The Israeli occupation persists in its violent military campaign against the Gaza Strip, which human rights experts describe as a full-fledged genocide targeting unarmed civilians, violating their lives, safety, and very right to exist.
As the attacks intensified since dawn on Thursday, the number of Palestinian fatalities has risen to 16, most of them from Gaza City, with several others sustaining varying degrees of injuries.
In Gaza City, 11 civilians, including an infant, were killed following heavy artillery and aerial bombardment on densely populated neighbourhoods and displacement tents near Al-Yarmouk Street, also injuring multiple others. In Shuja’iyya, east of the city, two more civilians were killed by artillery shelling, with others wounded.
In Rafah, southern Gaza, two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers while waiting to receive humanitarian aid.
Meanwhile, in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, a group of civilians seeking aid north of the camp were targeted, resulting in the death of one person and injuries to others. Another civilian was killed in Al-Bureij after random gunfire was directed at residential homes.
This repeated pattern of targeting civilians, whether they are seeking food or sheltering in supposedly safe areas, clearly indicates a systematic policy aimed at depriving the population of even their most basic human rights, foremost among them: the right to life, food, and safety.
Such acts, which deliberately target civilians and deny them access to essentials, constitute genocide under international law. They aim to destroy Palestinian society in whole or in part through organised killing, starvation, and forced displacement.
Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli war of annihilation has claimed over 64,656 lives and wounded more than 163,503, the majority of them women and children, alongside the displacement of hundreds of thousands. The total blockade has further intensified famine, which has now claimed the lives of 404 Palestinians, including 141 children, according to reliable field data.
What makes this catastrophe even more appalling is the international community’s deafening silence, which allows these massacres to continue unchecked. This double standard in applying international law threatens to dismantle what remains of the global legal order and erodes trust in human rights institutions.
