least 40 civilians.
Satellite imagery suggests damage to buildings on this street sometime between 12:11UTC on 10 October and 7:30UTC on 11 October. The Crisis Evidence Lab geolocated two videos posted to social media that corroborate the destruction of homes in Sheikh Radwan. One of the videos, which was posted online on 10 October, shows people pulling the body of a dead infant from the rubble.
Amnesty International spoke to Mahmoud Ashour whose daughter, Iman, and her four children, Hamza, six months, Ahmad, two years, Abdelhamid six, and Rihab, eight, were all killed in the attack.
He said:
“My daughter and her children came here to seek safety because this area was relatively safe in previous attacks. But I couldn’t protect them, I have no trace left of my daughter.”
Mahmoud described the extent of the devastation:
“I’m talking to you now as I’m trying to remove the rubble with my hands. We cannot even count our dead.”
Fawzi Naffar, 61, said that 19 of his family members, including his wife, children and grandchildren, were all killed in the air strike. When Amnesty International spoke to Fawzi five days after the air strike, he had only been able to retrieve the remains of his daughter-in-law and his “son’s shoulder.”
Amnesty International’s research found that a Hamas member had been residing on one of the floors of the building, but he was not there at the time of the air strike. Membership in a political group does not itself make an individual a military target.
Even if that individual was a fighter, the presence of a fighter in a civilian building does not transform that building or any of the civilians therein into a military objective. International humanitarian law requires Israeli forces to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians and civilian property, including by cancelling or postponing the attack if it becomes apparent that it would be indiscriminate or otherwise unlawful.
These precautions were not taken ahead of the air strike in Sheikh Radwan. The building was known to be full of civilian residents, including many children, and the danger to them could have been anticipated. This is an indiscriminate attack which killed and injured civilians and must be investigated as a war crime.
Amnesty International is calling on;
The Israeli authorities to:
Immediately end unlawful attacks and abide by international humanitarian law; including by ensuring they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects and refraining from direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.
Immediately allow unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilians.
Urgently lift its illegal blockade on Gaza, which amounts to collective punishment and is a war crime, in the face of the current devastation and humanitarian imperatives.
Rescind their appalling “evacuation” order, which has left more than one million people displaced.
Grant immediate access to the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory to carry out investigations, including collecting time sensitive evidence and testimonies.
The international community and particularly Israel’s allies, including EU member states, the US and the UK, to:
Take concrete measures to protect Gaza’s civilian population from unlawful attacks.
Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict given that serious violations amounting to crimes under international law are being committed. States must refrain from supplying Israel with arms and military materiel, including related technologies, parts and components, technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance. They should also call on states supplying arms to Palestinian armed groups to refrain from doing so.
Refrain from any statement or action that would, even indirectly, legitimize Israel’s crimes and violations in Gaza.
Pressure Israel to lift its illegal 16-year blockade of the Gaza strip which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s apartheid system.
Ensure the International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation into the situation of Palestine receives full support and all necessary resources.
The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to:
Urgently expedite its ongoing investigation in the situation of Palestine, examining alleged crimes by all parties, and including the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians.
Hamas and other armed groups to:
Immediately end deliberate attacks on civilians, the firing of indiscriminate rockets, and hostage-taking. They must release civilian hostages unconditionally and immediately.
END
”Het conflict tussen Israël en Palestina, dat nu al bijna drie weken aan de gang is, laat een immens spoor van vernieling achter. Nieuwe satellietbeelden tonen de enorme verwoesting in de Gazastrook als gevolg van de Israëlische bombardementen. Volledige dorpen en steden zijn van de kaart geveegd.”
”Het conflict tussen Israël en Palestina, dat nu al bijna drie weken aan de gang is, laat een immens spoor van vernieling achter. Nieuwe satellietbeelden tonen de enorme verwoesting in de Gazastrook als gevolg van de Israëlische bombardementen. Volledige dorpen en steden zijn van de kaart geveegd.”
Het conflict tussen Israël en Palestina, dat nu al bijna drie weken aan de gang is, laat een immens spoor van vernieling achter. Nieuwe satellietbeelden tonen de enorme verwoesting in de Gazastrook als gevolg van de Israëlische bombardementen. Volledige dorpen en steden zijn van de kaart geveegd.
