ICSPR The Ongoing Genocide in Gaza and the Targeting of the Freedom Flotilla Require Escalated Popular and International Actions to Stop the Genocide, Protect Flotilla Activists, and Enforce International Justice

23 September 2025

Press Release

ICSPR: The Ongoing Genocide in Gaza and the Targeting of the Freedom Flotilla Require Escalated Popular and International Actions to Stop the Genocide, Protect Flotilla Activists, and Enforce International Justice

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) is following with deep concern and strong condemnation the accelerating escalation of Israeli occupation crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip for the 719th consecutive day of the genocidal war. These crimes have resulted in the killing of 65,344 Palestinians and the injury of 166,795 others, including tens of thousands of children, women, and the elderly. Tens of thousands remain martyred, wounded, or missing, plunging the Strip into total famine and unprecedented health and humanitarian collapse under a suffocating blockade and the absence of any prospect of halting the aggression. Children are dying daily from malnutrition and thirst, while Israel continues to prevent the entry of food, medicine, and fuel and targets starving civilians waiting in line for aid. Since dawn today alone, Israeli massacres claimed the lives of 42 civilians, including 32 in Gaza City and 8 aid seekers in northern Rafah, reflecting a systematic insistence on using killing and starvation as a weapon of genocide.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have expanded ground incursions in Gaza City neighborhoods (Al-Sabra, Al-Daraj, Al-Nasr, Sheikh Radwan, Al-Shati Camp, and Tel Al-Hawa), using fire belts, drones, robots, and booby-trapped vehicles, committing multiple massacres. ICSPR documented a massacre this morning at Firas Market in eastern Gaza City, killing 22 civilians, including 9 children and 6 women, and injuring dozens more. Simultaneously, Israeli forces escalated their attacks on health and humanitarian facilities, forcing Al-Oyoun and Al-Rantisi hospitals out of service, halting Al-Quds Hospital after its oxygen station was destroyed by tank fire, and completely demolishing the Al-Shawa building, which housed the central laboratory, Medical Relief clinics, and Gaza Community Mental Health Program, alongside several NGO offices. Furthermore, home demolitions near the Jordanian field hospital in southwest Gaza obstructed access, while Israel continues to block fuel and medical supplies from entering Gaza’s hospitals, threatening the shutdown of most health services and endangering thousands of wounded, patients, and displaced persons.

ICSPR warns of the catastrophic humanitarian situation and famine caused by obstructing humanitarian aid, despite the UN’s declaration of Gaza as a famine zone. Only 15% of humanitarian needs are being allowed into Gaza. The closure of Zikim crossing for more than ten days has prevented food from reaching northern Gaza and Gaza City, deliberately using famine alongside weapons to kill civilians and force their displacement. This is compounded by a systematic “thirst crisis” affecting nearly two million Palestinians in northern and southern Gaza, where over 720 water wells and 112 filling stations have been destroyed, depriving people of drinking water and hygiene, leading to widespread dehydration and infectious diseases, especially among children, women, and the elderly. This amounts to the use of starvation and thirst as weapons of genocide.

In the West Bank and Jerusalem, Israeli forces escalated annexation and settlement policies, seizing 140 dunams of Anata lands and approving 7,600 new settlement units with a budget of 3 billion shekels, alongside home demolitions and mass arrests. Israel maintains more than 1,000 checkpoints, including 88 checkpoints and gates in Jerusalem alone, facilitating its Judaization policies, restricting movement, and allowing settler incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque to impose spatial and temporal division toward full control. Israel also closed the Karama crossing with Jordan as part of its colonial annexation and apartheid policies of ethnic cleansing.

ICSPR strongly condemns the crime of targeting the Global Freedom Flotilla, which came under 12 drone attacks targeting 9 civilian aid boats in international waters en route to Gaza. This reflects Israel’s determination to expand its crimes against the flotilla and endanger activists on board to prevent the flotilla from reaching Gaza, in a grave violation of international humanitarian law and the Law of the Sea. This necessitates urgent protection for the activists and accountability for the perpetrators.

ICSPR appreciates the international consensus against genocide and in support of Palestinian rights, reflected in the speeches of heads of state at the UN General Assembly. ICSPR calls for investing in this consensus to stop the genocide and Israeli crimes, while valuing the popular mobilizations, demonstrations, sit-ins, and strikes in dozens of cities worldwide that express peoples’ solidarity and rejection of genocide. ICSPR calls for expanding popular actions into a global civil disobedience movement, especially as the flotilla nears Gaza’s territorial waters, compelling governments to fulfill their legal and moral duties to stop the genocide, prevent forced displacement, lift the blockade, and end the occupation. ICSPR welcomes the Spanish government’s decision to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, considering it a moral and political step forward that should set an example for the rest of the world, particularly the European Union, which must move beyond partial sanctions or mere recognition of Palestine without concrete steps to stop the genocide and end the occupation. Anything less provides Israel with cover to commit another Nakba against Palestinians.

ICSPR reiterates its warning of the risks and consequences of Israel’s continued massacres, starvation, thirst, disease, engineered chaos, destruction of residential areas and infrastructure, and forced displacement. This proves beyond doubt that the occupation is determined to eradicate Palestinian existence in Gaza. ICSPR strongly condemns U.S. complicity in genocide and forced displacement schemes, affirming that the silence and inaction of the international community constitute complicity in the ongoing genocide. Peace and justice cannot be achieved without imposing sanctions on Israel, ending impunity, and prosecuting perpetrators before international justice.

Accordingly, ICSPR calls on the international community and the United Nations to activate the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism by convening an emergency General Assembly session to impose an immediate ceasefire, lift the blockade, and form an international humanitarian coalition to intervene by deploying an international protection force for Palestinian civilians and activists on board the flotilla, ensuring the opening of crossings for humanitarian aid and all vital needs of Gaza’s population, and facilitating the work of international organizations, foremost among them UNRWA.