UN Must Force Israel to Halt Its Genocide on Northern Gaza

• CrossFireArabia
• October 20, 2024

The UN must declare northern Gaza a disaster zone requiring immediate intervention and compel Israel to halt the genocide being carried out by its army through systematic and widespread mass and individual killings, deliberate starvation, mass forced displacement, and the complete destruction of the remaining essentials for life. The international community’s silence and inaction render it complicit in this brutal genocide.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s field team has documented heinous crimes against civilians in Beit Lahia, the Jabalia Refugee Camp, and across the northern Gaza Strip as the Israeli occupation army escalates its attacks, bombing several homes and killing over 80 Palestinians in Beit Lahia overnight. The previous night, the Israeli military bombed homes belonging to the Al-Hawajri, Nassar, and Abu Al-Aish families in the Tel Al-Zaatar area of Jabalia Camp, killing 33 Palestinians and injuring over 70 others. 

An undetermined number of Palestinians are still missing, likely trapped beneath the rubble. Since the last attack on the northern Gaza Strip, 500 people have been confirmed dead, and thousands more have sustained injuries. Many remain unaccounted for, either in the streets or buried under the debris.

With no justification other than to kill the remaining residents and force any survivors to flee, Israeli occupation forces used multiple missiles to bomb the residential blocks, destroying them while hundreds of civilians were inside.

On Saturday, 19 October, at dawn, Israeli army forces surrounded the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. They fired two artillery shells at the hospital, cut off its electricity, and targeted anyone moving in the area. One of the hospital’s walls was also demolished by Israeli bulldozers.

Dr Munir al-Barash, Director-General of the Ministry of Health, reported that Israeli forces shelled the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital, where more than 40 patients and wounded persons were located, dozens of whom were in critical condition, along with the medical staff.

He stated that the Israeli army also targeted a group of displaced people at the hospital gate. At the same time, the hospital’s electricity was completely cut off, and patients and medical staff were in a state of extreme panic as a result of the army’s heavy and continuous shooting directed at and around the hospital.

According to information obtained by Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli occupation army is besieging four shelter centres near the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza.

On Saturday morning, Israeli warplanes bombed the yard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahia Project during funeral ceremonies for victims of the previous day’s attack, killing at least two people. Dr Bilal Abdel Aal, a doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital, was also killed, along with several members of his family, in an Israeli airstrike on their home in the Al-Ilmi neighbourhood in Jabalia Camp.

In recent days, the Israeli occupation army has targeted and destroyed the remaining water wells and bombed communications and internet exchanges, severing all connections in the area. The army is now systematically dismantling the already limited healthcare system by actively targeting medical crews and further worsening the crisis.

Israeli forces have blocked the entry of humanitarian aid since the beginning of the month, and since 5 October they have continued their invasion of northern Gaza, putting over 400,000 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Valley at risk of bombing or starvation.

With Israeli forces enforcing a fire ban on the movement of ambulances and civil defence teams in most parts of Jabalia and its camp, many victims and the injured remain in the streets or in their homes, unable to be transported to hospitals. Euro-Med Monitor’s field team has documented hundreds of Israeli airstrikes and bombing operations that have destroyed homes, shelters, and streets across northern Gaza for the last 15 consecutive days.

The international community must recognise the situation in northern Gaza and declare it a disaster zone that requires immediate action. Israel must be pressed to cease its attacks on civilians, allow the provision of life-saving emergency aid, and end its violent genocidal campaign.

The United Nations, alongside individual and collective states, must intervene immediately to save the hundreds of thousands of people living in northern Gaza, prevent Israel from committing genocide for the second consecutive year, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on it, hold it accountable for all its crimes, and take all necessary steps to protect Palestinian civilians.

EuroMed Human Rights Monitor