UN Security Council Must Act to Stop Israeli Atrocities in Gaza

Palestinian Territory – The Security Council, UN General Assembly, and all international justice institutions must act swiftly and decisively to compel Israel to cease its frequent, systematic military assaults against shelter centres housing internally displaced people. In defiance of international law, Israel has turned shelters, including UN facilities into acceptable targets and have served as the backdrop for multiple, willful mass killings in front of the world.

Israel’s frequent attacks and bombings of UN facilities, which have left hundreds of civilians dead or injured, are a blatant manifestation of the international community’s refusal to put an end to the crime of genocide, ongoing for nearly 10 consecutive months. This crime is a result of Israel’s decades-long international impunity, and is evidence of its unrelenting collective punishment of the Palestinian people.  

Horrific attacks

The most recent of these horrific attacks took place at 2:50 p.m. on Sunday 14 July, when Israeli warplanes attacked the UNRWA-run Abu Oreibat school, which is home to thousands of people who were forcibly displaced to the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. Fifteen people were killed, including at least one woman, and numerous others had their bodies blown to pieces. Eighty people were also injured, mostly women and children.

Euro-Med Monitor’s team has documented hundreds of similar cases in which Israeli aircraft bombed shelter centres housing thousands of forcibly displaced people, killing hundreds inside them, in flagrant violation of international laws, especially those regulating the principles of war.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA has documented 456 attacks on its buildings, some of which were targeted more than once. According to UNRWA, 188 of its facilities have been were affected during these attacks. At least 524 displaced people who took refuge in UNRWA shelter centres have been killed, and at least 1,621 others injured, since last October.

In addition, there have been hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries in other shelter centres as well as camps for internally displaced persons inside the Israeli-proclaimed “humanitarian safe zone” to which residents have been forcibly displaced in recent months.

In Israel’s horrific massacre in the area of Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis on 13 July, Israeli aircraft dropped eight devastating United States bombs on a crowd of tens of thousands of forcibly displaced people. At least 90 individuals were killed, and 300 others were wounded, many of them women and children who lost limbs and/or were paralysed in the attack. Medical teams faced difficulties in treating these victims, as the Gaza Strip’s health system has collapsed due to the systematic Israeli attacks targeting it since 7 October.

Israel’s attempt to use the justification of “targeting military or factional leaders” to legitimise crimes that result in the deaths of hundreds of civilians is unacceptable. Whether or not its accusations are verified, Israel is still required to follow the rules of international humanitarian law in all situations, including those involving military objectives. This means adhering to the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity (taking all reasonable precautions to protect civilians), such as selecting the mode of operation and weaponry that will result in the least amount of civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects. Euro-Med Monitor notes that, regardless of how closely one party follows the rules of international humanitarian law, the other party is still legally required to abide by and honour the provisions of the law.

Israel systematically and repeatedly violates the principles of distinction, proportionality, and necessity, using bombs and ammunition with enormous destructive power that are imported from other countries, the majority of which are American-made. This makes the US—and any other country that supplies Israel with weapons—partners in the killing, which is occurring at a rate never before seen in the history of modern warfare.

In this regard, the UN Security Council should call an emergency session to discuss the consequences of these systematic crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, including those who have been displaced and who sought, or are currently seeking, refuge in camps and shelter centres. It should also support efforts to hold those responsible for these crimes accountable, particularly since they are being committed in violation of international law and the UN Charter, i.e. against civilians who are protected and civilian objects that are protected.

The Security Council and the UN General Assembly must act seriously and swiftly to stop the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip by adopting effective international resolutions with executive mechanisms and imposing sanctions and deterrent measures against Israel to ensure that it stops its crimes and grave violations in the Strip. Israel and its allies must be pressured to respect international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice.

Based on the aforementioned, all nations are required to fulfil their international obligations by enacting strong sanctions against Israel and severing all other types of political, financial, and military support and cooperation. This includes immediately halting arms transfers to Israel, including export permits and military aid; otherwise, these nations will be held accountable for the crimes that have been committed in the Gaza Strip, including genocide.

Additionally, the International Criminal Court ought to keep looking into any and all crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip; broaden its investigation into criminal responsibility, in order to hold all perpetrators accountable; issue arrest warrants for those responsible; and acknowledge and address Israel’s crimes in the Strip, as they are international crimes that fall under the purview of the International Criminal Court and are clearly crimes of genocide.

This article is a reprint from a piece in the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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UN Slams Israel’s ‘Unprecedented Displacement’ on The West Bank

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday condemned the intensifying Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank, warning that nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced already amid an “alarming wave” of violence and destruction.

Since the start of the offensive on 21 January, Israeli forces have killed at least 44 Palestinians, including five children and two women, in Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas governorates, and four refugee camps in those areas, according to OHCHR.

Many of those killed were unarmed and posed no imminent threat, said the UN rights office, calling the killings “part of an expanding pattern of Israel’s unlawful use of force in the West Bank where there are no active hostilities.”

‘Unprecedented’ displacement

OHCHR also highlighted an unprecedented scale of mass displacement not seen in decades in the occupied West Bank.

It cited reports from displaced residents of a pattern where they were led out of their homes by Israeli security forces and drones under the threat of violence.

They are then forced out of their towns with snipers positioned on rooftops around them and houses in their neighbourhoods used as posts by Israeli security forces,” the office said.

