Date:12 May 2024
Press Release
The International Commission “Hashd” It’s Time to Issue a Provisional Decision to Halt the Israeli Genocide War against the People of Gaza
For the eighth consecutive month, the genocide war in the Gaza Strip continues unabated, reaching a dangerously critical turn in recent days. Israeli forces have escalated their targeting and destruction of homes, committing massacres, expanding the scope of military aggression to the Rafah governorate, declaring the start of wide-scale military operations in areas such as the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City, Jabalia and Beit Lahia camps in the northern governorate of Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forcibly displaced, with evacuation orders affecting refugee camps and neighborhoods in the central city of Rafah. Additionally, orders to evacuate have been issued to all residents of the northern Gaza governorate, directing them to head west of Gaza City, with inadequate time given for preparation or provision of sufficient shelter and basic necessities. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are now crowded in central areas, suffering from water shortages, lack of aid, and insufficient tents and basic humanitarian and health necessities. The phrase “Where do we go?” epitomizes the catastrophic conditions civilians are enduring, indicating a renewed Israeli plan to commit further acts of genocide and war crimes in these specific areas.
This recent escalation occurs within the context of the ongoing blockade and complete siege of the Gaza Strip, including the continued closure of the Kerem Shalom crossing and the Rafah land crossing, preventing the entry of aid, medical supplies, fuel, and all essential goods for civilians. This underscores Israel’s use of starvation and thirst as a strategy in its genocidal war tactics.
The genocide and starvation war conducted by Israeli military forces against Palestinian civilians reveal daily atrocities and crimes against humanity. The discovery of a third mass grave at Shifa Hospital, containing 80 bodies, adds to the eight mass graves found in areas where Israeli forces have penetrated, in addition to the ongoing forced disappearance of over 6,000 Palestinians, presumed to be held captive by Israeli authorities in undisclosed and uninhabitable locations. Some released detainees have reported torture, medical neglect, arbitrary arrests, and deprivation of basic services and meals, all constituting flagrant violations of human dignity and a disregard for international humanitarian law and human rights conventions.
According to recent statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the genocide war has resulted in the deaths of 45,000 victims, including 35,000 who reached hospitals and 10,000 missing martyrs buried under the rubble of their homes. Among the victims are 15,000 children and 10,000 women. Moreover, approximately 80% of homes, infrastructure, agricultural lands, water wells, sewage stations, hospitals, universities, schools, and commercial shops have been totally or partially destroyed. Over 95% of the population has been displaced, living amidst famine, thirst, epidemics, and diseases. This affirms Israel’s objective to render the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and to exterminate its population, creating a new catastrophe whose chapters are still unfolding, with one of its strategic goals being revenge against and the displacement of Gaza’s population outside Palestinian territories, preventing the Palestinian people from obtaining their legitimate rights.
The International Commission “Hashd” views it as imperative for the international community to take decisive measures to halt the ongoing massacre in Rafah and Gaza as a whole. Holding Israeli military forces fully accountable for the lives of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, condemning the continued victimization of civilians in acts of aggression and genocide, and denouncing the international and regional silence and paralysis in response to the genocide perpetrated by Israeli military authorities. Therefore, Hashd records and demands the following:
- Hashd: calls on the International Court of Justice to respond clearly to the request for a clear, precise provisional decision demanding that Israeli military forces cease the genocide war in the Gaza Strip.
- Hashd: urges the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the International Criminal Court to expedite and accelerate preliminary investigations and issue arrest warrants against Israeli war criminals.
- Hashd: calls on the United Nations and high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions to convene an urgent meeting to ensure international protection for Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories.
- Hashd: urges freedom-loving people and the Palestinian people in various Palestinian gatherings and international solidarity movements, as well as all Arab, regional, and international organizations and unions, to take action on all legal, political, diplomatic, humanitarian, and popular fronts to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This includes exerting pressure on world countries to fulfill their ethical and legal obligations to halt the genocide and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, activate accountability mechanisms, boycott, and impose sanctions on the state of Israel and its leaders to prevent them from evading accountability, and ensure the end of the occupation and the dismantling of the Israeli colonial and racist system, stopping the law of the jungle and the double standards of international standards, and enforcing relevant decisions of the International Court of Justice and the United Nations related to the Palestinian issue.
End
The International Commission to Support Palestinians Rights (Hashd)
