Israel’s escalation of its violent bombing and deadly attacks in the Gaza Strip since last Friday, following the collapse of the one-week temporary humanitarian truce, was strongly denounced by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in a statement issued on December 6.
Euro-Med Monitor said preliminary statistics show that the daily death toll prior to the humanitarian truce ranged between 300 and 350 deaths per day, but has now risen to more than 500 since Israel resumed its attacks for the sixth consecutive day.
This brings the total number of Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip since 7 October to 21,731, including 8,697 children and 4,410 women as well as those missing and trapped under the rubble who are now presumed dead. The number of injured people has also increased to 4,016, as per the statement.
According to Euro-Med Monitor, Israel has increased the shocking extent of its targeting of civilians since the humanitarian truce collapsed, intensifying its complete destruction of residential areas and targeting schools that house thousands of displaced individuals in an apparent effort to increase the number of civilian victims.
On a never-before-seen scale, Israel’s extensive bombing campaign has targeted both displaced civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, UN-run schools, mosques, churches, bakeries, water tanks, and even ambulances.
Though the United States announced that it had worked with Israel to develop a plan to lessen the harm that could befall civilians after the temporary humanitarian truce collapsed, Euro-Med Monitor said, this statement runs counter to Israel’s escalated killing of civilians.
Following US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to the area over the weekend, Washington declared that the Israeli government had agreed to modify operations launched in the southern Gaza Strip compared to those it launched in the northern Gaza Strip, and to designate areas where civilians would not be harmed by its army.
Yet the record-breaking daily death toll in Gaza contradicts the US State Department’s declaration that it “sees no evidence” that Israel deliberately kills civilians in Gaza and its claims of urging more efforts to protect Gaza Strip residents.
The Geneva-based rights organisation emphasised that Israel is committing genocide crimes in the Gaza Strip and is clearly violating the principles of international humanitarian law and the rules of war regarding the need to ensure the protection of civilians, whose targeting under any circumstances is unjustifiable.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called on the International Criminal Court to take immediate action to hold Israel accountable for its egregious violations, especially of Articles Two and Three of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Euro-Med Monitor stressed that the international community must force Israel to stop its brutal attack on the civilians of Gaza, the statement concluded.
