The communication was submitted to 16 United Nations rapporteurs and 8 UN organizations and bodies, regarding grave violations of children’s rights in Gaza
Your Exelencies:
The Arab Council urgently calls on your Excellencies to raise the alarm about the grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians in the aftermath of 7 October, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the intent of Israeli officials to commit genocide in Gaza.
Introduction
Israel (the occupying power) continues its systematic campaign to demonize the Palestinian people. At the same time, the Israeli occupying forces continue the violent and brutal indiscriminate bombing of the entire Gaza Strip, the most populous in the world, mainly the refugee camps, hospitals, schools run by the United Nations, bakeries, mosques, churches, roads, and civilian homes. This barbaric bombardment caused the elimination of entire Palestinian families. While children and women are considered the most affected by the Israeli bombing, representing about 70% of the victims, the international community has continued to fail for 44 days to take action to stop the horrific crimes that cause the bloodshed of innocent civilians, destruction, and unimaginable human suffering in Gaza. Despite this tragic reality, some countries continue to supply Israel with various types of deadly weapons under the pretext of “Israel’s right to self-defense,” to be used to commit blatant human rights violations and contribute to the killing of Palestinians, mainly children, and women, and the destruction of the Gaza Strip, which constitutes a disgrace to humanity.
About 2.3 million people inside the Gaza Strip are struggling for their lives in light of the continuing brutal Israeli attacks on the civilian population and infrastructure, which have caused heavy casualties among civilians and widespread destruction of buildings, homes, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure, which has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis to reach unprecedented levels. There are more than a million children in the Gaza Strip who are stuck in a horrific situation as a result of widespread killing and destruction, continuous attacks, displacement, and a severe shortage of basic needs of food, water, and medicines. There is no longer any safe place for them in the Gaza Strip after about 1.6 million people were forced to leave their homes. Six hundred twenty-nine thousand of them are located in 150 UNRWA emergency shelters. Water, electricity, food, and medicine will run out in the Gaza Strip. The first United Nations supplies of water, food, and medicine have entered Gaza, But to save children’s lives much more is needed.[1]
Every child in the Gaza Strip has been exposed to highly traumatic events and trauma as a result of widespread destruction, continuing attacks, displacement, and severe shortages of basic needs such as food, water, and medicine. “The killing and maiming and mutilation of children, attacks on hospitals and schools, and the denial of humanitarian access constitute grave violations of children’s rights,” said Adel Khader, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “UNICEF is urgently calling on all parties to agree to a ceasefire.” fire, allow humanitarian access, and release all hostages. Even wars have laws. Civilians – especially children – must be protected, and every effort must be made to rescue them in all circumstances. [2]
The ongoing aggressive Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since October 8, 2023, has led to the infliction of heavy casualties among civilians and the destruction and obliteration of entire areas and neighborhoods in line with threats from political and military leaders in Israel. The Israeli army bombardment from the air, land, and sea and a large-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip resulted in the deaths of 11,078 people, including 4,707 children, 3,155 women, and 668 older adults.[3] The aggression also caused 27,490 people to be injured and 3,640 missing people, including 1,770 children, who are believed to be still under the rubble of buildings that were destroyed as a result of the brutal and violent Israeli bombing, while about 1,200 families were entirely or partially killed.[4]
Children, women, men, and the elderly in Gaza are being starved and bombed to death, driving them to despair and to lose their faith in humanity and any hope for the future. In the West Bank, the death toll is increasingly rising as a result of the violence carried out by the occupation forces and settlers, who target Palestinians with murder, and because of the violence and closure of checkpoints, where people cannot obtain food, jobs, health care, and other essential services.[5] Since November 7, the occupation forces have killed 52 children in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, bringing the number of children they have died in the West Bank since the beginning of this year to 92 children, according to what was documented by the Defense for Children organization. International.[6] Children and women constitute 68% of the total deaths in the Israeli War on Gaza.[7]
The indiscriminate Israeli bombing also led to the destruction of about ten thousand residential buildings, including 41,000 housing units, in addition to more than 222,000 housing units that were partially destroyed. Reports indicate that the percentage of buildings that were entirely or partially destroyed or damaged up to now constitutes about 45% of the total buildings in the Gaza Strip.[8]
All of these violations occur in light of Israeli officials’ repeated statements of revenge and destruction of the Gaza Strip and the killing and displacement of its residents, in serious violation of international humanitarian law, which stipulates restricting the right of parties to an armed conflict to choose methods and means of combat, and prohibits the use of weapons, missiles, materials, and means of combat that would cause Unjustified injuries or pain,[9] adherence to the principles of military necessity, proportionality and the distinction between civilians and military personnel, not targeting civilian objects, schools and hospitals, and preventing the forcible transfer of the civilian population.[10]
Israel remains an occupying power despite the claim that it withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, as it continues its effective control over the land, air, and sea space of the Gaza Strip, imposing a stifling siege on it since 2007, as an illegal collective punishment, and controlling the population registry and the departure of Palestinians. To the Gaza Strip and back to it, and to trade and bring goods into and out of Gaza.[11]
II. Forced displacement
The Israeli occupation revealed a plan to clean the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and forcibly displace them to Egypt or Jordan, knowing that 70% of them were refugees who were forcibly displaced from their homes during the Palestinian Nakba in 1948. The Israeli army spokesman said this to foreign media on Tuesday morning, 10/ 10/2023. The Palestinians, including more than a million children, must go to Egypt through the Rafah crossing.
