Israel is ‘erasing northern Gaza’, aid groups say
Gaza (Quds News Network)- Thirty-eight aid groups have warned that “northern Gaza is being wiped off the map” by the Israeli military amid an ongoing campaign to ethnically cleanse the area or otherwise starve and kill those who remain behind.
In a statement, the aid groups accused the Israeli forces of carrying out forced displacement under the guise of “evacuation” orders.
Organizations, including ActionAid, Action For Humanity, Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians (Map), Islamic Relief, Christian Aid and other British and international charities, warned against actions that exacerbate Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
The aid groups said Israel has largely ignored several legally binding orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt or prevent actions against Palestinians that may amount to genocide.
These actions include “killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
“There is no evidence that Israel has adhered to these orders, and the killing of Palestinians has only intensified,” the statement read, adding: “Civilians are being starved and bombed in their homes and their tents.”
On 6 October, Israel launched a major offensive on northern Gaza and ordered residents to flee south.
The Israeli military is now implementing the “Generals’ Plan,” which involves ethnically cleansing the northern Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population; and then besieging the region, including stopping the entry of humanitarian supplies, to starve out anyone left, including Palestinian fighters.
However an estimated 400,000 Palestinians remain in the northern Gaza Strip. Most of them are sheltering in areas that the army has ordered them to leave and head for the heavily overcrowded al-Mawasi humanitarian zone in the south.
Since the start of the operation, Israeli forces have killed at least 400 Palestinians in northern Gaza, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
The World Food Programme (WFP) announced last week that food security in northern Gaza is at risk, as no food aid has entered the area since 1 October.
Three hospitals, already overwhelmed by the conflict, are affected by the ongoing military operations in the north.
The London-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on Monday that Israel’s operation in northern Gaza may amount to the war crime of using starvation as a weapon of war.
As the International Criminal Court (ICC) considers issuing arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, the ICJP said that Israel’s actions could constitute a breach of Article 6 of the Rome Statute.
The ICJP explained that the section stipulates: “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’ constitutes genocide.
“Article 7(1)(b) on the crime against humanity of extermination prohibits ‘inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population’, including ‘the deprivation of access to food and medicine’.
“This is a total siege against Palestinian civilians. It is collective punishment on a coordinated scale that can only be described as systematic extermination and genocide of the Palestinian people,” the ICJP added.
