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The Israeli daily Maariv reported that Israel will appeal the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.
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CROSSFIREARABIA – Due to the recent arrest warrant, issued Thursday, by the International Criminal Court, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can no longer travel to 124 countries or he will be arrested on point of entry and put in jail for Israel’s genocide on Gaza that he refuses to stop.
Already many countries, including his allies (Germany, Canada, UK and Australia are mulling about the fact of what today about Netanyahu if they find him on their doorstep and/or flying over their airspace.
What utter humiliation for Israel and its prime minister who insists on continuing his genocide on Gaza and now Lebanon.
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The decision of the International Criminal Court Thursday, “puts many Western governments before their responsibilities, and obliges them to choose between shameful bias towards Israel and respecting international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which they signed,” said Mustafa Barghouti, Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative Movement.
Barghouti pointed out that the ICC decision “is a real test for those governments that promote themselves as democratic, defend human rights, and stand against the oppressor.”
“What is required now from the International Court of Justice is to expedite the issuance of its ruling confirming Israel’s commission of the crime of genocide,” Dr Barghouti pointed out.
This decision “constitutes an important step towards achieving justice and fairness for the Palestinian people, and opens the way for holding accountable those who commit crimes against humanity,” he stressed.
This decision “will open the door wide to imposing sanctions and boycotts on Israel by all countries,” Barghouti believes.
He called on “Arab countries that have relations with Israel to take a firm stance by severing them, imposing sanctions, holding the occupation accountable for its crimes, and canceling all agreements and forms of normalization with it.”
The International Criminal Court issued two arrest warrants Thursday, against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Minister of War Yoav Galant.
The court confirmed in a statement that Netanyahu and Galant were charged with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It indicated that there are logical reasons to believe that Netanyahu and Galant supervised attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
It explained that “the crimes attributed to Netanyahu and Galant include the use of hunger as a weapon.”
The International Criminal Court confirmed that “Israel’s acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction is not necessary,” as reported in Jordan24.
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Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented dozens of deliberate killings and new field executions carried out by Israeli occupation forces against numerous civilians in northern Gaza.
These actions are part of the ongoing escalation and the broader framework of genocide perpetrated against Palestinians for over 13 months.
For the past 43 days, the Israeli army has been conducting its third incursion and military offensive against northern Gaza and its residents, committing heinous atrocities. These include killing and terrorising civilians, forcibly evicting them from their homes, and displacing them outside northern Gaza province. This constitutes one of the largest cases of forced displacement in modern history.
Bombing homes to…
Among the numerous atrocities committed by Israeli forces—ranging from bombing homes with residents inside, to mass killings of displaced civilians in shelters, and the targeting of gatherings and vehicles—Euro-Med Monitor’s field team documented harrowing incidents of direct killings and extrajudicial executions of civilians by Israeli soldiers, carried out with no justification whatsoever.
Euro-Med Monitor’s field team documented the killing of Khaled Mustafa Ismail Al-Shafai (58) and his eldest son Ibrahim (21) by Israeli forces. They were shot inside their home in Beit Lahia in front of their family on Wednesday, 13 November 2024.
Tamam Abdel Maqadmeh (61), a resident of Beit Lahia, shared the harrowing details of the crime with the Euro-Med Monitor team.
Beside one of the victims, there was a bag of flour. It seems he had successfully retrieved it from his home, but the Israeli army shot him as he was returning to the shelter
“Conditions worsened in Al-Shemaa Street, Beit Lahia, due to heavy artillery and aerial bombardment. As a result, we moved from our home near Al-Shemaa Clinic to the Abbas Kilani area in the middle of Al-Shemaa Street. I went to my sister’s house, who is married to a member of the Omar family, as did my sister Haifa, her husband Khaled Al-Shafai, and their nine children. We gathered in the two-story house; my sister married to the Al-Shafai family, her husband, and children stayed on the ground floor, while I stayed with my family and my sister married to the Omar family on the first floor,” Maqadmeh recounted.
“On Wednesday, Israeli occupation forces began advancing into the area where we were sheltering. We stayed trapped in the house, and less than two hours later, the forces blew open the door and stormed the building. I stayed upstairs with my family, while my sister Haifa, her husband Khaled Mustafa Ismail Al-Shafai (58), and their children remained on the ground floor. We heard gunfire but were too afraid to look and stayed huddled together in a single room upstairs. Within minutes, the soldiers entered and ordered us to evacuate quickly towards the eastern area near Beit Lahia Stadium and Abu Tammam School.”
