CrossFireArabia
Why must the killings continue in Gaza?
More than 39,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 91,300 injured, according to local health authorities.
CrossFireArabia
Mohammed Abu Tayr is trying to put together what can be restored of his father’s grave in the family plot in the Bani Suhaila Cemetery east of Khan Yunis, who died years ago. He is one of the lucky ones because others tried to find the graves of their loved ones but failed according to the Palestine Information Center (PIC).
The Israeli occupation’s military vehicles wreaked havoc and destruction of the Bani Suhaila Cemetery during its last incursion of east of Khan Yunis that began on 22 July and lasted for eight days.
Abu Tayr said he was shocked at the bulldozing of the cemetery and the sight of graves being tampered with, trampled on and bodies exhumed by Israeli machinery. Its sheer desecration.
There is no sanctity for the dead. “What is the fault of the dead in their graves? What did they do to have their dignity and sanctity violated,” he asked.
After the Israeli army left, residents of the area flocked to the cemetery to try to restore and repair what has been completely bulldozed by the Israeli occupation forces.
Where is my mother’s grave?
On the opposite side of the cemetery, Ghaida Abu Tayem sits in tears. She tells the PIC reporter she cannot find her mother’s grave after the Israeli army bulldozed the cemetery. Here, there is no regard for human feelings and values.
The Bani Suhaila cemetery is not the only graveyard the Israeli occupation forces dug up and tombstones willfully destroyed. The Israeli army ravaged all cemeteries in the areas invaded by Israeli ground forces across the Gaza Strip.
And this is the case with the main cemetery in Khan Yunis, west of the city. There, the exhumation and devastation of the graves show the deep-seated hatred Zionists have to the Palestinians, whether dead or alive. Even in death, soldiers wish these graves to disappear and be wiped out.
The PIC reporter stresses that the features of the cemetery are completely changed with the bones of the dead scattered by the Zionist barbarians, with the cemetery being turned into a blasted battlefield.
In addition to destroying and bombing the main cemeteries in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers dug up and bulldozed the mass and temporary graves hastily made in the courtyards of hospitals, neighborhoods and streets. This makes it difficult to transfer the bodies to the cemeteries.
In a previous statement, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented the Israeli occupation army’s attacks on many cemeteries in the Gaza Strip by deliberately bulldozing them, digging up and vandalizing graves and stealing dozens of bodies in the midst of the ongoing genocide against Palestinian civilians since 7 October 2023.
Mrs. Nour Nasser, a resident of Gaza City who was displaced to areas in the southern part of the Strip, said her martyred brother, “Mohammed, who was in his 20s was buried in the Al-Batsh cemetery in Gaza in dismembered remains, but they were shocked to find out later, the cemetery was bulldozed and there was no longer any trace of her brother.
The Israeli army did not stop at killing my brother, but also deprived the family of even visiting his grave,” she added.
In another incident, the Israeli army raided a cemetery in Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City with its military vehicles, and exhumed more than a 1000 graves; that was a month ago. The residents of the neighborhood said that the Israeli soldiers stole more than 150 bodies of newly buried people there.
On 25 December 2023, Euro-Med reported it received several testimonies about the Israeli army bulldozing the Beit Hanoun cemetery north of the Gaza Strip and vandalizing its graves.
“Muhammad Abu Awad” from downtown Beit Hanoun said they were taken by surprise when the Israeli army stormed the town’s cemetery and destroying the graves with their military vehicles.
Abu Awad added they observed the Israeli army’s digging operations of specific graves inside the cemetery and stealing the bodies of recently buried people while the remains of the others were mixed together to make it difficult to identify any of them.
By destroying the cemeteries, Israel did not leave any sanctity that was not violated or sins not committed. Today it is trying to annihilate everything in the Gaza Strip, even the dead.
CrossFireArabia
Military expert Dr Nidal Abu Zeid said the resistance is provening it still has the ability to continue confronting the Israel occupation forces after 301 days. As evidence of that it launched a rockets barrage towards the Jewish settlements sorrounding Gaza from the southern region.
He added this is an area witnessing one of the largest military operations these days.
Abu Zeid added to Jo24 Israeli forces introduced a new brigade to fight in Gaza – so-called the Jerusalem Brigade affiliated to the Central Military Region – and not from the brigades of the Southern Military Region responsible for operations in Gaza.
Its confirms the extent of the attrition affecting the Israeli combat units from the Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza, the military expert said.
Abu Zeid pointed out the Israeli occupation army withdrew its Seventh Brigade in east of Khan Yunis recently due to the heavy losses they incurred amongst their ranks and has instead deployed the Jerusalem Brigade.
The continuing media statements about Hezbollah and Iran’s response to the assassination of martyrs Ismail Haniyeh and Fouad Shukr confirms that its coming military action on Israel will not be delayed, he said.
Waiting for the hit
This is especially in light of the repositioning of the Hezbollah units in southern Lebanon, withdrawal of Iranian militias from Deir Ezzor, Syria and the fact that most airlines stopped their flights to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
Abu Zeid explained the clip circulating about the explosion in the building where Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran is not true. He noted this clip is an old one, published on the occupation army’s website targeting a house in Attara, north Ramallah.
