The Israeli army’s massacre in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, has already claimed a horrifying number of lives. Along with the occupying state, those nations who provide the Israeli army with weapons or keep quiet about its crime of genocide must also be held accountable.
The Euro-Med Monitor field team documented the bombing by Israeli aircraft of a five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia this morning (Tuesday 29 October). Owned by the Nasr family, the building housed approximately 200 displaced civilians, and was totally destroyed over the heads of its residents.
According to one of the survivors of the massacre, the building was completely destroyed by Israeli aircraft at five in the morning. The 200 people living there had been displaced from the Jabalia refugee camp and other neighbourhoods in northern Gaza after their homes and shelters were targeted by Israeli forces, and all of them were civilians with no ties to any militant groups.
While the man who spoke with Euro-Med Monitor survived after being pushed into a neighbour’s home dozens of metres away by the force of the explosion, his wife and four children were killed. He also suffered injuries all over his body. Dozens of victims remain trapped beneath the debris, he said, but some of the other residents managed to move him to Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he has been waiting for hours to be moved to Al-Awda Hospital for surgery, without success.
According to preliminary reports, the occupation army used a 908-kilogram American MK-84 bomb to target the residential building, crushing it on top of the occupants. The approximately 200 people in the building had sought shelter there following Israel’s illegal evacuation orders and destruction and burning of shelters in the Beit Lahia project, Jabalia, and Jabalia’s camp, and he noted that many victims of today’s attack were crudely recovered by the local population due to the suspension of ambulance and civil defence services in northern Gaza because of repeated Israeli attacks. The bodies of about 93 victims were recovered by the area’s residents, and dozens more are still missing and stuck under the rubble.
Israeli aircraft also conducted a raid on the area around Beit Lahia’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, where the occupation forces arrested the majority of the medical staff during last Friday’s hospital storming, leaving only the director working with the assistance of a single doctor.
In addition to using German mines in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has regularly used the German “Matador” weapon to bomb and burn homes and kill Palestinians.
According to international law, particularly the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Israel has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, and the United States and Germany have been complicit in this crime by repeatedly sending Israel their weapons to massacre Palestinian civilians in large numbers and demolish their homes.
One of the most repulsive examples of racism and moral and political corruption on a worldwide scale is the disregard displaced by the international community and international justice systems over the course of the past year. The death toll has climbed from dozens to hundreds and then thousands without a single serious position being issued, and with many governments—particularly powerful Western allies of Israel—normalising the daily killings and massacres.
Since civilians do not endanger the lives of occupying forces, they are protected by international humanitarian law if they choose to stay in their homes or neighbourhoods during armed conflicts. According to Euro-Med Monitor’s investigations, the purpose of Israel’s killings and destruction is to eradicate the Palestinian people through massacre and forced relocation, not for any military purpose.
Euro-Med Monitor reiterates that, according to international humanitarian law, civilians who are unable or unwilling to leave a particular area are still entitled to the special protection that the law provides for them as civilians; their presence in any area does not absolve Israel of its obligation to provide and uphold this protection.
The international community and the United Nations must act right away to save hundreds of thousands of people living in the northern Gaza Strip; put an end to Israel’s second consecutive year of genocide across the entire Strip; impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel; hold it responsible and punish it for all of its crimes; and take all necessary steps to protect Palestinian civilians in the region.
EuroMed Human Rights Monitor
CrossFireArabia
