Date: 2 Dec, 2023
Time: 13:00 local time
Original Language: Arabic
Press Release
The International Commission “Hashd” Calls on Nations and Free People of the World to Escalate Efforts to Halt the Largest Genocidal Crime in Human History
Israeli military forces resumed their operations in the Gaza Strip yesterday after seven days of ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Egypt. The ceasefire facilitated the exchange of prisoners, including children and women, and allowed the entry of humanitarian aid, which, despite its importance, only represents 5% of the essential humanitarian needs. Up until 8:00 PM on December 1, 2023, according to the latest statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the military attacks resulted in the martyrdom of 700 civilians and the injury of 1589, mostly children and women. This adds to the 22,000 martyrs, including 9,000 children and more than 5,000 women, as well as 306 medical personnel, paramedics, and civil defense members, 111 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency, and 76 journalists. Approximately 7,500 martyrs and missing persons remain buried under the rubble of their homes.
During the ceasefire, about 300 bodies of the missing were recovered. However, civil defense teams were unable to retrieve thousands of bodies due to a lack of equipment, fuel shortages, and the incapacity of civil defense teams given the available resources. Despite repeated requests for the entry of rescue equipment and civil defense teams from around the world to assist in searching for the missing and rescuing the victims, the civil defense apparatus in northern Gaza announced a complete halt in its equipment due to a lack of fuel. Only seven ambulances and three small-capacity hospitals, including Al-Awda Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, and Al-Ahli Hospital, are still operating in Gaza and the north, as the occupying forces destroyed other facilities and hospitals, especially in Gaza City and its northern areas.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to destroy the homes of civilians and residential areas as part of their aggression, targeting residential neighborhoods as seen in the massacre committed by Israeli occupation planes in the Shujaiya neighborhood, resulting in the death and injury of nearly 500 people. Israeli forces also destroyed seven residential towers in the city of Hama, Khan Yunis, and dozens of homes. Additionally, they continued to target hospitals and shelters, especially in Mughazi Camp and Beit Lahia project, resulting in the killing and injury of dozens of civilians, while the Indonesian hospital and Al-Awda Hospital were directly targeted.
The brutal bombings led to an increase in the number of massacres against Palestinian families to 1,470, as Israeli forces continued the policy of destroying homes over the heads of their inhabitants. The bombing also targeted various civilian service facilities and infrastructure in different areas of the Gaza Strip, exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe to an unprecedented level. This has led to the destruction of wide numbers of children, women, and elderly individuals due to the spread of diseases, hunger, thirst, and malnutrition.
With the end of the ceasefire and the resumption of the Israeli military offensive, warplanes dropped leaflets urging the forced displacement of more residents to increase the humanitarian suffering of Gaza’s inhabitants. These leaflets aim to enforce a policy of displacement for the people of Gaza, deepening the chapters of catastrophe and ongoing genocide crimes. Israeli forces demanded the residents of Khazaa, Absan, Bani Suhaila, and Al-Qarara in eastern Khan Yunis evacuate and head to Rafah, declaring Khan Yunis a war zone. Other leaflets urged residents of the northern governorate and Gaza City to evacuate and head to the south of Wadi Gaza. Despite the lack of safe places in the Gaza Strip for residents to flee, the instructions raise suspicions and concerns about pushing Palestinians closer to the Egyptian borders, threatening to worsen the humanitarian crisis resulting from the congestion of most of Gaza’s population in the southern governorates.
The Israeli aggression, brutal and indiscriminate airstrikes from warplanes, artillery, and naval vessels forced nearly 1.8 million people to be forcibly displaced from their homes out of a population of 2.3 million. Approximately 1.1 million of them are living in UNRWA schools in Mughazi, while the rest are distributed among government schools, universities, hospitals, and the homes of relatives and friends. They suffer from deprivation of the most basic human rights due to overcrowding in shelters, lack of food, water, medicine, fuel, and continuous power outages. In addition, the ongoing blockade prevents the evacuation of martyrs’ bodies, waste disposal, and the shortage of drinking water or sanitation, leading to the collapse of sewage stations due to fuel shortages. The medical facilities still in service face overcrowding, shortages of medical supplies and aid, and the halt of aid entry through the Rafah crossing after the ceasefire ended.
Although the ceasefire allowed the entry of about 200 trucks daily, all humanitarian aid that reached the Gaza Strip has only met 5% of the humanitarian needs of forcibly displaced persons, whether inside shelters or outside them. This is due to the limited availability of relief aid and the inadequacy of distribution mechanisms to reach the beneficiaries fairly.