He added the coincidence of its publication now with the New York Times item comes within Israel’s attempt to show the explosion was caused by a device placed inside the building where Haniyeh was staying.
Abu Zeid this is being stressed to shatter the image of Iranian intelligence and show its been compromised. He added however, all indications show the area targeted was by an advanced missile launched from outside Iran, specifically from a base in Azerbaijan.
CrossFireArabia
Palestinian prisoners released by the Israeli army after being detained in Gaza described the severe physical and psychological torture they experienced in prisons.
A group of prisoners who were detained and tortured by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and later released were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza by Palestinian Red Crescent Society teams.
The Palestinians, who showed signs of torture on various parts of their bodies and were exhausted, told Anadolu about the torture they endured according to Anadolu.
Mahmoud Basim Mahmoud Ahmed, one of the released prisoners, said the Israeli army forced prisoners to lie face down, set dogs on them and administered electric shocks.
Hunger strikers forced to eat feces
“You had to keep your hands tied above your head from 4 a.m. to midnight. If you turned right or left, they would set the dogs on you,” Ahmed said.
“They brought two pieces of bread a day. After eating the bread, you had to lie on your stomach for 24 hours. If you went on a hunger strike, they forced you to eat feces,” he said.
Ahmed said that some prisoners whom Israeli soldiers suspected of having connections with resistance fighters were taken to the 12th floor of the building for torture and then brought back down to the ground floor while being tortured.
“What we experienced there in 40-60 days felt like 12 years,” he added.
Forced to bark like dogs to use toilet
Said Abu Watfa, who was detained at the Kerem Abu Salem border crossing, said Israeli soldiers detained a group of young Palestinians at the border crossing for four hours, tied to a wall.
Watfa said the soldiers stripped the detained young Palestinians, administered electric shocks to their sensitive areas, broke their teeth and did not provide them with any medicine.
Watfa, who was subjected to various forms of psychological and physical torture during his detention, said: “At night, when we needed to go to the toilet, they would say ‘bark.’ We had to bark to go to the toilet. They forced me to bark, and similarly, they forced me to curse my government, my relatives, my sister and my wife.”
Detained with hands, feet shackled for 35 Days
Muin Muhammad Abdussatir Muhammad, who was detained in the Jabalia refugee camp and held in an Israeli prison for about four months, said: “We went through very tough days. They set dogs on us at night and tortured us a lot. We have never seen such torture.”
Marwan Mesad Shaar, a 20-year-old who was detained by Israeli soldiers while distributing aid and spent 31 days as a prisoner, said they experienced various types of torture such as electric shocks, beatings and humiliation.
Asked about the conditions in the Israeli prison, Shaar responded: “We weren’t living.”
Khalid Abulkerim, who was detained during a raid in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in Gaza City and released after 35 days, said their hands and feet were always shackled during their imprisonment and that they experienced both physical and psychological torture as reported by the Turkish news agency.
CrossFireArabia
The Israeli authorities continue to enforce their ongoing arbitrary blockade of the Gaza Strip, refusing to allow humanitarian aid and necessities that are essential for survival—such as cleaning and personal hygiene supplies—into the Strip. This comes amid the spread of infectious diseases and on top of the precarious living conditions faced by the approximately 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave, constituting a perpetuation of Israel’s comprehensive crime of genocide, which began on 7 October 2023.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasizes that the consequences of Israel’s intentional worsening of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, by blocking people’s access to cleaning and personal hygiene products, medical equipment, and sterilization supplies, are dire. Nothing justifies subjecting the population to conditions that can cause widespread death, including by causing the spread of serious skin diseases and and infections, including hepatitis.
https://x.com/EuroMedHR/status/1818950544188227969
Israel continues to systematically and arbitrarily deny hygiene supplies and equipment to all Gaza Strip residents, exacerbating the catastrophic health crisis that Israel has caused there. This crisis has been made worse by the population’s forced, widespread, and repeatedly occurring displacement, as well as the lack of personal hygiene supplies and disinfectants in shelters and camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Israel continues to prevent and obstruct the entry of the most basic supplies into the Strip, creating conditions that are ripe for the spread of infectious diseases, water pollution, and the absence of sanitation services, as Israeli army forces have destroyed these facilities.
Since the beginning of the genocide nearly, Israel has arbitrarily closed crossings into the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of humanitarian supplies and the flow of food and water. These actions have resulted in a dangerous accumulation of crises that directly threaten the lives and health of the Gaza Strip’s residents, most notably due to their lack of access to food, clean water, medicines, medical supplies, sanitary tools, and cleaning supplies.
Aya Kamal Ashour Abed, a 20-year-old displaced mother of two at the Deir al-Balah Preparatory School for Girls in the central Gaza Strip, spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. “We are more than 30 people living in this classroom for about nine months,” she stated. “A few months ago, we numbered roughly 70, but after some of the displaced individuals relocated to tents outside the school, our numbers dropped somewhat.