Israël wil de Palestijnse terreurorganisatie Hamas, die de macht heeft in de Gazastrook, uitschakelen als wraak voor de verrassingsaanval van 7 oktober. Daarbij kwamen zeker 1400 Israëli’s om het leven en werden tweehonderd anderen gegijzeld. Israël voerde al talloze bombardementen uit op Gaza, met de dood van meer dan zevenduizend mensen – onder wie vooral burgers – als gevolg.
Materiële tol
Niet alleen de menselijke, maar ook de materiële tol is groot. Dat tonen nieuwe satellietbeelden van de Amerikaanse bedrijven Maxar Technologies en Planet Labs. Op de foto’s is te zien hoe verschillende dorpen en steden in Gaza volledig platgebombardeerd zijn.
In de stad Beit Hanoun, dicht bij de noordelijke grens met Israël, zijn de meeste gebouwen met de grond gelijk gemaakt. Enkele dagen na het begin van het conflict meldden de Israëlische autoriteiten dat ze de stad, zogezegd ‘het centrum van Hamas’, maar liefst 120 keer hadden aangevallen.
De Gazastrook is een van de dichtstbevolkte gebieden ter wereld, met een oppervlakte van 365 vierkante kilometer en ongeveer twee miljoen inwoners. Het Israëlische leger raadt alle Gazanen aan om het gebied te verlaten. Volgens de Verenigde Naties zijn sinds het begin van het conflict al zeker 1,4 miljoen Palestijnen gevlucht.
EINDE BERICHT
” (Beirut, October 12, 2023) – Israel’s use of white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing a question and answer document on white phosphorus. Human Rights Watch verified videos taken in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023, respectively, showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border, and interviewed two people who described an attack in Gaza.”
Use in Populated Areas Poses Grave Risks to Civilians
(Beirut, October 12, 2023) – Israel’s use of white phosphorus in military operations in Gaza and Lebanon puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injuries, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing a question and answer document on white phosphorus. Human Rights Watch verified videos taken in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023, respectively, showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border, and interviewed two people who described an attack in Gaza.
White phosphorus, which can be used either for marking, signaling, and obscuring, or as a weapon to set fires that burn people and objects, has a significant incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The use of white phosphorus in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, magnifies the risk to civilians and violates the international humanitarian law prohibition on putting civilians at unnecessary risk.
“Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “White phosphorous is unlawfully indiscriminate when airburst in populated urban areas, where it can burn down houses and cause egregious harm to civilians.”
On October 11, Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone two people from the al-Mina area in Gaza City, who described observing strikes consistent with the use of white phosphorus. One was in the street at the time, while the other was in a nearby office building. Both described ongoing airstrikes before seeing explosions in the sky followed by what they described as white lines going earthward. They estimated that the attack took place sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Both said that the smell was stifling. The person who was in his office said that the smell was so strong that he went toward the window to see what was happening and then filmed the strike.
Human Rights Watch reviewed the video and verified that it was taken in Gaza City’s port and identified that the munitions used in the strike were airburst 155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles. Other videos posted to social media and verified by Human Rights Watch show the same location. Dense white smoke and a garlic smell are characteristics of white phosphorus.
Human Rights Watch also reviewedtwo videos from October 10 from two locations near the Israel-Lebanon border. Each shows 155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles being used, apparently as smokescreens, marking, or signaling.
White phosphorus ignites when exposed to atmospheric oxygen and continues to burn until it is deprived of oxygen or exhausted. Its chemical reaction can create intense heat (about 815°C/1,500°F), light, and smoke.
Upon contact, white phosphorus can burn people, thermally and chemically, down to the bone as it is highly soluble in fat and therefore in human flesh. White phosphorus fragments can exacerbate wounds even after treatment and can enter the bloodstream and cause multiple organ failure. Already dressed wounds can reignite when dressings are removed and the wounds are re-exposed to oxygen. Even relatively minor burns are often fatal. For survivors, extensive scarring tightens muscle tissue and creates physical disabilities. The trauma of the attack, the painful treatment that follows, and appearance-changing scars lead to psychological harm and social exclusion.
