Date: 8 Nev, 2023
Time: 13:00 local time
Original Language: Arabic
Press Release
The International Commission” Hashd”Condemns the State of Israeli Occupation and the United States for Replacing International Law with the Law of the Jungle, While the International Community’s Failure to Stop Genocidal Warfare Contributes to It
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd) condemns and strongly denounces the ongoing genocidal crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the continued international impotence in stopping these genocidal crimes, ethnic cleansing, punitive collective sanctions, and grave violations that have been taking place in full view of the world for 33 consecutive days.
The continuous Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has led to the martyrdom, killing, and injuring of 27,000 citizens, with 70% of them being children and women, most of whom were killed in collective massacres affecting 1,071 families. Most of them were annihilated through direct targeting of civilian homes, bombings, destruction of residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and shelter centers right over the heads of those inside.
Furthermore, the crimes of war, the excessive and intensive use of various land, sea, and air weaponry that have dropped more than 30,000 tons of explosives on the Strip have resulted in the destruction of half of the residential buildings, schools, hospitals, agricultural, industrial, commercial, and tourism facilities, and the economic and infrastructural backbone of Gaza, turning it into a devastated area with most of its residential and civilized areas in ruins.
The Israeli aggression has also forced 1.7 million people into forced displacement, currently living in shelters such as schools, UNRWA centers, hospitals, mosques, churches, universities, and the homes of relatives and friends, all in catastrophic conditions due to the lack of services, water scarcity, food shortages, overcrowding, lack of privacy, the spread of diseases, and public health hazards. Displaced people in northern Gaza, in 57 UNRWA schools, have been suffering from the absence of relief since the military orders to evacuate these areas were issued, and the war attacks on 50 UNRWA schools have forcibly killed and injured hundreds of displaced people.
For the past week, the ground invasion has divided Gaza into two parts, as the air and ground forces destroyed and levelled civilian residential buildings and agricultural structures in the areas they invaded with artillery, in addition to destroying all service facilities, such as water reservoirs, solar cells, bombing hospitals, demolishing streets, residential neighborhoods, and infrastructures, and cutting off communications.
The blockade, border closures, and punitive collective sanctions on the population have continued, including cutting off electricity, water, and communications, hindering and obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid, medical supplies, relief materials, fuel shipments, and hampering the evacuation of the wounded and the distribution of aid. Only 570 trucks of aid have entered Gaza so far, meeting just 1% of the needs. This number used to enter the Strip daily before the aggression, leading to the collapse of the humanitarian system and making the lives of Gaza residents a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. Most bakeries, water facilities, and hospitals have stopped operating due to destruction or the lack of fuel to run generators and service facilities. There is a glaring Arab and international failure to protect hospitals, medical staff, journalists, children, women, and an inability to ensure the opening of humanitarian corridors in accordance with international humanitarian law, and to pressure the state of Israeli occupation to end the collective sanctions, restore electricity, water, and communications, and ensure its compliance with its responsibilities as a belligerent occupation under international humanitarian law, particularly the Geneva Conventions, The Hague Conventions, and international human rights agreements. Israel continues to act as if it is above the law, with the unwavering support of the United States, making it a partner in the occupation’s crimes, as well as the states that support the occupation with weapons and their double standards that greenlight its ongoing crimes. What law are they talking about in the right to self-defense, even though there is nothing in international law or the United Nations Charter that gives an occupying, colonial, and apartheid state such a right.
- The International Commission” Hashd” reaffirms the Palestinian people’s right to resist the occupation as an established right in the UN Charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1977, and in accordance with the UN General Assembly resolutions and human rights conventions. It condemns the continued international silence and complicity and the failure to enforce the UN General Assembly resolution calling for the cessation of genocidal crimes, crimes against humanity, and ongoing war crimes that threaten and claim the lives of the remaining 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip, half of whom are children. They live in the midst of a collapsing humanitarian system, food and health insecurity, within the context of the genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorization, bombings from aircraft, and massacres against families and civilians, especially children and women, making the danger of death, destruction, hunger, thirst, illness, and health and environmental epidemics a tragic reality that worsens with every moment.
- The International Commission “Hashd” calls upon the United Nations, high-contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions, international and regional organizations, and all free people in the world to take serious and urgent action to fulfil their moral, legal, and humanitarian responsibilities to stop the Israeli aggression, genocidal crimes, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, collective sanctions, and war crimes. It also calls for the enforcement of the rules of international humanitarian law and the laws of war and for an end to the law of the jungle. It calls for the activation of accountability mechanisms for the leaders of the Israeli occupation and their supporting partners and arms suppliers and the imposition of boycott and sanctions on the racist state of Israeli occupation until it complies with international humanitarian law and relevant UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue.
- The International Commission “Hashd” calls upon the State of Palestine to refer the ongoing genocidal crimes and aggression to the International Criminal Court for a serious investigation. It urges the Office of the Chief Prosecutor to issue arrest warrants against the perpetrators of genocide and war crimes, to stop the policy of procrastination and selective enforcement of international law.
- The International Commission “Hashd” calls on the State of Palestine to establish an international humanitarian alliance in accordance with the United Nations General Assembly resolution, which includes the countries of the world and international and regional organizations opposed to aggression. They should take collective steps to protect civilians, apply international humanitarian law, support the struggle and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and dismantle and end the Israeli occupation and the system of colonization and apartheid.
End
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)