“We only receive cleaning and personal hygiene supplies in small quantities every two or three months, despite the fact that our number is very high and we require them constantly,” Abed continued. “Sanitation supplies, like tissues, soap, and shampoo, are extremely expensive [or] even nonexistent in the markets.”
Added Abed: “A bar of soap, for instance, now costs 30 shekels (roughly nine USD) while a bottle of shampoo costs 90 shekels (roughly 25 USD). We do not have anything to eat, so how can we afford these amounts for basic hygiene?”
Abed, who was displaced from her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip following its bombing last October, said that her two sons had become afflicted with allergies and bacteria, for which she is unable to provide ointments because they are unavailable in UNRWA clinics. “I showed my son to the doctor, and he told me that his entire body is seriously infected with bacteria due to poor hygiene,” Abed told Euro-Med Monitor.
Obtaining sanitary pads—which are pricey and hard to find in local markets—is one of her biggest challenges. “Even though my children’s diapers are completely unusable, I have to cut them into tiny pieces and use them as sanitary pads,” Abed explained. “During my period, I also have to use a single pad for the entire day, which has led to numerous infections and rashes.”
Approximately 680,000 women and girls in the Gaza Strip are of reproductive age. These individuals lack access to menstrual pads and other essentials, and also face other challenges such as inadequate access to water, toilets, various hygiene products, and privacy. Additionally, they must use contaminated or unsterilised materials, which puts them at risk of developing infections that can lead to infertility and uterine cancer.
Since Israel has cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip, there is a growing risk to all residents caused by waste accumulation and sewage flooding of roads and markets due to the inability to drain it. Israel has destroyed most of the Strip’s vital infrastructure, including sewage networks, and forced over two million people—the majority of whom have been displaced more than once—into shelters and tents that lack the basic necessities of life, personal hygiene, and health care.
Forty-two-year-old Mohammed Saad Abu Haitham said that his family of eight, which resides in a tent in the Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, is severely impacted by the lack of cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and bar soap. Due to its scarcity, soap is unusually expensive and therefore difficult to purchase.
“We do not have the money to buy enough meals for our children, so we cannot buy cleaning materials and soap in light of their high prices and the lack of availability,” Abu Haitham told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “My spouse and kids’ hair has been infected with lice, and we all have skin diseases as a result of not washing and not using enough soap and shampoo.”
Food dyes are used instead of traditional dyes for making liquid soap and sterilisation products, which have not entered the Gaza Strip in months due to the Israeli closure of the crossings and the imposition of an arbitrary siege. These alternative and primitive cleaning products are made locally, are unsafe, and are generally insufficient in both quality and quantity when sold in the markets of the central and southern Gaza Strip.
Tens of thousands of cases of skin diseases, including eczema, have been reported to medical facilities as having cropped up in shelters and camps for displaced people living in tents. This is particularly concerning for women, as eczema often appears on the hands of people working to clean food utensils using antiquated and dangerous materials. Meanwhile, reports from the United Nations indicate that skin rashes and skin infections, especially among children, are sharply increasing in the Strip.
The Israeli authorities have placed an arbitrary and oppressive siege on the Palestinian people there, squeezing them into a tiny area with exceedingly limited resources; denying them access to food, clean water, and other necessities; and leaving them exposed to extreme heat.
The right to dignity is an internationally recognised human right that protects people from humiliation, among other forms of unethical treatment. It is meant to ensure fairness by providing the means for people to live in dignity, as well as other fundamental needs and rights, like the right to health and the right to water and sanitation. These rights are essential to maintaining human dignity and preserving the lives of the populace.
The only way to guarantee the rights of Gaza Strip residents is to put an end to Israel’s crime of genocide, lift the arbitrary siege on the Strip, and rescue what remains of the currently uninhabitable region. Delays will either cause the region to irreversibly deteriorate, or incur significant costs in terms of civilian lives and health.
The international community is required to guarantee the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including the entry of non-food essentials needed to respond to the dire circumstances faced by the Strip’s entire population. Euro-Med Monitor stresses that swift and effective action must be taken to safely deliver aid to civilians across the entire Strip, including the northern section, which is particularly isolated right now. Additionally, the international community must prioritise providing adequate supplies of personal and family hygiene products, as well as products for menstruating individuals, plus sexual and reproductive health care services to prevent and mitigate further harm to women and children in particular, and the entire Palestinian population in general. These actions are mandated by international human rights law and relevant international obligations.
Pressure needs to be put on Israel, as the occupying force, to maintain sanitation facilities and services in the Gaza Strip, as well as to guarantee the safety of the technicians charged with repairing and renovating water lines and their various sources. The main water pipelines that enter the Strip need to be restored, particularly those that enter it from the north.
In addition to ensuring the entry of enough fuel to operate the Gaza Strip’s water and sanitation infrastructure, including desalination plants, water wells, and mobile toilets, it is crucial to exert pressure on Israel to permit the entry of materials required for repair work and rehabilitation of civilian infrastructure. These services are essential to the civilian population’s survival in the Strip, and will protect them from the threat of further health disasters.