On the other hand, collective punishment, power cuts, water cuts, and the tight siege, along with the closure of crossings to prevent the entry of various goods, fuel, and cooking gas, have exacerbated the suffering of the population. This has led to the depletion of food and most goods from commercial stores, except for increased prices, forcing people to use unsafe makeshift alternatives. Daily queues for water and other basic needs, which have become a dream rather than a reality, further contribute to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces and settler militias continued their crimes against Palestinians, including invading cities and refugee camps, field killings that have resulted in 247 martyrs and nearly 3,000 injuries since the beginning of the aggression on the Gaza Strip. The occupation forces continued to torment Palestinian prisoners, expand arbitrary arrests, affecting about 3,600 Palestinians. Settler attacks on citizens, invasions of holy places, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the continued practice of racial discrimination and preventing citizens in the 1948 areas from peaceful assembly and expression also persist.
The International Commission “Hashd” strongly condemns these systematic and heinous crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. The international community must take immediate and effective action to stop these crimes, hold the perpetrators accountable, and provide urgent humanitarian aid to the affected population. The Hashd calls on nations and free people around the world to escalate their efforts to end the largest genocidal crime in human history and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for justice, freedom, and the right to self-determination.
The International Commission “Hashd”, as it condemns and strongly denounces the resumption of the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip, deliberate targeting of civilians, especially children, women, journalists, and medical personnel resulting in killings, destruction of homes, and residential areas, rendering the region uninhabitable, and the continuation of the blockade and collective punishments. It also condemns the international community’s failure to compel the Israeli occupation to stop the aggression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and collective sanctions, essentially approving the killing of civilians, especially children and women, and the ongoing destruction of civilian infrastructure, particularly hospitals, with 31 hospitals taken out of service. In addition to the destruction of over 60% of residential buildings and citizens’ homes, using over 100,000 bombs and missiles, some weighing more than 2 tons of explosives, causing unprecedented and widespread damage to private and public properties, economic facilities, and service facilities in the Gaza Strip.
It asserts that all criminal actions committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip deliberately subject the population to living conditions that lead to their destruction, the destruction of their homes, altering their way of life, and forcibly displacing them as an integral part of the crime of genocide. It holds the Israeli occupation forces and the United States government fully responsible for the lives of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The International Commission “Hashd” condemns the prevention of humanitarian aid and medical supplies from entering after the ceasefire, expresses concern about the bias and support of the United States, the continued silence of some European countries, the failure of the United Nations, and the high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions and international organizations to fulfill their moral, legal, and humanitarian duty in supporting the victims of the aggression and providing international protection for civilians. It calls for and demands the following:
- The International Commission “Hashd” : calls on the United Nations, high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions, international and regional organizations to take serious and urgent action to stop the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip, halt the crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and collective sanctions, and pressure to open humanitarian corridors allowing the regular evacuation of the wounded, the flow of humanitarian aid, medical supplies, field hospitals, medical teams, journalists, life-saving equipment, and goods to the Gaza Strip.
- The International Commission “Hashd” : calls on the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Office to step out of the circle of silence that makes the court complicit in committing crimes through intentional delays in prosecuting Israeli war criminals. It emphasizes the dual behavior and selectivity of law enforcement in the Palestinian case compared to what was done in Ukraine. It calls on high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions to take all countermeasures and actions against the Israeli occupation and those complicit with it, including boycotts, sanctions, cutting diplomatic relations, and activating the principle of universal jurisdiction to ensure accountability for war crimes and genocide committed by Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Palestinian territories.
- The International Commission “Hashd” : calls on various United Nations agencies, especially the UN Relief and Works Agency, to multiply humanitarian interventions and humanitarian response, providing humanitarian aid, relief, medical supplies, life-saving equipment, and medical care services to civilians in various areas of the Gaza Strip without discrimination.
- The International Commission “Hashd” : calls on high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions and the world to fulfill their ethical and legal duties to exert pressure on the Israeli occupation to fulfill its responsibilities as a belligerent occupier and to stop targeting civilians, especially women, children, journalists, medical crews, and civilian facilities, ensuring international protection for the Palestinian people.
- The International Commission “Hashd” : urges the international solidarity movement with the Palestinian people, all Arab, regional, and international organizations, and free people worldwide to act on all legal, political, diplomatic, legal, and popular levels to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians and work earnestly to end the occupation, dismantle Israeli colonialism and apartheid system, and enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.
End
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)
