Date: 26 Feb 2024
Time: 15:00 Local Time
Press Release
The International Commission “Hashd”Warns of the Danger of Expanding the Ground Attack on the City of Rafah, calls for an End to Israeli Aggression, Ensuring the Flow of Humanitarian Aid, and Addressing the Catastrophic Humanitarian Situation in the Gaza Strip
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)held a press conference in front of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah to denounce the Israeli occupation’s crimes and massacres, which have been ongoing for the fifth consecutive month. The committee pointed out that many lives are lost daily due to Israeli killings and massacres, in addition to the dire humanitarian conditions resulting from famine, disease spread, and the restriction of humanitarian aid
Hashd condemns and deplores the continuation of Israeli aggression and genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and other occupied Palestinian territories. International efforts have failed to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression, which has resulted, for 125 consecutive days, in over 2,400 massacres and deliberate killings by Israeli occupation forces, claiming the lives of nearly 28,000 martyrs and injuring 68,000, including 8,000 missing individuals, 70% of whom are children and women. Additionally, more than 4,000 citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and denied disclosure of information about their whereabouts. The forced displacement of over 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip demonstrates a clear disregard for humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law, and human rights charters. It underscores that military plans and orders deliberately aim at committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Since the ruling of the International Court of Justice until today, Israeli occupation crimes have resulted in the killing of nearly 1,000 civilians, the injury of thousands, the displacement of approximately 150,000 individuals, the destruction of hundreds of residential units, and the besiegement of Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals, affiliated with the Red Crescent, for 13 consecutive days. Meanwhile, collective punishments on the Gaza Strip persist, hindering the entry of humanitarian aid. Thirteen countries have halted funding to the UNRWA according to Israeli allegations and schemes, turning into accomplices in collective punishment and encouraging Israeli forces to continue their current crimes. Furthermore, these countries remain silent on Israeli crimes against Palestinians and against the UNRWA, including the killing of 152 UNRWA employees, the destruction and raiding of some of its facilities, killing displaced persons within them, hindering its work, and preventing aid from reaching the residents of northern Gaza. This blatant double standard makes these countries complicit in ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Every day, dozens of lives in Gaza are claimed by the rapid spread of infectious and contagious diseases and famine due to the ongoing Israeli aggression. Ninety percent of Gaza’s population lives in overcrowded shelters and tents lacking personal hygiene facilities. Health services have collapsed, water and sewage networks are dysfunctional, garbage accumulates, insects and rodents proliferate, exacerbating the suffering of Gaza’s residents due to famine, food shortages, lack of clean water, ongoing power outages, fuel and gas shortages, shortages of medicines and medical supplies, and the limited access of humanitarian aid, meeting only 8% of the population’s needs. The continued obstruction of humanitarian aid entry, especially to northern Gaza, hindering the work of international organizations, particularly UNRWA, and the bombing of aid convoys, all underscore Israel’s intent and determination to annihilate the population of the Gaza Strip and to use humanitarian aid as a weapon of war. This necessitates urgent international intervention to halt the aggression and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, medicines, and appropriate tents to prevent the worsening humanitarian catastrophe with each passing moment.
The International Commission “Hashd”: The movement of evacuating patients and wounded individuals is characterized by extreme slowness and subjected to arbitrary Israeli restrictions, leading to deaths and worsening the conditions of the wounded and the sick. Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression, approximately 1,250 wounded and sick individuals and 1,050 companions out of 67,000 wounded, along with 10,000 cancer patients and 7,000 kidney patients, have been allowed to be evacuated and travel. 12,000 of them require urgent medical interventions due to the collapse and destruction of hospitals and health facilities, shortage of supplies, and exhaustion of medical staff. This increases the number of victims of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, necessitating effective international intervention to ensure the rapid evacuation and travel of the wounded and the sick to save their lives, and to provide medical teams, field hospitals, medical supplies, and restore water, electricity, and fuel to Gaza hospitals still in service.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Israeli occupation crimes and the excessive and intensive use of various types of ground, sea, and air weapons, which dropped over 70,000 tons of explosives on the Strip, have led to the destruction of 80% of homes, buildings, schools, hospitals, agricultural, industrial, commercial, tourist, economic facilities, and infrastructure. Every day, Israeli forces expand destruction operations through airstrikes and ground incursions, using scorched-earth tactics, including detonating residential squares, especially in eastern areas of the Strip under the pretext of establishing buffer zones. This is part of plans to make the Strip an uninhabitable and destroyed area unfit for life, and to forcibly displace its population outside Palestinian territories. The International Body warns world countries against the Israeli ground attack on Rafah Governorate, which is considered the last refuge for the Strip’s residents, where nearly one and a half million citizens, mostly displaced forcibly, reside. This puts the lives of most Strip residents at stake and threatens to execute a new catastrophe and implement plans for forced displacement beyond Palestinian territories.
