Palestinian Territory – Israeli forces have intensified direct and deliberate attacks on Palestinian civilians, increasingly targeting shelters and tents of displaced persons. This escalation reflects a clear policy to further the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip, amid the international community's legally and morally unjustifiable silence.
Israeli warplanes have launched a series of intense airstrikes on densely populated residential areas in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, killing over 23 civilians, including women and children, and injuring dozens. This attack is part of a systematic policy to destroy Gaza's social fabric and foundations of life by targeting civilians in homes and displacement camps. It forms part of a genocidal campaign aimed at erasing the Palestinian presence, depopulating the Strip, and subjecting those who remain to deadly conditions of hunger, terror, and constant targeting.
According to documentation from Euro-Med Monitor's field team, the airstrikes began at approximately 12:30 p.m., targeting a gathering of civilians at the Snafour intersection in the neighbourhood. Three civilians, including two brothers, were killed and several others injured.
The intense Israeli attacks are neither incidental nor isolated, but part of a recurring and systematic pattern of targeting displaced persons already deprived of basic protection and food
At approximately 1:40 p.m., Israeli aircraft resumed bombing, targeting a market stall on Yafa Street. The strike resulted in a horrific massacre, killing 11 civilians, including women and children, and injuring 15 others with varying degrees of severity. Later, at around 3:50 p.m., aircraft bombed the vicinity of Abdul Fattah Hamoud School in the same neighbourhood, targeting a group of civilians. The strike killed nine people, including five children, and injured several others.
In another egregious act fulfilling the criteria of genocide, Israeli aircraft targeted the tents of displaced Palestinians near the Holy Family School in the Rimal neighbourhood, northwest of Gaza City, using a heavy bomb that buried entire tents and their occupants under rubble and sand. Rescue crews recovered the bodies of 11 members of the Abu Amsha family, including nine women and children, while others remain missing.
In a testimony to Euro-Med Monitor, a survivor of the Rimal neighbourhood bombing said: "We thought the tents would be safer than our destroyed homes, but we found death here as well. The bombing was sudden, burying our neighbours' children under the sand. We don't know who is still alive."
The intense Israeli attacks are neither incidental nor isolated, but part of a recurring and systematic pattern of targeting displaced persons already deprived of basic protection and food. These attacks reflect a deliberate policy aimed at forcible displacement and depopulation.
Following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran on 24 June, the Israeli army significantly escalated its aerial and artillery bombardment of several areas in the north and south of the Gaza Strip. Most casualties were killed in their tents and shelters or while trying to obtain food or water, whether in markets or near aid distribution centres, which have effectively become tools of killing and humiliation.
Israel is expanding its killing campaign as part of a broader escalation, adopting a scorched-earth policy and systematically destroying the remaining neighbourhoods and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. This ongoing approach, sustained for over 20 months, is marked by mass killing, starvation, and the deliberate dismantling of the foundations of life, aiming to annihilate Palestinian society in Gaza and eliminate any prospect of reconstruction.
These crimes follow a consistent pattern of targeting civilians gathered near aid distribution centres established by the Israeli military in central and southern Gaza. Killings occur each time residents attempt to access basic necessities, in grave violation of international humanitarian law, particularly the principles of protecting civilians and ensuring unhindered access to humanitarian aid.
It is essential to provide special protection for shelters and establish safe humanitarian corridors to ensure the delivery of aid and the evacuation of the wounded. The international community must act immediately to halt Israeli attacks, implement effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians, and end the political and military impunity that enables Israel to continue its crimes without accountability.
UN and international relief organisations must take immediate, collective action through all available legal, diplomatic, humanitarian, and field channels to end Israeli crimes against the starving people in the Gaza Strip.
Israel must halt its inhumane aid distribution mechanism and urgently push for the restoration of humanitarian access and the lifting of the illegal blockade, as this is the only way to stop the accelerating humanitarian deterioration and ensure the entry of aid, given the imminent threat of famine.
The establishment of safe humanitarian corridors under UN supervision is vital to ensure the delivery of food, medicine, and fuel to all areas of the Strip, with independent international monitors deployed to verify compliance.
All states, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their legal responsibilities by taking urgent action to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip, through implementing effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians; ensuring Israel's compliance with international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice; preventing the implementation of the US-Israeli forced displacement plan; and holding Israel and its more powerful allies accountable for all crimes against the Palestinians in the Strip. The International Criminal Court must implement the arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence at the earliest opportunity, in accordance with the principle that there is no immunity for international crimes.
The international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel for such grave violations of international law. These sanctions should include arms embargoes; a ban on the export and import of parts, software, and dual-use goods; an end to all political, financial, and military support; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians and imposing travel bans on these officials; suspending the operations of Israeli military and security companies in international markets and freezing their assets; and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that provide Israel with economic benefits that enable its continued crimes against the Palestinian people.
