Fourteen Palestinians have been killed and others injured since dawn on Saturday, as the intensive Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip continues into its twentieth month, forming part of an ongoing genocidal war.
In the latest developments, a medical source reported that four members of the Deeb family ; a father, mother, and their two children, were killed in an overnight airstrike targeting the tent sheltering them in Ard al-Shanti, Gaza City.
In a related incident, three Palestinians were shot dead by occupation forces while attempting to reach the American aid distribution point near Al-‘Alam Roundabout, west of Rafah City in the southern Gaza Strip.
Almost daily since Tuesday, Palestinian civilians, weakened by hunger, have been killed by Israeli gunfire while attempting to collect American aid from distribution points overseen by the newly established “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” which is supported by the Israeli government and Washington.
Sources added that two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis. Bani Suheila and the neighbouring town of Al-Qarara are witnessing widespread destruction and the systematic demolition of buildings and infrastructure, according to eyewitnesses.
Elsewhere, emergency and civil defence crews recovered the bodies of two Palestinians who were killed in an earlier Israeli strike on Al-Qarara. The exact time of the attack was not specified.
It was also reported that one Palestinian was killed and others injured in a drone strike carried out by Israeli forces in the Safi neighbourhood, in the As-Sikka area of central Khan Younis.
Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli occupation with full American backing has been committing a genocidal war in Gaza, resulting in more than 178,000 Palestinians killed or injured, the majority of them women and children. In addition, over 11,000 remain missing, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
What is happening in Gaza, including the systematic bombardment of civilian areas, the direct or indirect targeting of civilians as they attempt to flee or seek food, the imposition of unliveable conditions, and the forced displacement of entire populations, constitutes the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This includes “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The shooting of civilians while collecting aid, the killing of displaced persons in their tents, and the use of starvation as a weapon all represent grave breaches of the four Geneva Conventions, particularly the provisions concerning the protection of civilians under occupation.
The Israeli use of lethal force around aid points, and the creation of deadly zones surrounding them, amounts to a blatant use of humanitarian aid as a tool for controlling the population and stripping them of their human dignity.
These violations continue amid an almost complete absence of international accountability, reinforcing impunity and providing de facto cover for the ongoing crimes of genocide, forced displacement, and systematic starvation of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