The use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life, Human Rights Watch said. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in videos of airbursting white phosphorus projectiles. Airbursting of white phosphorus projectiles spreads 116 burning felt wedges impregnated within the substance over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian structures to potential harm than a localized ground burst.
Israeli authorities have not commented on whether or not they used white phosphorus during the ongoing fighting.
Israel’s use of white phosphorus comes amid hostilities following Hamas’ deadly attacks on October 7 and subsequent rocket attacks that have killed, as of October 12, more than 1,300 Israelis, including hundreds of civilians, and taking of scores of Israelis as hostages in violation of international humanitarian law. Heavy Israeli bombardment of Gaza in this period has killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, including scores of civilians, and displaced more than 338,000 people. Many communities in southern Israel have also been displaced and more than 1,500 Palestinian militants reportedly died in Israel. Israeli authorities have cut electricity, water, fuel and food into Gaza, in violation of the international humanitarian law prohibition against collective punishment, exacerbating the dire humanitarian situation from over 16 years of Israeli closure.
Human Rights Watch has documented the Israeli military’s use of white phosphorus in previous conflicts in Gaza, including in 2009. Israel should ban all use of “airburst” white phosphorus munitions in populated areas without exception. There are readily available and non-lethal alternatives to white phosphorus smoke shells, including some produced by Israeli companies, which the Israeli army has used in the past as an obscurant for its forces. These alternatives have the same effect and dramatically reduce the harm to civilians.
In 2013, in response to a petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice regarding the use of white phosphorus in Gaza, the Israeli military stated that it would no longer use white phosphorus in populated areas except in two narrow situations that it revealed only to the justices. In the court’s ruling, Justice Edna Arbel said that the conditions would “render use of white phosphorous an extreme exception in highly particular circumstances.” Although this ruling did not represent an official change in policy, Justice Arbel called on the Israeli military to conduct a “thorough and comprehensive examination” and adopt a permanent military directive.
Attacks using air-delivered incendiary weapons in civilian areas are prohibited under Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). While the protocol contains weaker restrictions for ground-launched incendiary weapons, all types of incendiary weapons produce horrific injuries. Protocol III applies only to weapons that are “primarily designed” to set fires or cause burns, and thus some countries believe it excludes certain multipurpose munitions with incendiary effects, notably those containing white phosphorus.
Human Rights Watch and many states have long called for closing these loopholes in Protocol III. These attacks should add impetus to the calls from at least two dozen countries for the CCW Meeting of States Parties to set aside time to discuss the adequacy of Protocol III. The next meeting is scheduled for November at the United Nations in Geneva.
Palestine joined Protocol III on January 5, 2015, and Lebanon on April 5, 2017, while Israel has not ratified it.
“To avoid civilian harm, Israel should stop using white phosphorus in populated areas,” Fakih said. “Parties to the conflict should be doing everything they can to spare civilians from further suffering.”
END
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noot 55/KLEUR BEKENNEN!
The seven fundamental rules which are the basis of the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols.
1 – Persons hors de combat and those who do not take a direct part in hostilities are entitled to respect for their
lives and their moral and physical integrity. They shall in all circumstances be protected and treated humanely
without any adverse distinction.
2 – It is forbidden to kill or injure an enemy who surrenders or who is hors de combat .
3 – The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power.
Protection also covers medical personnel, establishments, transports and equipment. The emblem of the red
cross or the red crescent is the sign of such protection and must be respected.
4 – Captured combatants and civilians under the authority of an adverse party are entitled to respect for their lives,dignity, personal rights and convictions. They shall be protected against all acts of violence and reprisals. They shall have the right to correspond with their families and to receive relief.
5 – Everyone shall be entitled to benefit from fundamental judicial guarantees. No one shall be held responsible for an act he has not committed. No one shall be subjected to physical or mental torture, corporal punishment or cruel or degrading treatment.
6 – Parties to a conflict and members of their armed forces do not have an unlimited choice of methods and means of warfare. It is prohibited to employ weapons or methods of warfare of a nature to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering.
