Ref: 67/2021
Date:19 May 2021
Press release,
ICSPR: On the tenth day of the aggression on Gaza, the number of martyrs exceeded 227 and the injuries1620, half of the victims were children, women and the elderly, in addition to destroying thousands of citizens’ homes and civilian objects.
For the tenth day in a row, the Israeli military occupation forces continue to carry out a large-scale military attack on the Gaza Strip, which clearly and systematically targeting civilians and their civilian properties, including the insistence to continue to implement the scorched-earth policy that is based on demolishing homes above the heads of its residents, and targeting infrastructure, which the people are in most need for.
According to the latest statistics of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the continuous aggression in the occupied Palestinian territories has caused the martyrdom of 250 Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, of whom 227 martyrs in the Gaza Strip, including 63 children, 36 women and 16 elderly, 3 Journalists, and 2 doctors.
The number of injuries reached 1620, more than 55 of them are in critical conditions, 130 of the injuries were in the head. Among the injuries: 450 children and 295 women, while the number of martyrs in the West Bank increased yesterday due to the occupation excessive use of force, which killed 5 martyrs and injured 1,400 others. Moreover, the Ministry of Health in the West Bank and eyewitnesses reported today that a female citizen was executed in Hebron near the settlement of “Kiryat Arba” by an extremist settler, who throw his weapon next to her after the crime.
The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights “ICSPR” monitored the continuing operations of racial discrimination and attacks on Palestinians in 48 areas by extremists under the protection of the Israeli police, where 3 Palestinians were killed, dozens of injuries and arrests, in addition to the continuing attacks of settlers on the citizens of Jerusalem, especially the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in the Holy City, in addition to the expansion of the arbitrary detention campaigns by the occupation forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The aggression against civilians in the Gaza Strip has caused forced displacement of nearly 107,000 citizens due to the targeting of their homes. 52,000 of whom are in 58 UNRWA schools, suffering from a lack of equipment and aid in the shelters, and fear the spread of the Coronavirus inside the shelters. The aggression also terrorizes civilians, especially children, who constitute 52% of the demographics of the Gaza Strip.
On the other hand, the aggression on the Gaza Strip caused a widespread destruction of citizens’ homes, public properties, economic facilities, agricultural lands and infrastructure, where the Israeli warplanes completely destroyed 1,353 housing units and damaged about 12,886 others, in addition to destroying 36 headquarters and media offices, 74 government headquarters and 4 mosques, as well as damaging 66 schools and health clinics, and hundreds of economic and agricultural establishments and headquarters of cultural, sports and civil society institutions, in addition to destroying the infrastructure: water , electricity, communications and Internet networks as a result of the violent bombing of the main streets in the Gaza Strip’s cities and neighborhoods, causing extensive damage.
More than 40 factories, 300 stores, tourist sites, banks, companies, agricultural lands and animal farms were subjected to bombing and destruction, in addition to paralyzing most economic sectors, causing direct economic losses that exceeded 350 million dollars, which indicate that the occupation bank of targets involves killing Palestinian civilians and destroying their civilian and public properties, making them live in a humanitarian catastrophe. This can be confirmed by the statements of the occupation leaders that they launched more than 1900 raids by warplanes on the Gaza Strip with highly destructive missiles, causing serious harm to civilians and civilian objects.
The civil defense and medical bodies monitored the use of internationally prohibited weapons, such as bombs and smoke missiles containing toxic gases, which indicate disregard to the international principles and rules governing the state of armed conflict, especially the provisions of the Hague Conventions that regulate the methods of warfare, which prohibit the use of internationally prohibited weapons and acts of reprisals against civilians.
ICSPR confirms the falsity of the justifications of the occupation leaders, which come in the context of justifying the law of the jungle and its war behavior towards civilians and their properties, as it sometimes accuses the Palestinian resistance of using densely populated areas in its military operations, which inconsistent with reality and is itself a clear violation of an international legal rule -if you are in doubt then refrain- that governs the rules of armed engagement; other times it says that it has killed 120 Palestinian fighters, and this is refuted and denied by the field facts, as approximately 51% of the victims of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip are children, women, and the elderly, 50% of the injured are also children and women, most of them fell into massacres that targeted the extermination of 17 families by killing their all members by bombing their homes without warning, and even the fighters, who are no more than 5% of the martyrs, most of them were targeted in their homes with their families while they are not in the battlefields, who in this case, enjoy the civilian status protected under international law. Also the claim that hundreds of kilometers of tunnels for the resistance have been destroyed is denied by the facts that there have been no collapses in the targeted areas.
