For over 600 consecutive days, Israel has continued a campaign of genocide, destruction, and the erasure of the Gaza Strip from the map
Press Release and Urgent Appeal
For over 600 consecutive days, Israel has continued a campaign of genocide, destruction, and the erasure of the Gaza Strip from the map—killing and injuring 20% of its population, while placing the rest in catastrophic conditions aimed at their extermination and displacement.
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) reports a dangerous escalation in the scale and intensity of Israeli military attacks and the unlawful use of force targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. In the last 72 hours alone, hospitals in Gaza have received 324 martyrs and 572 wounded, as a result of continuous massacres from bombardments targeting shelters, homes, displacement tents, and hospitals. Among the most horrific was the May 26, 2025 attack on Fahmi Al-Jerjawi School, which housed displaced families in Al-Daraj neighborhood, central Gaza City. The school was struck by three drones, causing partial destruction and fires that killed 36 people, including 18 children and 6 women, and left dozens wounded with burns and various injuries.
In another horrifying incident, Israeli aircraft bombed the home of Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar on May 23, 2025 in Qizan Al-Najjar, south of Khan Yunis, killing 10 people—9 of whom were her children—while she was on duty at Nasser Hospital. Her husband, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, sustained critical injuries. Over the past three days, massacres have continued across Gaza. Two airstrikes targeted the Abdel-Rabbo family in Jabalia: the first, at dawn on May 26, killed 17 family members; the second, later the same day, killed 6 more.
On the same day, Israeli forces bombed the Sharab family home in southeast Khan Yunis, killing Raef Sharab, his wife, their four children, and a relative from the Al-Agha family. Another airstrike in Jabalia killed a mother and her two children from the Shehadeh family. On May 25, an Israeli drone targeted a tent sheltering displaced Shalabi family members from Rafah in west Deir al-Balah, killing 7 and injuring others. That same day, Israeli aircraft bombed the home of Ashraf Hassan Abu Nar, Director of Civil Defense Operations, killing him and his wife. Other attacks killed five members of the Abu Al-Atta family in Gaza City, and five from the Abu Akar family in Khan Yunis. On May 24, an Israeli drone struck a tent camp for displaced families in Mawasi Khan Yunis, killing Islam Madi and the child Misk Madi, and injuring nearly 20 others.
ICSPR teams documented dozens of further attacks across Gaza, amid the ongoing expansion of forced evacuation orders in northern Gaza, Khan Yunis, and eastern areas. These have forcibly displaced nearly 600,000 civilians amid escalating aerial bombardments on homes, shelters, and tents. Hundreds of families remain trapped in targeted zones, facing imminent death, while those displaced on foot or by limited transport means suffer from a lack of shelter and essential services.
ICSPR warns that Israeli forces continue large-scale destruction and leveling of homes and infrastructure to erase entire neighborhoods, occupy them, and maintain permanent control—as seen in Rafah, now completely destroyed and depopulated. This is accompanied by continued blockade, collective punishment, electricity and water cuts, and denial of humanitarian aid, constituting a deliberate starvation strategy.
These events confirm that Israel is executing “Gideon’s Chariots”—a genocide plan to seize 70–75% of Gaza’s land and impose demographic changes under the “Smaller Gaza” model. This plan aims to concentrate the remaining population in three disconnected, prison-like zones: western Gaza City, central camps (Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah), and Al-Mawasi in western Khan Yunis. Future plans include forcibly relocating all remaining civilians to Rafah, flattened to become the largest detention camp in history, confined between the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egyptian border and the Meraj axis separating Rafah from Khan Yunis. The objective: force the displacement of Gaza’s population abroad or onto Egypt, completing a geographic and demographic erasure and solidifying Israeli control or annexation of depopulated Gaza.
Since the resumption of aggression on March 18, 2025, ICSPR reports around 4,000 new martyrs and 11,000 wounded—bringing the 20-month genocide death toll to nearly 70,000 killed or missing and 123,000 injured. Thousands have been detained, with no access granted to international monitors. The aggression has caused the repeated displacement of 90% of Gaza’s population, the destruction of 88% of homes and property, government buildings, economic sectors, mosques, churches, sports facilities, agricultural lands, water wells, hospitals, schools, and universities. Systematic destruction continues.
ICSPR reports that the siege, near-total aid denial, and restrictions on food, fuel, medicine, and supplies have created catastrophic famine. UN agencies state that Gaza faces catastrophic hunger, unable to assist more than 2.2 million people. WHO warns 15,000 wounded need urgent medical evacuation. FAO says 95% of farmland is now unusable. WFP reports half a million face extreme food insecurity, and UNRWA confirms only 200 trucks entered Gaza in five days—far below the 600 needed daily. Due to constant bombing, destroyed infrastructure, and Israeli restrictions, aid cannot reach those in need. Armed gangs backed by Israel loot aid. The collapsed healthcare system, water scarcity, garbage accumulation, and spread of disease are worsening. Famine levels 4 and 5 now threaten 70,000 malnourished children, pregnant women, the ill, and elderly—600 of whom died in the past three months.
Today’s collapse of American-Israeli aid distribution centers in Mirage and Tel al-Sultan, and the chaos that unfolded among tens of thousands of starving civilians, confirms ICSPR’s and others’ warnings: this plan militarizes humanitarian aid, bypasses international law, and sidelines UNRWA. Aid centers are managed by Israeli and American security forces and private firms, coercing civilians into distant zones and reinforcing displacement. Armed guards opened fire, fled, and left the Israeli army to extract them—while some civilians seized limited supplies, later exposed as looted aid, sparking an international scandal.
ICSPR further documents Israel’s deliberate targeting of journalists to suppress evidence of war crimes. Journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and his family were killed in Jabalia, raising the number of murdered journalists to 222. Two ICRC workers—Ibrahim Eid and Ahmad Abu Hilal—were killed in Khan Yunis. Over 478 humanitarian workers have been killed, in addition to civil defense, municipal, and medical personnel.
ICSPR strongly condemns the intensifying settler attacks, expanding colonial settlements, and the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque on May 26, 2025 by 1,400 settlers led by extremist Minister Itamar Ben Gvir—accompanied by Talmudic prayers and Israeli flags—an aggressive attempt to assert sovereignty over the site in defiance of international law. In the West Bank, raids and demolitions in cities and refugee camps, particularly Nablus, Jenin, and Tulkarm, have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians, injured 10,000, detained 14,000, and forcibly displaced 60,000 since October 7.
Despite global condemnations and threats of sanctions, Israel continues the “Gideon’s Chariots” operation in Gaza with brutal force, killing dozens daily. ICSPR holds Israel and the U.S. fully responsible for this genocide and associated atrocities, all in violation of international law, UN resolutions, and ICJ rulings. These crimes—including indiscriminate bombing, starvation, aid denial, settler violence, torture, and forced displacement—constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The replacement of UN aid mechanisms with militarized aid centers further violates humanitarian principles.
ICSPR urgently calls on international organizations and Geneva Convention signatories to fulfill their moral and legal obligations to protect Palestinians, halt the genocide, open humanitarian corridors, ensure aid delivery, and prosecute those responsible for genocide.
ICSPR appeals to people of conscience, justice advocates, and solidarity movements worldwide to intensify public pressure on their governments to act now to stop the genocide, prevent Israeli colonial plans, and ensure massive aid access to save Gaza’s population from death before it is too late.
End of Statement