7 – Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to
spare civilian population and property. Neither the civilian population as such nor civilian persons shall be the
object of attack. Attacks shall be directed solely against military objectives.
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noot 56/KLEUR BEKENNEN!
”Two key principles enable the achievement of this goal. First – the principle of distinction – determines what legitimate targets are: according to Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, only military objects are legitimate targets for attack. They are defined as objects that make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction would offer a definite military advantage to the attacking side. The second principle – the principle of proportionality – limits how attacks are to be carried out: according to Article 51(5)b of the Protocol, legitimate targets must not be attacked if the expected harm to civilians would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Whether or not an attack is proportionate is not determined by the actual harm inflicted but by the information those responsible for it had or should have had.
Israel’s airstrikes since the start of the war are an abject violation of these principles and constitute a war crime. The massive scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented.”
Since the start of the war, Israel has dropped thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip. Gaza is an enclave enclosed on all sides. There are no safe rooms, no shelters, no safe spaces. Residents have no way to protect themselves. They wait, in terror and fear, hoping to survive. Over a million people have already left their homes in an attempt to find a safe place; some have been killed while fleeing, others where they sought shelter.
Israel, like Hamas and like every country in the world, must follow international humanitarian law. These legal provisions were not enacted by human rights or pro-Palestinian organizations. They were accepted by all nations – including Israel – out of a shared understanding that even during war, there must be rules that minimize the suffering caused to civilians and ensure that they are kept outside the cycle of hostilities to the extent possible.
Two key principles enable the achievement of this goal. First – the principle of distinction – determines what legitimate targets are: according to Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, only military objects are legitimate targets for attack. They are defined as objects that make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction would offer a definite military advantage to the attacking side. The second principle – the principle of proportionality – limits how attacks are to be carried out: according to Article 51(5)b of the Protocol, legitimate targets must not be attacked if the expected harm to civilians would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Whether or not an attack is proportionate is not determined by the actual harm inflicted but by the information those responsible for it had or should have had.
Israel’s airstrikes since the start of the war are an abject violation of these principles and constitute a war crime. The massive scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented. Entire residential neighborhoods have been destroyed, and, according to Gaza authorities, at least 16,000 residential units have been completely destroyed, while an additional 11,000 have been rendered uninhabitable. The horrifying death toll, which rises every day, is unfathomable: according to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 7,000 people have been killed, including almost 3,000 minors, more than 1,700 women, and dozens of families who were killed together when their houses collapsed on them. More than 17,000 people have been injured, about 2,000 are still missing under the rubble.
These figures cannot be reconciled with the provisions of international law described above: neither with the requirement for each of the thousands of targets bombed to have made “an effective contribution” to Hamas’s activities and their destruction to have offered a “definite military advantage” to Israel; nor with the requirement that even if the targets did meet these conditions, the massive loss of life and damage to property was proportionate. Such an interpretation would be not only legally mistaken but also morally unacceptable.
Israel says Hamas is to blame for these figures because it uses civilians as human shields, conceals weapons in their homes, and fires at civilian targets in Israel from within a civilian population, allegedly leaving Israel with no choice but to harm civilians in its war against Hamas. According to this view, assigning full responsibility to Hamas means that every action taken by Israel, however horrific the outcome, would be considered legitimate. Such a claim is baseless. Respect for the law, international humanitarian law included, is not subject to reciprocity: failure by one side to comply does not give the other license to do the same.
Fighting Hamas poses difficult challenges to Israel: How to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilian ones, when Hamas does not distinguish itself from the rest of the population? How to avoid harming civilians who are not taking part in the hostilities when Hamas members continue to fire on Israeli communities from within population centers? B’Tselem does not pretend to advise the government or the military how to conduct the fighting in Gaza, nor is this the role of a human rights organization. But one thing is clear: The choice whether or not to obey the law is Israel’s. The government and the military must stay respect the law and maintain humanity as they search for the answers.
On October 7, Hamas committed horrific war crimes. Hundreds of Hamas militants and other residents of Gaza entered Israeli territory, firing at anyone who passed by. They entered communities and homes, shot and killed entire families and party-goers, set homes on fire, and committed atrocities. More than 1,300 people were killed, thousands more were injured, and many are still missing. More than 200 people – including babies, children, women, and the elderly – were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip and are being held hostage.
