A human rights group is calling on the UK to stop arming Israel as its campaign in the Gaza Strip continues.
London, United Kingdom – Mass extermination and mass expulsions are ‘identifiable strategies’ of Israeli military campaign in Gaza, human rights group warns, calling on UK to impose arms embargo .
Restless Beings, headquartered in the United Kingdom, denounced Israel’s “colonialist occupation policy” in a report on Monday that won the support of Afzal Khan, a member of the British Parliament from the opposition Labor Party.
“Rather than responding to the stated intention of extracting the hostages and dismantling Hamas, the most obvious conclusions of this report highlight the destruction of places of refuge and the accessibility of displaced people,” write the seven authors of the study, after reviewing the actions of the Israeli army. in Gaza from early October to early February.
“Across all 753 cases of attacks on civilian infrastructure recorded in the report, the loss of civilian lives and destruction of civil society are clearly evident,” the report said.
The Israeli assault began on October 7, the day Hamas attacked southern Israel.
During the Palestinian group’s attacks, 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 were captured. Since then, some hostages have been released, others have died and dozens more are still detained.
More than 35,000 Palestinians were killed, most of them women and children.
Much of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble and the majority of Palestinians have been displaced, many repeatedly.
Over the 146 days tracked in the report, Gaza hospitals were attacked “65 percent” of those days, according to the report.
“The attacks on hospitals have been systematic, moving from north to south to render all health facilities non-operational by mid-February 2024. Roads around hospitals were attacked first to prevent patients from seeking assistance medical or evacuation,” the statement said.
“A little less than half of Gaza’s hospitals and health facilities have been repeatedly attacked by (the) Israeli army, whether by air, sea or land. »
Israel has long had a blockade on Gaza and imposed a total siege on October 9.
At the time, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “I have ordered a complete siege of the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.”
In a widely condemned comment, he added: “We fight human animals and we act accordingly. »
An imminent “death sentence”
Gaza’s health ministry warned Monday that without an influx of fuel deliveries, the few hospitals still operating could collapse within hours.
Junaid Sultan, a volunteer vascular surgeon in the southern Rafah area, told Tel Aviv Tribune that hospitals would lack electricity and water without the deliveries.
“(If) this fuel does not arrive, it will be a death sentence not only for hundreds, but also for thousands of patients,” Sultan said.
Restless Beings found that a large part of Gaza’s population also faces the risk of “starvation, forced displacement to a third country and further attacks”, accusing international governments of failing to recognize “Israeli strategy” in Gaza .
It found that Israel’s military operation patterns indicate that it has violated the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which classify attacks on civilian infrastructure as “war crimes.”