ICSPR salutes all those stand in solidarity with the Palestinian right to defend himself, and appreciates all positions against Israeli war crimes and terrorism. ICSPR affirms the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupier by all available means, as a recognized right in international law and condemns the inability of the international community to stop the aggression on the Gaza Strip and the crimes and physical violations of the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories, ICSPR also warns of worsening the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip in light of the continued closure of the crossings and the imposition of a suffocating siege that afflicts all aspects of citizens’ lives and their overall human rights, in addition to preventing the entry of medical and relief aid and equipment necessary for the health sector and civil defense, preventing the evacuation of the sick and wounded to West Bank hospitals, as well as preventing the entry of foreign journalists and workers in international humanitarian organizations into the Gaza Strip, and the entry of the necessary fuel for the power plant before it completely stops, which will negatively affect the overall health and humanitarian services for the residents of the Strip. Therefore:
- ICSPR affirms that the Israeli occupation deliberate killing of civilians constitutes a war crime in accordance with the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute that established the permanent International Criminal Court. ICSPR also deplores the continuing international and regional inability to stop the aggression against civilians and the heinous crimes committed by the war occupation authorities in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and it considers this silence as a green light for the occupation forces to continue to shed civilian blood and continue war crimes.
- ICSPR calls upon the states contracting to the Fourth Geneva Convention to declare a clear and explicit position towards Israel’s refusal to abide by and implement the agreement in the Palestinian territories, in addition to taking serious action to protect civilians in the Palestinian territories and ensure respect for the rules of international humanitarian law.
- ICSPR calls on the International Human Rights Council to convene on an exceptional basis and to consider forming an international fact-finding committee to investigate the Israeli crimes, as part of which until the moment has led to the extermination of more than 17 Palestinian families, in addition to deliberately targeting civilians, especially women, children, journalists and medical personnel.
- ICSPR calls on the international community and the United Nations General Assembly, which will meet tomorrow, to take the powers of the Security Council after its failure to stop the aggression and implement United Nations resolutions related to the Palestinian cause (in the form of United for Peace) and work to stop war crimes, ethnic cleansing, settlement, and siege in the Palestinian territories. And stop targeting civilians, especially women, children, journalists, and medical personnel, or targeting civilian facilities, and make decisions that support the provision of protection for civilians, boycotting the occupation state and imposing sanctions on it, setting up a program to end the occupation as the most heinous form of aggression, and enabling the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination .
- ICSPR calls on the Palestinian leadership to carry out its legal, moral and national duties, by breaking its silence, line up with its people, come to the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, stop security coordination and withdraw recognition of the occupation state, internationalize the conflict, activate Palestinian diplomacy, and activate the paths of boycott and accountability through the International Criminal Court and the principle of international jurisdiction, including activating the role of the Palestinian judiciary to ensure that Israeli criminals do not escape punishment, and work with the European Union, China, Russia, and Arab and Islamic countries to stop the occupation crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, and provide all the necessary health, humanitarian and relief needs for Gaza and victims of the occupation crimes, end the collective penalties, stop the policy of discrimination against the Gaza Strip, and call for a meeting of secretaries-general to form a collective national leadership until the re-arrangement, activation and unification of all institutions of the political system on the basis of a national program.
- ICSPR urges the international community to work seriously to open a humanitarian corridor to support the health sector and facilitate relief work, and calls on states and international and humanitarian organizations will work hard to support the Palestinian health sector in Gaza with the necessary dispatches and medical equipment, especially in light of the weak capabilities of the Palestinian health sector, which suffers a lot due to the Israeli siege and measures to counter the Coronavirus. And calls on the United Nations and the countries of the world to provide adequate financial support to ensure that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides adequate care for nearly 52,000 displaced Palestinians who have sought refuge in their schools in the Gaza Strip.
- ICSPR urges the international movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people and all Arab, regional and international organizations to move at all legal, political, diplomatic, human rights and public levels to pressure governments around the world to carry out their moral and legal duties to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians.
ICSPR