The International Commission “Hashd”: For 125 days, Israeli forces continue the siege, closure of crossings, cutting off electricity, water, communications, hindering and obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid, medical supplies, relief, fuel convoys, and impeding the evacuation of the wounded. This has resulted in Gaza’s residents living in an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in the history of conflicts. Meanwhile, some countries cease their funding to UNRWA instead of imposing sanctions on the Israeli occupation state, exposing the double standards and complicity of these countries in imposing further collective punishment on the Strip’s residents.
The International Commission “Hashd”: The forced disappearance of the child Haneen, ambulance crews, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearance of thousands of citizens in the Gaza Strip, and withholding any information about them, as well as the discovery of field execution crimes and the spread of bodies in areas vacated by Israeli occupation forces, underscore the seriousness of the crimes of genocide and war crimes committed against Gaza’s population.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Warns against aligning with the Israeli plan expressed openly in ending the services of UNRWA, which comes within the context of genocide, forced displacement, and collective punishment inflicted on Gaza’s population, especially amidst the humanitarian catastrophe they are experiencing and the increasing humanitarian and health needs. Stopping or freezing funding for UNRWA and other humanitarian organizations means leaving millions of Palestinian refugees without aid or humanitarian support in the most critical periods when they need protection and relief.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Strongly condemns and denounces the escalation of Israeli occupation forces’ crimes in the West Bank and Jerusalem, especially the crimes of raiding cities and camps and committing murder and field executions in blatant disregard of all rules of international humanitarian law and continuous contempt for the lives of Palestinians. The number of martyrs has reached 383 since the beginning of the aggression on the Gaza Strip, with approximately 5,000 injuries. Israeli occupation forces continue to escalate arbitrary arrest campaigns, with the total number of detainees reaching around 6,300 so far. Meanwhile, continuous expansion and escalation of colonial settlement crimes persist, as evidenced by facts on the ground and statements by ministers in the occupation government and settlers, the latest of which were calls at the settlement conference in Jerusalem for the return of settlements to the Gaza Strip, the displacement of its residents, and the escalation of settlement in the West Bank, all of which reflects contempt for all international laws and decisions that criminalize genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonial settlement, and racial discrimination.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Condemns the continued international silence and incapacity to stop the ongoing genocide, crimes against humanity, and continuous war crimes that now threaten and claim the lives of Palestinians, especially the inhabitants of Gaza, who are living amidst the collapse of the humanitarian and health system, making the dangers of death, destruction, famine, thirst, disease, and environmental epidemics a tragic reality worsening every moment. The international incapacity to pressure the Israeli occupation state to stop collective punishment and ensure its compliance with its responsibilities as a belligerent occupation authority under international humanitarian law, especially the Geneva Conventions, Hague Conventions, and international human rights law, as well as the decisions of the International Court of Justice, the Security Council, and the General Assembly, which have remained mere ink on paper as long as the Israeli occupation state acts as if it is above the law, aided by American support that makes the United States complicit in the occupation’s crimes along with the supporting states providing weapons and double standards that give the occupation a green light to continue its crimes, sacrificing all humanitarian principles and standards of human rights and peoples’ rights.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Calls for an urgent conference of high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions to ensure the fulfillment of their moral, legal, and humanitarian responsibilities to stop Israeli aggression and implement the rules of international humanitarian law and the laws of war, to stop collective punishment, activate mechanisms of accountability for Israeli occupation leaders, their supporters, and arms suppliers, and impose boycott sanctions on the racist Israeli occupation state until it complies with international law, decisions of the International Court of Justice, and relevant United Nations resolutions on the Palestinian issue.
The International Commission “Hashd”:Commends the stance of countries and freedom-loving people worldwide condemning the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the rest of Palestinian territories, and demanding respect for and enforcement of the decisions of the International Court of Justice to stop aggression, protect Palestinians, and support their right to self-determination. It calls on freedom-loving people worldwide to escalate their actions at all levels to ensure that countries and international organizations fulfill their moral and legal duties in protecting Palestinians, diversifying and enhancing humanitarian support mechanisms for Gaza residents, activating accountability and boycott pathways, and imposing sanctions on the Israeli occupation state to stop the genocide and dismantle the system of racial colonialism.
End
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)