Testimonies collected by OHCHR describe Israeli forces threatening residents who were told they would never be allowed to return. One woman, who fled barefoot carrying her two young children, said she was denied permission to retrieve heart medication for her baby.

In Jenin refugee camp, bulldozed roads were photographed with new street signs reportedly now written in Hebrew.

“In this regard, we reiterate that any forcible transfer in or deportation of people from occupied territory is strictly prohibited and amounts to a crime under international law,” OHCHR stated.

Legal obligations

The office stressed that displaced Palestinians must be allowed to return to their homes and called for immediate, transparent investigations into the killings.

“Military commanders and other superiors may be held responsible for the crimes committed by their subordinates if they fail to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or punish unlawful killings,” it stated.

OHCHR also reiterated Israel’s obligations under international law, including ending its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible and evacuating all West Bank settlements immediately.

“In the meantime, as the occupying power, Israel must ensure the protection of Palestinians, the provision of basic services and needs, and the respect of Palestinians’ full range of human rights,” the office said.

WFP aid trucks cross into Gaza via the Zikim and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

© WFP

WFP aid trucks cross into Gaza via the Zikim and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

Humanitarian update

Meanwhile in Gaza, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Friday it had reached more than 860,000 men, women and children with food parcels, hot meals, bread and cash assistance since the start of the fragile ceasefire.

UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at a regular news briefing in New York that over 19,000 metric tonnes of WFP food have entered Gaza.

The agency has also distributed nutrition packs to some 85,000 people, including children under five, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and provided more than 90,000 people with cash assistance in the past two weeks.

Efforts are also underway to establish more food distribution points, especially in North Gaza, to reduce travel distances, transport costs and protection risks for families,” Mr. Dujarric said.

Fuel deliveries, schools reopening

In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) distributed 100,000 litres of fuel to hospitals in Gaza City on Friday, having delivered about 5,000 litres of fuel to Al Awda Hospital, in North Gaza governorate the day before.

In southern Gaza, education partners in Rafah are preparing for the reopening of at least a dozen schools as displaced families return to their home areas, Mr. Dujarric said.

“As you know, schools across the Strip had been used as shelters for Palestinians displaced during 15 months of hostilities. In Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, partners are providing cleaning materials to restart learning activities,” he added.

UN News

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After 22 Years in Israeli Jail he Walks Free; A Story of Neglect, Torture

Muhammad Barrash spent 22 years in an Israeli prison, enduring blindness, pain, and medical neglect. On Saturday, he finally walked free.

Barrash’s story is one of unimaginable suffering. In 2002, an Israeli “Energa” shell struck him in the heart of Ramallah in the West Bank. The explosion took his left leg, damaged his right, and left him partially blind. In June 2003, Israeli forces captured him. He was sentenced to three life terms and an additional 40 years.

Prison only deepened his suffering. Within a year of his detention, Barrash lost his eyesight completely. His right eye, already injured, deteriorated due to untreated medical conditions. But he kept this secret from his mother.

“Don’t tell my mother I am blind,” he wrote in a letter from prison in 2012. “She sees me, but I cannot see her. I smile and pretend when she holds up pictures of my brothers and friends. She doesn’t know that darkness has taken over my body.”

For years, Israeli prison authorities denied him medical care. He waited endlessly for a corneal transplant. The procedure never came. His body bore the scars of war—shrapnel embedded in his flesh, his right leg deteriorating. In 2021, he discovered that Israeli prison authorities had been giving him expired cholesterol medication, worsening his condition.

Meanwhile, his mother waited. She fought to visit him. She dreamed of his freedom. And on Saturday, her prayers were answered. Barrash stepped out of prison, no longer behind bars but forever marked by the years of neglect and torment.

His release is part of the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal between the resistance and the occupation state. For many, his story symbolizes the brutal conditions faced by Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

Despite the blindness, the wounds, and the suffering, Barrash survived. He is free. But the scars remain.

Unprecedented Torture

The harrowing experiences of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention centers have long been a subject of international concern. Recent reports highlight a disturbing escalation in the severity of torture and mistreatment.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), detainees released as part of the recent prisoner exchange exhibited signs of “unprecedented” torture and starvation. Freed prisoners were observed wearing stained grey prison jumpsuits, bearing physical evidence of prolonged abuse. Testimonies revealed that many endured severe beatings leading to broken ribs, systematic medical neglect, and deliberate starvation. Some suffered from untreated skin conditions like scabies, exacerbated by the harsh prison environment.

Further reports from the Arab Workers Union indicate that Palestinian workers arrested following the October 2023 Israeli genocide in Gaza faced brutal treatment. Legal advisor Wehbe Badarneh disclosed that 34 workers died under mysterious circumstances or from alleged heart attacks while in detention. Testimonies from survivors detailed horrific abuse, including beatings, stripping, and various torture methods. These accounts suggest that some workers were tortured to death, prompting calls for international legal action against Israel.

Amnesty International has also documented a sharp increase in the use of administrative detention by Israeli authorities, leading to arbitrary arrests of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank. The organization reported that detainees suffered from inhuman and degrading treatment, with incidents of torture and deaths in custody going uninvestigated. This pattern of abuse underscores a systemic issue within the Israeli detention system according to the Quds News Network.

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