Date: 15 Mar 2024
Press Release
Hashd The Israeli Occupation Forces are Responsible for the Famine in Gaza Strip and Committing Massacres against Humanitarian Aid Seekers
The International Commission “Hashd” strongly condemns the massacre perpetrated by the Israeli Occupation Forces against humanitarian aid seekers at Al Kuwaiti Roundabout on Salah al-Din Street. The Israeli forces unleashed a barrage of fire, including from warplanes, tank shells, and gunfire, targeting the aid seekers at Al Kuwaiti Roundabout this evening, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 100 civilians and injuring over 150 others with various injuries. This incident marks another instance in a series of war crimes and massacres against aid seekers, with the most notable being the massacre at the Al-Nabulsi Towers in Gaza City, which resulted in the death of 118 individuals and the injury of over 7,600 others. Prior to this, there were six incidents of Israeli forces opening fire, resulting in massacres against civilians gathered to await aid, as part of the Israeli forces’ persistence in obstructing and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of northern Gaza, who are living under severe famine conditions, claiming the lives of dozens of citizens, mostly children, patients, the elderly, and women. This is part of the Israeli forces’ strategy to exacerbate famine and catastrophic conditions, impose collective punishment, intensify systematic destruction of all means of life, commit daily massacres against Palestinian families, destroy homes over their inhabitants’ heads, and obstruct the entry of aid, fuel, medical supplies, and medications to hospitals in the Gaza Strip, thereby endangering the lives of citizens, patients, and the wounded.
The International Commission “Hashd”: The residents of Gaza, especially children and women, are suffering from severe famine, diseases, and health epidemics due to the lack of food, shortage of medications and aid, drinking water, overcrowding in shelter centers and tents, while prices of goods skyrocket due to scarcity resulting from the prevention of entry of goods and humanitarian aid due to the continuation of collective sanctions imposed by the Israeli Occupation Forces since October 7, 2023, until now.
The International Commission “Hashd”: The Israeli Occupation Forces deliberately obstruct and impede the work of international organizations, especially the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in distributing humanitarian aid, in addition to targeting the police forces protecting the aid distribution, aiming to create deliberate chaos hindering the delivery and fair distribution of aid in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza. Families spend their days without food or potable water, subjected to the criminal use of hunger and thirst as weapons to achieve the goals of the Israeli occupation in making the region uninhabitable, plagued by famine, diseases, loss of societal and humanitarian security.
The International Commission “Hashd”: The famine and catastrophic humanitarian conditions caused by the savage aggression of the Israeli Occupation urgently necessitate an immediate cessation of the genocide, ensuring the opening of all humanitarian corridors, especially land crossings, to allow the flow of humanitarian aid, and exerting serious international pressure to ensure that the Israeli Occupation fully assumes responsibility for the well-being of civilian populations, preserving their lives, and providing the means of livelihood for the residents of Gaza in accordance with the rules of international humanitarian law, alongside doubling efforts to rescue the people of Gaza from the horrors of genocide, famine, diseases, chaos. We call upon the free people of the world to act to end the state of helplessness and procrastination in stopping the genocide and crimes of the Israeli Occupation, which has not abandoned its goal of forcibly displacing nearly 2 million Palestinians, and the Israeli Occupation Forces continue systematically towards making the region uninhabitable and unsuitable for life, paving the way for forced displacement outside Palestinian territories, reminiscent of the Nakba of 1948.
The International Commission “Hashd”: The Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people continues into the West Bank, with Jerusalem being the epicenter, besieged since the beginning of the war, preventing worshipers from reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque, thus obstructing freedom of worship. Furthermore, settler terrorism is escalating, protected by the army and carrying out extensive invasions throughout the West Bank, perpetrating field killing massacres, arbitrary arrests, settlement expansion, and savage destruction of properties and infrastructure alongside arrest campaigns, torture, and imposition of closures on Palestinian cities and towns, all in a consolidation of colonial control policies, war crimes, and racial discrimination.
The International Commission “Hashd”: While we emphasize the importance of addressing the root causes of the conflict by ending the Israeli occupation and realizing the independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, and ensuring justice for the Palestinian people and enabling them to exercise their right of return and self-determination, we call on nations and the free people of the world to intensify efforts to stop the aggression and genocide and ensure the flow of humanitarian and relief aid to the people of Gaza, activating all efforts to impose sanctions and boycotts on the Israeli Occupation and holding it and its leaders accountable before the judiciary and international justice institutions.
End
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)
