Geneva – In just a few hours of violent and intense air attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight, and amid a total blackout of communications and Internet services, Israel has committed its largest massacre since its establishment in 1948, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported today.
Euro-Med Monitor estimated that Israel's overnight attacks, the scale of which is unprecedented since the start of its war on the Gaza Strip on 7 October, left more than 1,500 people dead or wounded as well as hundreds of homes destroyed, many with their residents trapped inside.
The Euro-Med team received shocking testimonies from residents of Gaza City about the intense, bloody attacks, especially from the Al-Fawaydah Harat Al-Rayes area of Gaza where scores of people were reportedly killed by hours of ceaseless bombardment.
Similar testimonies were given by residents of the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, about a series of Israeli raids that destroyed entire residential blocks, burying dozens of inhabitants under the wreckage.
The collected accounts tell of hundreds of victims buried under the rubble, with corpses and dismembered body parts strewn throughout the streets by the morning hours.
Meanwhile, the work of ambulance and civil defence rescue teams was completely paralysed due to last night's interruption of communications and Internet services, which lasted for more than 15 hours.
The Israeli army has declared it struck more than 450 targets last night, and continues its incitement against hospitals, with areas around several in Gaza City and its northern areas, including Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the Indonesian Hospital, the Eye Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital and the only psychiatric hospital in the Strip, targeted in an unprecedented and violent manner, according to Euro-Med Monitor. The Israeli army has claimed that hospitals are being used for military purposes without presenting any concrete proof.
Since the start of the ongoing Israeli war, 16 out of 35 hospitals and 51 primary care facilities (more than 75%) across the Gaza Strip have been unable to operate due to the intense Israeli raids or fuel shortages.
Three days ago, it was announced that the main electricity generators in both the Al-Shifa Complex in Gaza City and the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip had stopped working due to fuel shortages. Both hospitals now operate using smaller secondary generators, which can only provide a few hours of electricity per day and only for the most important services.
Euro-Med Monitor also confirmed that there are no safe corridors for displaced families or relief supplies amidst intense Israeli air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip.
While moving to the southern Gaza Valley region, displaced Palestinians were harassed and mistreated by Israeli forces, according to the human rights organisation. Some of those who had been displaced testified that they had been stripped of all belongings, while others told of having been held as human shields and forced to cross on foot through raids, shelling, and explosions to get to the south of the Gaza Valley.
Estimates indicate that there are still more than 1.5 million displaced people in the Gaza Strip, about half of whom reside in one of 149 severely overcrowded UNRWA-run facilities under inhumane conditions.
With no safe haven in the Strip due to the frequent air raids, thousands of internally displaced people are sleeping in the courtyards of hospitals and UN-run buildings.
From these accounts and others, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has concluded that Israel is comprehensively targeting civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, mosques, schools and hospitals, sparing nothing in its brutal attacks on the Gaza Strip as part of a genocidal war while demonstrating a total disregard of the international calls for a ceasefire as it continues to act in violation of its legal obligations to protect civilians and secure their humanitarian needs.