Maqadmeh continued: “When we descended to the ground floor, I found my brother-in-law Khaled lying dead with two gunshots to his abdomen, blood streaming from him. His eldest son, Ibrahim (21), had been shot in the head. I stood in shock for moments before a soldier threatened me to move or be shot. We were about 26 people in total. My sister Hiyafa was collapsed over her husband and son, begging to say goodbye to them, but the 12 soldiers present refused. We tried to pull her away as she kept saying, ‘They executed them in front of me. We rushed out of the house as a quadcopter drone hovered above us, with approximately 15 soldiers stationed around the house. My sister kept repeating, ‘They executed them in front of me.’ On our way out, my sister recounted that as soon as the soldiers blew open the door and stormed in, they immediately shot her husband and son while they stood at the side of the room. They killed them without them moving a muscle.”
The wife of the victim said: “They ordered us to leave quickly. I tried to pull my husband and son, but they refused to let anyone near them, threatening us with guns to leave. This happened in front of the small children—four boys and four girls—who witnessed their father and brother executed before their eyes.”
The Euro-Med Monitor team noted that Haifa and her children continue to suffer from severe psychological trauma, with Haifa refusing to speak to anyone.
At the time of documenting this testimony, the bodies of the man and his son remain at the site of their execution, as the family and rescue teams have been unable to retrieve them.
Thousands of other Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza suffer from hunger and fear.
Those injured are often unable to receive treatment or even be transported to medical facilities, leading many to die slowly due to the lack of life-saving medical care.
Euro-Med Monitor documented dozens of victims who perished under the rubble after their homes were bombed, as Israeli forces have prevented humanitarian teams from working for 25 consecutive days.
A.J. (54 years old) – whose name Euro-Med Monitor has withheld for his safety as he remains in a high-risk area – provided testimony about the siege, starvation tactics, and field executions carried out by the Israeli military in Beit Lahia: “For the past 10 days, Beit Lahia has been under an extensive Israeli campaign, forcing people from their homes into specific gathering points designated by the military. The Israeli army raids homes, detains some residents, and orders others to move to the eastern part of the town near Abu Tammam School. Currently, the residents of Beit Lahia are concentrated in three adjacent shelters near the Beit Lahia Municipal Stadium: Abu Tammam School, Beit Lahia Preparatory School, and Beit Lahia Secondary School,” he said.
“I sleep in the entrance of Abu Tammam School because of overcrowding in the shelter. My wife, who was seriously injured earlier, suffers from a severe deterioration in her condition. She is bedridden but is forced to lie on the floor due to the lack of a bed, despite her dire need for one as she is paralyzed. Any resident attempting to return to their home to sleep is targeted; their house is bombed, and artillery shells are fired to force them out. Currently, there is no food available for the approximately 5,000 people sheltering in the three locations. To secure food, displaced people risk venturing out to their homes to retrieve any remaining supplies. Dozens who attempted to do so have not returned, as they were executed in the streets.”
Euro-Med Monitor also highlighted the testimony of a Palestinian from the Hamouda family who managed to reach his home near the western roundabout and retrieve a bag of flour. On his way back, he recounted: “While returning, I saw dogs mauling the corpses of five young men lying on the roadside—people I knew from the Zayed and Rajab families”
He added: “Beside one of the victims, there was a bag of flour. It seems he had successfully retrieved it from his home, but the Israeli army shot him as he was returning to the shelter. The food situation in the three shelters is extremely dire. Any food we manage to secure from nearby homes is distributed primarily to children, followed by the elderly in smaller portions. Young adults receive, at best, a single loaf of bread per day.”
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reaffirms that the international community’s reluctance to take decisive action against Israel’s massacres in the Gaza Strip, particularly in northern Gaza, makes it complicit in these crimes and grants Israel a green light to escalate its genocide. This also reflects a shocking disregard for the lives and dignity of Palestinians.
The international system, including the International Criminal Court, the European Union, and various United Nations bodies, has collectively failed to achieve the fundamental goals and principles upon which they were founded.
Over the past 13 months, they have demonstrated a disgraceful failure to protect civilians and halt the genocide Israel is perpetrating against Palestinians in Gaza, a duty that lies at the core of their mission and existence.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor calls on the United Nations and the international community to immediately intervene to save hundreds of thousands of residents in northern Gaza, stop Israel’s ongoing genocide for the second consecutive year, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, hold it accountable for all its crimes, and take all practical measures to protect Palestinian civilians in the strip.