On October 13, 2023, the Israeli occupation army ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in the northern Gaza Strip and head to the central and southern Gaza to Rafah, Khan Yunis, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, al-Maghazi, and Bureij. Palestinian and international human rights organizations considered this matter illegal because it aims to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and bring them closer to the border with Egypt. Since that time, Israel has not stopped the relentless bombing of the entire Gaza Strip by air, land and sea, including the southern regions, where Most of the Palestinians have taken refuge, which means that there is no safe place in Gaza, and indicates a clear intention of the occupation to wipe out the Strip and cleanse it of Palestinians by continuing the crimes of killing, destruction, and displacement, and placing the population in difficult living conditions that reach the threshold of partial or total destruction.[12]
It is estimated that more than 1.5 million people in Gaza are displaced. Among these are 813,000 displaced people seeking shelter in 154 UNRWA shelters. UNRWA shelters accommodate people far exceeding their planned capacity. Overcrowding leads to the spreading of diseases, including acute respiratory infections and diarrhea, raising environmental and health concerns and affecting the Agency’s ability to ensure timely and effective service delivery.[13]
According to UNICEF data, more than half of Gaza’s population is currently taking refuge in UNRWA facilities amid terrible conditions, as there are insufficient water and food supplies, causing hunger, malnutrition, dehydration, and the spread of waterborne diseases. According to preliminary estimates by UNRWA, approximately 4,600 pregnant women and 380 newborns live in these facilities and require medical care. To date, more than 22,500 cases of acute respiratory infection and 12,000 cases of diarrhea have occurred, which is particularly worrying given the high rates of malnutrition.[14]
Targeting hospitals and medical facilities
Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, the Israeli occupation forces have used brutal, excessive, and disproportionate force, targeting highly crowded residential areas, and committed dozens of massacres against civilians, the most violent of which was the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital (Al-Ma’amdani) on the evening of 10/17/2023, which led to the deaths of more than 500. Hundreds of displaced civilians who were taking shelter in the hospital were killed or injured, so there was no longer a safe place to go to.[15]
The Israeli bombing targeted hospitals, Medical centers, medical teams, ambulances, schools, and worship places. Reports indicated that 300 schools and educational facilities were damaged, 135 medical facilities were targeted, which led to 25 hospitals and 52 medical centers being out of service, and 55 ambulances were damaged. The occupation forces requested the evacuation of 13 hospitals located in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip. Three churches and 74 mosques were also bombed, and 11 bakeries that produced bread were destroyed.[16]
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that at least 521 people, including 16 medical workers, were killed in 137 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza as of November 12. These attacks, along with Israel’s decisions to cut off electricity and water and obstruct humanitarian access to Gaza, severely impede access to health care. As of November 10, the United Nations found that two-thirds of primary care facilities and half of hospitals in Gaza were non-functional while medical teams dealt with unprecedented numbers of seriously injured people. Hospitals ran out of essential medicines and equipment, and doctors told Human Rights Watch that they had to perform operations without anesthesia and use vinegar as a disinfectant[17]
Human Rights Watch said that the Israeli army’s repeated and unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport are further devastating the health care system in the Gaza Strip and should be investigated as war crimes. Despite the IDF’s claims on 5 November 2023 regarding Hamas’ “disdainful use of hospitals,” no evidence has been presented to justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law.[18]
The indiscriminate and violent Israeli bombing damages health facilities, limits their ability to perform their functions, causes the collapse of water and electricity supplies, and limits access to food and medicine, which prevents mothers, newborns, and children from accessing health services and care. There are also about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, and more than 180 births take place every day. Half of the women who give birth during this period are likely to experience health complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, and they will need additional medical care. These women do not have access to the emergency obstetric care services they need to give birth and care for their newborns safely. As a result of the destruction that occurred in most hospitals and health facilities, which led to them being out of service, some women are forced to give birth in shelters, in their homes, on the streets among the rubble, or in health care facilities suffering from severe pressure. At the same time, hygiene deteriorates, increasing the risk of infections and medical complications. Health facilities are also under attack – on 1 November, Al-Hilu Hospital, a vital hospital for maternity care, was bombed.[19]