There is no way, nor can there be a way, to justify these crimes, and any attempt to do so must be rejected and denounced. But these crimes cannot justify the death and destruction Israel is now inflicting on Gaza’s more than two million residents. Targeting civilians, their property and civilian infrastructure is always prohibited, and Israel must end this immediately.
Israel, like any other country, is obligated to protect its citizens. However, Israel, like any other country, is also obligated to comply with the restrictions set by international humanitarian law.
END
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noot 57/KLEUR BEKENNEN!
‘Het college van burgemeester en wethouders is samen met Amsterdammers enorm aangedaan door het brute geweld van Hamas tegen onschuldige burgers,’ aldus de gemeente. Het college leeft ook zeer mee met onschuldige slachtoffers aan Palestijnse zijde, geeft Amsterdam verder aan.
Op het Amsterdamse stadhuis wordt maandag de Israëlische vlag gehesen. Dat heeft burgemeester Femke Halsema besloten. ‘De vlag is een steunbetuiging aan de Israëlische bevolking en aan Amsterdammers met vrienden en familie in Israël die in angst en onzekerheid verkeren,’ meldt de gemeente zondag.
‘Het college van burgemeester en wethouders is samen met Amsterdammers enorm aangedaan door het brute geweld van Hamas tegen onschuldige burgers,’ aldus de gemeente. Het college leeft ook zeer mee met onschuldige slachtoffers aan Palestijnse zijde, geeft Amsterdam verder aan.
De gemeente stelt dat Halsema in lijn met het besluit van het kabinet heeft besloten de Israëlische vlag op het stadhuis te hijsen. Maandagochtend wordt op het Binnenhof de Israëlische vlag gehesen, zo heeft demissionair premier Mark Rutte besloten. De Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst laat weten dat het overigens niet gaat om een vlaginstructie, en dat het gemeenten dus vrij staat de Israëlische vlag al dan niet te hijsen.
In reactie op het geweld van Hamas lieten premier Rutte en de Amsterdamse burgemeester Halsema de Israëlische vlag hijsen. Als hun solidariteit oprecht is, waar blijft dan de Palestijnse vlag?
Op 9 oktober lieten premier Mark Rutte (VVD) en burgemeester Femke Halsema (GroenLinks) op Nederlandse overheidsgebouwen en het Amsterdamse gemeentehuis de Israëlische vlag hijsen. Aanleiding was de gruwelijke aanslag van Hamas van twee dagen eerder.
Rutte motiveerde zijn besluit als volgt: ‘Er zijn daar mensen afgeslacht. Dan is het hijsen van de vlag toch het minste wat we kunnen doen?’ De gemeente Amsterdam stelde namens burgemeester Halsema:
De vlag is een steunbetuiging aan de Israëlische bevolking en aan Amsterdammers met vrienden en familie in Israël die in angst en onzekerheid verkeren. Het college van burgemeester en wethouders is samen met Amsterdammers enorm aangedaan door het brute geweld van Hamas tegen onschuldige burgers.
Hun argumenten zijn letterlijk van toepassing op de onschuldige Palestijnse burgers in Gaza. Die worden onder ieders ogen afgeslacht. Hun basisvoorzieningen zijn afgesloten. Een miljoen mensen is op drift. Een ongekende catastrofe voltrekt zich onder de ogen van Nederlanders met ‘vrienden en familie’ in Palestina of elders. Dat die in ‘angst en onzekerheid verkeren’ is een understatement.
Er zijn daar mensen afgeslacht. Dan is het hijsen van de vlag toch het minste wat we kunnen doen?–
Premier Mark Rutte
Vandaar de simpele vraag aan Rutte en Halsema: waar blijft de Palestijnse vlag? Is het ene mensenleven jullie evenveel waard als het andere? En zijn de angst en onzekerheid van de ene burger jullie evenveel waard als die van een andere? We zien jullie antwoord graag wapperen.
Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Noten 58 en 59/KLEUR BEKENNEN!