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Israel’s deliberate cut-off of electricity to the Gaza Strip for almost a full year now has had catastrophic effects and long-lasting humanitarian repercussions, affecting every aspect of residents’ lives. The subjection of over two million individuals to deplorable living conditions by Israel, including cutting off their electricity, is a tool of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
Total black-out
Cutting off electricity to a 2.3 million-person population spread over 365 square kilometres for almost a full year is a highly unprecedented measure in the history of conflicts and wars, as it is not only the product of military operations but also a political decision. Israeli officials have clearly stated that their goal is to annihilate the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced, on 7 October 2023, “a complete siege … no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” Subsequently, on the same day, Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Yisrael Katz decided to cut off the Gaza Strip’s electricity supply, and the Minister of Defense decided to prevent the entry of any trucks carrying fuel.
Following these decisions, the 120 megawatt feeder lines from Israel to the Gaza Strip were disrupted on 8 October 2023, and this disruption has continued to the present day. As part of its genocidal war against Palestinians, Israel has also prohibited the entry of fuel into the Strip, shutting down the sole power plant in the enclave. The power plant produced a maximum of 80 megawatts until its fuel stock ran out on 10 October 2023, leaving the Strip completely dark.
Targeting solar panels
Israel did not stop at these two measures to cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip; instead, it launched a concerted campaign over the course of several months to seize alternative energy sources that some residents and service facilities relied on. These attacks targeted solar energy systems and panels installed on building roofs as well as public and private facilities, such as bakeries, hospitals, restaurants, and shopping centres. This suggests that Israel has a deliberate strategy to destroy any source of electricity, even a small amount of it, in order to guarantee total blackout conditions for residents of the Gaza Strip.
Recently, the Israeli occupation army bombed a number of residences, as well as Internet and electricity charging stations, that depend on small solar panels. Dozens of homes were also bombed, apparently for this specific purpose, without any security or military necessity.
Onset crises
Prior to the ongoing genocide, the Gaza Strip had been subjected to an arbitrary and illegal 17-year-long blockade that caused an acute electricity crisis. The shortfall in electricity supply amounted to roughly 60%, and conditions worsened every summer and winter. A daily total of 450 to 500 megawatts is required by the Strip, and this amount increases to 600 megawatts during the winter. Still, the supply was limited to 200 megawatts at most, compelling the local electricity authorities to implement an electricity programme which, under ideal conditions, consisted of eight hours of power followed by eight hours of blackout.
Because of the unpredictable and intentional power outages, the Gaza Strip has experienced multiple debilitating crises, with hospitals and health facilities being forced to close multiple times due to damage to solar energy systems and electricity generators. The situation has been made worse by the lack of fuel and ongoing failure of the surviving generators, attributable to their constant use. Consequently, a number of hospital patients—including infants in incubators, injured individuals, and ventilator-dependent patients—have died, and continue to die, as a result of the power outage disrupting vital medical services. The outage has also caused the disturbance of medical laboratories, impeding the performance of essential tests, and causing supplies and medications to be stored improperly.
Power outage, a weapon of war
The power outage assists in Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war, as well. Following the decision to shut off the water supplies to the Gaza Strip during the first days of the Israeli military assault, the power outage also resulted in the cessation or obstruction of desalination plant operations, particularly in northern Gaza, and triggered the now-entrenched practice of using starvation as a means of systematically displacing residents from the northern parts of the Strip.
The lack of fuel and the power outage also made it more difficult for municipal crews to deliver water that they are able to extract from wells. Hundreds of thousands of residents and displaced people have been forced to drink contaminated water during the ongoing genocide, and the per capita share of water in the enclave has dropped by 97% amid the extensive destruction of the Strip’s water infrastructure.
No fuel, no water
In contrast to a daily consumption rate of approximately 84.6 litres per person in 2022, the per capita share of water in the Gaza Strip has dropped to between three and 15 litres per day, according to a joint report released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Palestinian Water Authority. The report states that approximately 65 sewage pumps and six wastewater treatment plants have shut down as a result of the power outage, resulting in numerous environmental issues and aiding in the spread of epidemics and contamination of the groundwater reservoir. Skin, respiratory, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases have spread as a result. Additionally, the shutdowns have disrupted sanitary landfills and solid waste collection; the rate of waste collection was estimated to be 98% prior to the genocide, and is currently less than 20%.
Due to Israel’s arbitrary blockade and decision to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid and essential materials like fuel into the Gaza Strip, even partial solutions—e.g. the entry of limited quantities of fuel provided by the United Nations to operate generators in some hospitals, water stations, and water wells—remain insufficient and subject to frequent interruptions. This has increased the psychological burden on Palestinians in the Strip and put hundreds of thousands of residents and patients in constant danger.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on 24 November 2023 that 75,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt, following an Israeli decision on 18 November to allow the daily entry of small amounts of fuel for essential humanitarian operations. Notably, the Strip requires about 200,000 litres of fuel on a daily basis.
