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Ceasefire deal or no ceasefire deal, the slaughter in Gaza goes on.
This week, the Israeli military launched a new wave of airstrikes and artillery fire across Gaza. This has killed more than 400 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, the most reliable source for such numbers.
Since March 2, the Israeli government has also again been blocking all aid entering Gaza. This is in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
For nearly a year and a half now, the Israeli authorities have been committing war crimes, crimes against humanity – including forced displacement and extermination – and acts of genocide in Gaza.
Since the Hamas-led atrocities of October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have repeatedly carried out unlawfully indiscriminate airstrikes. In doing so, they’ve killed and maimed thousands of civilians, including wiping out entire families. They’ve reduced much of Gaza’s infrastructure, homes, schools, and hospitals to rubble.
Attacks on healthcare facilities deserve special mention. Human Rights Watch has reported on unlawful Israeli attacks on hospitals and ambulances. We’ve also documented the arbitrary detention and torture of healthcare workers.
A new report details how, while occupying hospitals in Gaza during the current hostilities, Israeli military forces caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of patients.
Witnesses at three hospitals described how Israeli forces denied electricity, water, food, and medicines to patients – leaving sick and wounded people to die. They shot civilians, mistreated healthcare workers, and deliberately destroyed medical equipment. Forced evacuations put patients at grave risk.
Such acts are not only brutal and cruel. They are also war crimes.
Israeli authorities have not announced any investigations into these actions by Israeli ground forces in control of these or other hospitals.
The list of atrocities by the Israeli military in Gaza simply keeps growing. Many around the world have been expressing their outrage.
However, we’ve yet to see the kind of political and diplomatic pressure and action needed to get Israeli authorities to stop committing atrocities.
What that international action might look like essentially comes down to three things.
First, other countries should suspend arms transfers to Israel.
Second, they should support the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued arrest warrants for top Israeli leaders. Members of the ICC, which includes all EU countries, should state clearly they are obligated to – and will – arrest anyone wanted by the ICC on their territory.
Third, other countries should impose targeted sanctions on officials responsible for war crimes and other atrocities across Israel and Palestine.
Until there’s this kind of international action, it’s hard to see when Israeli officials will stop their slaughter and brutality in Gaza.
