Date: 2 Apr 2024
Press Release
The International Commission “Hashd” Strongly Condemns Escalating Israeli Aggression and Genocide in Gaza, Calls for International Intervention to Protect Palestinians
The International Commission to Support the Rights of the Palestinian People “Hashd” condemns in the strongest terms the ongoing genocide and Israeli military aggression in the Gaza Strip, now entering its 179th day. The occupying military forces continue to perpetrate various forms of international crimes against civilians, including the continuation of mass massacres, with over 2,888 massacres resulting in the loss of 32,845 lives, 73% of whom are children and women, and over 75,392 injuries, with nearly 8,500 still missing under the rubble.
The International Commission “Hashd”: denounces the continued failure of the international community to halt the suffering of 2 million forcibly displaced individuals in shelters and tents, enduring severe famine, thirst, and the spread of diseases and epidemics resulting from ongoing Israeli aggression and retaliatory collective punishments. The deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid, medical supplies, and fuel necessary to operate hospitals and essential facilities, alongside the prevention of international organizations’ operations, aims to render the region uninhabitable and force its residents into forced migration.
The International Commission “Hashd”: further condemns the Israeli occupation forces’ continued separation of the Gaza Strip and the systematic destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure, exacerbating the catastrophic conditions for Gaza’s residents. The severe famine, unprecedented in human history, particularly affects the northern Gaza population, leading to starvation, thirst, and rampant diseases claiming the lives of dozens daily, especially children. Despite Security Council resolutions and International Court of Justice warnings of the famine’s severity and humanitarian crisis, Israeli forces persist in obstructing international organizations’ work and aid delivery, deliberately targeting awaiting convoys, manifesting a clear intent to annihilate Gaza’s population and sow chaos within the enclave, exacerbating the ongoing genocide.
The International Commission “Hashd”: condemns the field executions of civilians, forced displacement, and the destruction of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and adjacent homes, revealed following the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the complex yesterday after a two-week complete occupation and subsequent devastation. This barbaric act resulted in extensive destruction and heinous crimes against humanity and international law. The destruction encompassed all aspects of the complex, with Israeli forces bombing and burning all its buildings, rendering all its facilities inoperable. The assault claimed the lives of over 1,400 martyrs and 22 patients and medical staff within and around the complex. Israeli forces attempted to conceal their atrocious crime by burying hundreds of civilians and wounded within the compound, alongside the displacement of nearly 30,000 refugees, and the destruction of over 1,200 residential units surrounding Al-Shifa Medical Complex.
With the destruction of Al-Shifa, over 800 beds, 100 dialysis machines, operation theaters, intensive care units, and medical imaging devices were lost, equating to the loss of approximately one-third of medical services in the Gaza Strip. Additionally, Israeli forces announced the arrest of over 900 individuals within the Al-Shifa Medical Complex after torturing and interrogating them, with over 100 still missing. This represents a blatant violation of humanitarian principles, with deliberate targeting and destruction of hospitals and the health sector, leading to the closure of 32 hospitals, while Israeli forces yesterday bombed a tent in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah, resulting in the martyrdom of 4 individuals and 16 injuries, including 6 journalists.
The International Commission “Hashd”: condemns the Israeli Knesset’s passage of a bill last night paving the way to shut down any foreign media outlet, notably the “Al Jazeera” channel, granting the Israeli occupation government the authority to halt the operations of Al Jazeera and other media outlets, aiming to prevent coverage and documentation of Israeli occupation crimes, which played a crucial role in exposing them to the international community. Furthermore, deliberate targeting of journalists resulted in the martyrdom of 138 journalists since the beginning of the aggression, alongside hundreds of injuries, including journalist Mohammed Abu Suhail, who was martyred during the Al-Shifa Medical Complex massacre. Additionally, the destruction of media headquarters in Gaza and the arrest of nearly 50 journalists in Israeli occupation prisons necessitate the international community to fulfill its obligations to protect journalists and ensure the protection of media freedoms, putting an end to Israeli occupation crimes against journalists and media institutions.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Condemns the continued failure of the international community to stop Israeli aggression and genocide crimes, and to enforce the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, as well as measures by the International Court of Justice aimed at protecting Palestinians from the crime of genocide and ensuring the flow of humanitarian aid. This requires the parties to the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, Geneva Conventions, and the United Nations, as well as free nations of the world, to move beyond condemnation and denunciation, and to take serious and collective action, individually and collectively, to halt the aggression and ensure the non-expansion of the ground attack on the city of Rafah, which threatens to commit new massacres against Palestinians and forcibly displace them outside Palestinian territories. Effective measures must be taken to impose sanctions and boycotts on the Israeli occupation state and to expel it from the United Nations until it complies with the decisions of the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly and respects the rules of international humanitarian law and human rights treaties.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Calls on the international community to ensure the provision of international protection for Palestinians, expedite the delivery of humanitarian aid through all air, sea, and land routes to stop severe famine, siege, collective punishment, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Demands that all international institutions, the World Health Organization, and all free nations immediately mobilize to rehabilitate the health sector, restore hospitals to service, deploy field hospitals, dozens of medical teams, and hundreds of doctors in all specialties to save the health situation in the Gaza Strip, and to save thousands of wounded and patients before it is too late.
The International Commission “Hashd”: Calls on human rights advocates worldwide to take serious action to utilize international judicial jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli occupation leaders, perpetrators of genocide crimes, and their international accomplices before national courts in their countries. We also call for countries to join South Africa’s lawsuit in the International Court of Justice and pressure the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to expedite actual procedures to investigate the crimes and atrocities that occurred in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and its surroundings, as well as the overall international crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces during the ongoing aggression for more than six months in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the Palestinian territories.
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The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)
