Mar 26, 2024
“The majority of the provisional measures outlined in the (ICJ) ruling were violated, and the crime of genocide was carried out on the same scale.”
A new report by the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has found that over the two months that followed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, Israel did not abide by the order and continued to commit genocide against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Titled ‘Two Months after the International Court of Justice’s Ruling on Gaza: Escalation in Genocide and Absence of Accountability’, the report “contains documentation of Israel’s ongoing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Strip,” a statement by Euro-Med Monitor said on Monday.
The report “examines Israel’s lack of response” to the Court’s ruling on January 26, which ordered Tel Aviv to take six provisional measures to prevent the crime of genocide against the civilians in Gaza.
“Based on efforts to monitor and document the crimes and violations that Israel has committed in the Gaza Strip, as well as on investigations into and assessments of its level of compliance during the two-month period following the ruling, Euro-Med Monitor believes that Israel has not complied with the ICJ ruling,” the statement said.
It said “The majority of the provisional measures outlined in the ruling were violated, and the crime of genocide was carried out on the same scale. Various forms and acts of genocide were committed with the intent of destroying the Palestinian people.”
The provisional measures which the Court ordered included for Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide Convention, preventing and punishing the direct and public incitement to genocide, and taking immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.
Flour Massacres
Euro-Med Monitor said two months after the ruling, Israel “proceeds to carry out its crime of genocide at the same scale, including killing civilians, targeting civilians through systematic and widespread military attacks, and using illegal, indiscriminate, and highly destructive weapons.”
The report cites the targeting “of civilian gatherings around humanitarian aid trucks with direct gunshots, quadcopters, and Israeli tank shells” as one of the most well-documented examples of the unlawful killings and executions carried out by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians over the past few weeks.
It said, “These incidents, which have become known as the ‘Flour Massacres’, resulted in the deaths of 563 citizens and the injury of 1,523 others.”
This figure includes civilians awaiting aid and workers in charge of planning, securing, and distributing aid, Euro-Med Monitor said.
Sexual Violence
The rights group also mentioned “the crimes” that it said Israel continued to commit “with the aim of inflicting severe physical and psychological harm” on Palestinians in Gaza, “particularly through deprivation of healthcare, torture, inhumane treatment, sexual violence, and the use of prohibited, indiscriminate, and highly destructive weapons.”
It also outlined “the ongoing crimes” committed by Israel aimed at deliberately causing “material destruction” to civilians, such as “forced displacement, starvation, rendering the area uninhabitable, and eradicating the Palestinian identity of the region.”
This is achieved “through the systematic destruction of sources of income, infrastructure, civilian objects, and private property, as well as deliberate military attacks on buildings designated for religious, educational, scientific, and historical purposes, hospitals, and places where patients and wounded gather.”
“Israel has in fact committed more violations in some instances than it did in the time leading up to the Court’s ruling, particularly in relation to the entry of humanitarian relief aid and the threats and persecution of Palestinians in the Rafah,” the rights body emphasized.
Tactic of Starvation
More than 1.2 million displaced from other parts of Gaza are sheltering in Rafah, amidst Israel’s planned ground invasion of the town, which has been criticized by various countries and world bodies, including the UN.
“The ICJ ruled on 16 February that any Israeli military action in Rafah under the current circumstances would worsen the already tragic situation and put the lives of Palestinian civilians in further jeopardy”, Euro-Med Monitor said.
“As for Israel’s commitment to providing humanitarian aid”, the report concluded that “Israel has used starvation not only as a tactic of war, but also as a means of carrying out the crime of genocide against the Palestinian People in the Strip, especially in the northern Gaza Strip, continuously and severely for six months now.”
It said that as part of “its starvation campaign,” Israel commits other serious crimes, “including imposing a strict siege on the entire Strip, i.e. cutting off fuel, electricity, and water; demolishing local food production sources by destroying crops and bulldozing agricultural land; and repeatedly obstructing and even halting the entry or distribution of humanitarian aid.”
At least 15 children have died from dehydration and malnutrition at the Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
World’s Responsibility
The rights body urged the international community “to uphold its legal and moral duties” to the civilians of Gaza, “to guarantee that the International Court of Justice ruling is carried out, and to end the genocide that the Court declared in January was likely taking place in the Gaza Strip.”
It called on all states “to fulfill their international obligations by halting all military, financial, and political support for Israel’s attack against the Gaza Strip, and in particular, all arms transfers to Israel.”
“Otherwise, these states will be held accountable for their complicity in Israel’s ongoing crimes, including genocide,” the statement added
Over 32,300 Killed
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 32,333 Palestinians have been killed, and 74,694 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’
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