UNICEF expressed its serious concerns about the increase in maternal deaths due to restricted access to appropriate care. At the same time, the psychological damage resulting from hostilities leads to severe consequences for reproductive health and an increase in abortions resulting from psychological stress, stillbirths, and childbirths before time. UNICEF noted that before the recent escalation of the conflict, malnutrition was widespread among pregnant women, impacting children’s survival and development and that as access to food and water worsened, women struggled to feed and care for their families, increasing the risks of malnutrition, disease, and mortality. The lives of newborns are also hanging by a thread. If hospitals run out of fuel, the lives of an estimated 130 premature babies who depend on intensive care and neonatal care services will be at risk, as incubators and other medical equipment will stop working.[20]
On 15 November, Israeli forces, including tanks, entered the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City and reportedly took control of several sections of it, searched them and interrogated people.[21] The impact of this military operation is still unclear due to the disruption of communications in the region. Of the 24 hospitals that can accommodate patients residing in the north, only one hospital, Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, is operating and receiving patients. 18 hospitals have stopped working and been evacuated since the outbreak of hostilities, including three hospitals – Al-Nasr Hospital, Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, and Al-Quds Hospital – during the past three days. Five other hospitals, including Al-Shifa Hospital, provide minimal services to previously hospitalized patients. These hospitals are inaccessible, electricity and supplies are cut off, and they are not receiving patients. [22]
Human Rights Watch investigated attacks on the Indonesian Hospital, Al-Ahli Hospital, International Eye Center, Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, and Al-Quds Hospital between October 7 and November. Human Rights Watch spoke with two displaced people seeking shelter in hospitals, 16 medical workers, and hospital officials in Gaza. It analysed and verified open-source data, including social media videos, satellite images, and World Health Organization databases. Israeli forces bombed the Indonesian hospital several times between October 7 and 28, killing at least two civilians. The International Eye Center was repeatedly attacked and was destroyed after a raid on October 10 or 11. The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital complex and its surroundings were bombed on October 30 and 31. Damage to the hospital and a lack of fuel for its generators forced its closure on November 1. Repeated Israeli raids damaged Al-Quds Hospital, wounding a man and a child in front of it. Israeli forces on several occasions bombed ambulances, in one incident on November 3, killing and wounding at least 12 people, including children, in front of Al-Shifa Hospital.[23]
The Israeli military claimed on October 27 that “Hamas is using hospitals as terrorist infrastructure” and released footage claiming that it runs its operations from Gaza Hospital, the largest in Gaza. Israel also claimed that Hamas was using the Indonesian hospital to hide an underground command and control center and that it had installed a rocket launch pad 75 meters from the hospital. However, the validity of these allegations is questionable, as Israel has not been able to prove them so far despite its storming of Al-Shifa Hospital and several other hospitals in Gaza, in addition to the fact that the investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch will not lead to confirmation of the Israeli allegations. When a reporter at a press conference asked to show videos of the damage to Hamad Hospital, which Qatar built, and to obtain additional information to verify the audio recordings and photos displayed, the Israeli spokesman said: “Our strikes are based on intelligence information.” Even if the Israeli allegations were accurate, Israel has not proven that the ensuing attacks on hospitals were proportionate.[24] Israel’s general evacuation order on October 13 for 22 hospitals in northern Gaza was not an adequate warning because it did not take into account the hospitals’ specific requirements, including the safety of patients and medical staff. The comprehensive nature of the order and the impossibility of safe compliance, given that there was no safe escape route or safe place to go in Gaza, also raised concerns that the purpose was not to protect civilians but rather to intimidate them into leaving. The Director-General of the World Health Organization said: “It is impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives.[25]
Targeting schools and educational facilities
The ongoing war on Gaza for more than forty days has prevented about 625,000 students from reaching schools as a result of the continued brutal Israeli bombing and large-scale incursion into the Gaza Strip, accompanied by the targeting of schools, which led to the departure of more than 50% of schools and educational facilities in Gaza was out of service due to its bombing.[26] The air attacks launched on the afternoon of 14 November included schools, with the raids reportedly targeting the Gifted School in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, killing 17 people.[27]
Al-Hurra TV correspondent in Gaza reported, citing witnesses, that “phosphorous bombs fell on the Abu Assi School of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the western Gaza Strip, on Thursday.” The correspondent said, “A bombardment from Israeli gunboats targeted the school housing displaced people, resulting in at least five deaths,” in addition to a house adjacent to the educational institution located inside the Beach Camp being “bombed by a reconnaissance missile.” In a video clip circulated according to Al Hurra’s correspondent after the strike, residents in the area appear trying to control smoke rising from one of the bombs, which one of the activists said was “phosphorous bombs.”[28]
