Bombing of Shelters, Markets, and Restaurants, and the Brutal Killing and Starvation of Civilians Reveal the Occupation’s Determination to Commit Genocide and Push the Population Toward Forced Migration
Date: 8 May 2025
Press Release
Bombing of Shelters, Markets, and Restaurants, and the Brutal Killing and Starvation of Civilians Reveal the Occupation’s Determination to Commit Genocide and Push the Population Toward Forced Migration
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) strongly condemns the horrific massacres and crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces through the bombing of three shelters for forcibly displaced persons. The occupation’s warplanes launched repeated strikes with two missiles on the Abu Hmisa Primary and Joint Schools run by UNRWA in Al-Bureij refugee camp, killing 34 civilians and injuring over 100 others, and once again displacing the shelter’s residents.
Additionally, the bombing of Al-Karama School, affiliated with UNRWA, in Al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City on 7 May 2025 resulted in a massacre that killed 19 civilians and injured dozens more.
In the same context, the Israeli airstrikes simultaneously targeted the overcrowded Thai restaurant and a popular market on Al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, resulting in a horrific massacre that left 33 civilians dead and 86 others injured, all transported to Al-Shifa Hospital. The hospital announced severe difficulty in handling the casualties due to a shortage of doctors and the depletion of most medical supplies, forcing medical teams to triage and prioritize treatment among the wounded.
Among those martyred were journalists Nour Al-Din Abdo, who was killed while covering the Al-Karama School massacre, and Yahya Subaih, who was near the Thai restaurant. This raises the number of journalists killed since the start of the genocide to 214, while the death toll from the genocide continues to rise, reaching 52,667 martyrs, 70% of whom are women and children. The number of wounded has reached 118,752, including 2,562 martyrs and about 7,000 wounded since the Israeli aggression resumed on 18 March 2025, affirming the Israeli forces’ intent to annihilate the civilian population, destroy what remains of shelters and civilian infrastructure—including restaurants, soup kitchens, water wells, and the healthcare and humanitarian service systems—and turn the Gaza Strip into an uninhabitable disaster zone, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe.
ICSPR further highlights that the Israeli occupation continues to close all border crossings and block humanitarian aid entry for the 68th consecutive day, leading to the shutdown of bakeries and soup kitchens, severe food shortages, and a critical lack of medicine, medical supplies, and fuel. This has intensified the catastrophic famine and caused the spread of malnutrition and disease among children, women, the sick, and the elderly. Most health services are on the brink of collapse due to the ban on fuel entry needed for operating hospital generators, wells, and water desalination plants, leaving Gaza’s population amid an escalating humanitarian catastrophe that threatens thousands of civilians and endangers the lives of the remaining population as long as the Israeli aggression, genocide, and the use of internationally prohibited weapons continue—including starvation, thirst, and disease. In addition, forced displacement orders and the restriction of the population to less than 30% of Gaza’s area, which lacks safety and humanitarian services, are being issued. This coincides with Israel’s declared intention to occupy Gaza and carry out demographic and geographic changes aimed at forcibly displacing the population under the pressure of hunger and bombardment to Rafah, which has been turned into a detention camp. Entry into Rafah is allowed only after inspection, where people can receive humanitarian aid from American private security companies, militarizing and politicizing aid and ultimately pushing the population toward forced migration outside Palestinian territory. This constitutes a crime and a flagrant violation of human rights principles and standards and represents a serious overreach into the work of international humanitarian organizations. We commend those organizations that have refused to be complicit in this crime, which also aims to obstruct and prevent the work of international relief and humanitarian agencies, especially UNRWA, which has been repeatedly targeted, including attacks on its staff and facilities. The most recent of these crimes occurred this morning, when Israeli forces stormed UNRWA schools in Jerusalem, evacuating students and staff under the pretext that racist and illegal Israeli Knesset legislation banning the agency’s work had come into effect. This means that over 800 students will be denied their right to education and constitutes a blatant violation of the UN Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and its agencies, as well as an insistence on terminating UNRWA’s role as part of efforts to eliminate the Palestinian right of return and the Palestinian cause as a whole.
On the occasion of the International Day Against Fascism, the International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) emphasizes the urgent need to end the international inaction and failure to confront Israeli and American fascist crimes, most notably the genocide and starvation of Gaza’s population and the ongoing colonial, racist Israeli aggression in the occupied Palestinian territories. ICSPR calls on the international community and the State Parties to the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide to take serious international action to end the genocide, ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, provide international protection for Palestinians, and hold Israeli officials accountable before international courts.