Eliminating jobs
The power outage has also impacted all other aspects of life, including affecting the few remaining manufacturing jobs; irrigation operations for agricultural lands; damaging dozens of tons of aid that need to be refrigerated; disrupting ongoing attempts at distance learning; and eliminating thousands of remote job opportunities. The outage has resulted in catastrophic damage and the deaths of many residents, with long-term consequences that will last for years to come. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises that this situation has resulted in serious psychological scarring to the population, with 10s of thousands of young children growing up without ever seeing electricity.
Studying in the dark
Muhammad Ishaq Al-Ghazi, a researcher pursuing a master’s degree at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. “The power outage has had a significant impact on our lives,” stated Al-Ghazi. “My academic career was affected as a result. I struggled with studying in the dark and had to walk three kilometres to see a friend who had a broken solar panel so I could pass exams.”
“We have returned to primitive life because of the power outage,” Kholoud Najib Al-Habashi, from the northern Gaza Strip, told the Euro-Med Monitor team. Al-Habashi spoke of her time spent baking over a wood fire: “There is no oven, so we are forced to knead by hand and bake on a tray directly over the fire rather than in an electric or gas pot. There is no refrigerator, no washing machine, and no nighttime lighting. Everything is primitive and exhausting.”
Thirteen-year-old Salem Hamid stated, “Since the start of the war, there has been no electricity. Except for Israeli lighting bombs and missile glow, the night descends into total darkness and terror. For hours, I have to gather cardboard and wood, so my mother can bake and cook for us over the fire.”
Returning to primitive life
Many of the hundreds of thousands of Gaza Strip residents who are compelled to light wood fires in place of using cooking gas and electricity to cook and carry out daily tasks have already started to experience respiratory and vision issues that will likely have long-term or permanent effects on their health.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on 5 March 2024 against two Russian officers suspected of being responsible for airstrikes carried out by Russian forces under their command. These attacks targeted Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure, including several power plants and substations. The Court found that while some of these attacks were directed against civilian targets, others targeted military-grade facilities and inflicted collateral damage on civilians and their property that was obviously disproportionate to the anticipated military advantage.
Accordingly, the Court classified these acts as war crimes under the Rome Statute. The Court further concluded that the airstrikes constituted a “recurring pattern of acts” against civilians in accordance with state policy and that they caused the Ukrainian people great suffering, in accordance with the definition of “inhumane acts”. As a result, the Court also determined that these actions qualified as crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute.
The international community must move to protect Palestinians, just as it has Ukrainians. It must act quickly to end Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip; supply it with electricity and maintain these networks of electricity; rebuild other critical infrastructure that the Israeli bombing has destroyed; and guarantee that electricity is delivered to all facilities, starting with water and sanitation services and hospitals. This urgently requires the provision of generators and fuel.
The international community must uphold its obligations under international law to stop Israel from committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, a crime that has been ongoing since 7 October 2023. It must use genuine pressure tactics to compel Israel to immediately cease all of its crimes, including genocide, and to abide by international law and the ruling of the International Court of Justice in order to safeguard Palestinian civilians in the Strip from further atrocities.
The International Criminal Court must act quickly to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant; broaden the scope of its investigation into individual criminal responsibility for crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, to include everyone involved; issue warrants for their arrest; hold them accountable; and categorically declare Israel’s ongoing crimes to be genocide.
As part of their international moral and legal obligations, all nations must put an end to all forms of military and financial support of, and political cooperation with, Israel. This includes an immediate stop to all arms sales, exports, and transfers to Israel, including export licenses and military aid.
All nations that cooperate with Israel in committing crimes by providing it with any kind of direct support or assistance (most notably, the United States), must be held accountable. Giving aid and engaging in contractual agreements with Israel relating to the military, intelligence, politics, law, finance, and the media, among other domains that might help its crimes continue, is enabling Israel to commit its atrocities against Palestinians. The relevant employees and decision-makers in these countries must be held accountable, as they are complicit and partners in the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, including the crime of genocide.
The international community must move quickly to address the root cause of the 76-year-long suffering and persecution of the Palestinian people, which is the Israeli occupation and settler colonisation of Palestine. It must put an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the Gaza Strip; abolish the apartheid system that has been imposed on all Palestinians for decades; lift the illegal, 17-year blockade on the Gaza Strip and its inhabitants; and take decisive action to support the path of Palestinian liberation and Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
This article is reprinted from the EuroMed Human Rights Monitor website
