GENEVA, (PIC)
After 200 days of brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the consequences of the war appear horrifying in terms of its magnitude and its direct and deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians, amid a shameful international failure to oblige Israel to comply with the rules of international humanitarian law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice to prevent the ongoing crime of genocide.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reviewed in a statistical statement on Tuesday, the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing crime of genocide in Gaza, noting that Israel has been continuing its attack at the same pace and horrific practices, ignoring the escalating demands for a ceasefire. Armed with the US and European protection and international positions that do not go beyond statements of condemnation at best.
Palestinian civilians are paying a heavy and unprecedented price due to the Israeli occupation forces systematically and deliberately targeting them as part of a collective punishment process, which appears to be to aiming to end the Palestinian presence through killing and displacement, using various types of ammunition, missiles and bombs, including US arms.
A terrifying toll
According to the Euro-Med statement, during the 200 days of the Israeli genocidal war, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) killed 42,510 Palestinians, including 38,621 civilians with 15,780 children and 10,091 women. Several thousand martyrs are still under the rubble, while there are thousands of missing people whose fate is yet unknown.
The Euro-Med Monitor highlighted that the daily killing rate reached 212 Palestinians, while IOF kills 79 children and 50 women on a daily basis, in the most terrifying numbers in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and in contemporary wars.
The Euro-Med pointed out that its crews documented thousands of specific crimes in which the IOF targeted Palestinian civilians without necessity or proportionality. They dealt with civilians as legitimate targets, carrying out extrajudicial executions, and indiscriminate bombing with the aim of intimidation. It was reported that among the martyrs were 140 journalists, 485 medical personnel, and 66 civil defense personnel.
The Israeli occupation’s aggression also led to the injury of 79,240 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were civilians, 70% of whom were children and women, including at least 11,000 serious cases that required travel to receive life-saving treatment, while more than 1,200 were subjected to amputations or permanent disabilities.
Mass graves
The Euro-Med stated that the phenomenon of mass graves has emerged for the first time in the history of the conflict, stressing that more than 140 mass, random or temporary graves were documented in various areas of the Gaza Strip. Many cases of burials were carried out by the IOF for people executed in the field.
It stated that the mass graves discovered in hospitals, especially in Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, raise suspicions that the Israeli occupation army carried out extrajudicial executions against arrested and detained people.
In this regard, the human rights organization referred to the discovery of bound people and others who appeared to be receiving treatment, which requires opening an international probe into these unprecedented crimes, noting that these cases differ from the temporary graves that were set up by families and medical teams to bury martyrs who were killed in besieged hospitals and their surroundings.
The statement also mentioned that Israeli forces exhumed dozens of graves, recovered hundreds of dead people, subjected them to DNA analysis, hid their bodies, and handed over others with no information provided, amid concerns that they would be mutilated.
Gaza is not viable
Euro-Med highlighted that the Gaza Strip has become virtually unlivable as a result of the massive destruction carried out by the IOF to homes and infrastructure, which affected more than 60% of the buildings in the Gaza Strip.
According to the statement, it is estimated that Israel dropped more than 70,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, in addition to bulldozing operations, including destruction operations that affected all buildings at a depth of up to one kilometer east and north of the Strip, with the aim of establishing a buffer zone.
Euro-Med stated that the preliminary, non-final toll indicates the complete destruction of at least 131,200 housing units in the Gaza Strip, and the partial destruction of 281,000 other units, while the IOF destroyed thousands of kilometers of streets in the Gaza Strip and turned them into rubble.
To achieve this, the IOF destroyed the majority of public buildings in the Gaza Strip, including hundreds of cultural monuments, service buildings, and water wells, 103 schools and educational institutions either completely or partially, almost all of Gaza’s universities, 241 mosques completely destroyed, 318 mosques partially destroyed, and 3 churches.
Forced displacement
In parallel, the IOF carried out the largest and most extensive forced displacement operation in modern history, forcing two million Palestinians, with military evacuation orders and under the weight of bombing and killing, to displace and live in shelter centers and tents, with more than half of them concentrated in the border city of Rafah, which has been subjected to bombing operations in recent days.
Euro-Med confirmed that the IOF has resorted, from the first day of the aggression, to using starvation as a weapon in its bloody war, by closing the crossings, preventing the entry of aid, and then obstructing its entry, and specifying the types allowed to enter, and eventually killing hundreds of hungry people while waiting for aid convoys.
This policy particularly targeted the residents of Gaza Governorate and its north, where there are still 300,000 Palestinians who have been suffering from real famine.
The state of mass displacement in limited geographical areas and the absence of health care caused a serious outbreak of diseases. 1,090,000 people have been infected with infectious diseases as a result of displacement with 8,000 cases of viral hepatitis infection. In addition, 350,000 sick people with chronic diseases and about 60,000 pregnant women have also become at risk due to the lack of access to health care.
Targeting shelter centres
According to a report issued on April 16 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), at least 408 displaced people were martyred and 1,406 others were injured in 349 Israeli attacks on shelter centers, more than 85% of these strikes involved the release of munitions, with at least 160 attacks resulting in direct casualties. In addition, 178 UNRWA employees were martyred in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
Systematically, the IOF intended to destroy the health system, knocking 32 out of 36 hospitals and 53 health centers out of service, including the two largest hospitals: Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City and Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, while targeting 159 health institutions.
Arrests and torture
Besides, the Euro-Med highlighted that Israeli forces arrested more than 5,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women, and subjected them to harsh forms of torture that reached the point of murder.
The Euro-Med received and published dozens of testimonies from released detainees about the exposure of prisoners, including children and women, to unprecedented types of violations, beatings, and various forms of severe torture.
Euro-Med warned that following 200 days, the IOF is still preparing to carry out another offensive in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, without taking into consideration the presence of about 1.2 million residents and displaced people who have taken refuge there since it was declared a safe zone by the Israeli occupation army. Storming the city, given the number of displaced people, warns of massive massacre, amid escalating serious concerns about the scenario of forced displacement outside the Strip, pushing its residents to an unknown fate.