Eyewitnesses told the Arab World News Agency (AWP) on Saturday that dozens of people were killed as a result of an Israeli bombing of a school housing displaced people in the Jabalia camp, north of Gaza. Palestinian media indicated that the Al-Fakhoura School of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was bombed, is “the largest shelter center in the Gaza Strip,” adding that more than 150 people were killed and wounded as a result of this bombing.[29] Several media outlets also reported from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas movement in Gaza that an Israeli artillery bombardment directly targeted a school that had been converted into a camp to shelter the displaced in the Al-Saftawi area in the northern Gaza Strip, causing the death of twenty people in addition to dozens of wounded.[30]
“Our worst fears have come true,” said Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territory. Schools and hospitals are targeted as places of safety and haven. He added that civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and schools must be protected at all times, that attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals where children seek refuge, are unjustified acts, and that this war is eroding humanity and spiraling out of control. Lee expressed Save the Children’s condemnation of these attacks in the strongest possible terms and called for respect for international humanitarian law, the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure from attacks, and a ceasefire to save the lives of children. Without this, the lives of hundreds of thousands of children will be at risk.[31]
Food security and denial of humanitarian access
Food shortages in north Gaza are a growing concern. Since November 7, no bakeries have been operating in the north due to fuel, water, and wheat flour exhaustion and the damage they sustained. Reports indicate that wheat flour is no longer available on the market. Member organizations in the food security sector have been unable to assist in the north due to a significant lack of access. There are indications of adopting harmful coping mechanisms due to food scarcity, including skipping or reducing meals and using unsafe and unhealthy methods of making fires. It is reported that people are resorting to unconventional ways of eating, such as eating raw onions with uncooked eggplant.[32]
The cutting of water, electricity, and the Internet from Gaza and preventing the entry of humanitarian convoys carrying food, medicine, and other supplies essential to the Gaza Strip for the survival of the population meets Israel’s intentional genocidal declarations of Palestinians, in whole or in part, as a national group through murder; Causing severe physical or mental harm; Deliberately imposing living conditions on them to destroy them physically, in whole or in part. It seems that Israel intends, through its siege of the Gaza Strip and bombing it brutally and indiscriminately, to inflict the most significant amount of human losses, destroying infrastructure and imposing living conditions on the Palestinian people to partially or destroy them physically.[33]
In light of the above, it can be inferred that the calls for retaliation repeated by Israeli officials since the beginning of the war on Gaza, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement to turn Gaza into rubble and the Defense Minister’s statement to cut off food, water, electricity, and other essential supplies necessary for human survival in the area It has already been subject to an unjust siege since 2007 and is constantly exposed to fierce military attacks targeting the civilian population, which may amount to the crime of genocide given the clear intention of the occupation to punish the residents of Gaza by depriving them of all necessities, inflicting severe physical or mental harm on them, or subjugating them and intentionally inflicting living conditions intended to destroy them in whole or in part.[34]
On 15 November, approximately 23,000 liters of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt. This is the first such shipment since October 7. The Israeli authorities restrict this fuel to UNRWA so that its trucks can use it to distribute aid. The entry of fuel for all other purposes remains prohibited, including hospital generators and water and sanitation facilities. The agency was forced to stop essential services because it needed approximately 160,000 liters of fuel daily to conduct basic humanitarian operations. At about midday on 15 November, the Al-Salam Mill in Deir al-Balah was reportedly bombed and destroyed. This station was the last operating station in Gaza. Its destruction means that locally produced wheat flour will not be available in Gaza in the foreseeable future. Also, on November 15, telecommunications companies in Gaza announced that all telecommunications and Internet services in the Gaza Strip would gradually stop after the fuel reserves needed to operate the generators ran out. Humanitarian agencies and first responders have warned that communications disruptions jeopardize delivering life-saving aid.[35]
While the people of Gaza continue to suffer the ravages of a devastating military operation, in addition to the intensification of the illegal blockade imposed on them for 16 years, under which they are deprived of the daily needs necessary for their survival, we call on states to fulfil their joint and individual responsibility to cooperate in providing humanitarian assistance in times of emergency. She can no longer stand idly by and watch this suffering.
Recommendation
The criminal acts committed by the Israeli army in the context of bombing, killing, and collective punishment targeting innocent Palestinian civilians and the continued demonization of the Palestinian people for actions attributed to Hamas involve severe violations of international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of the Civilian Population of 1949, and amount to a crime. Genocide as provided for in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, While the international community fails to stop the attack and ensure respect for international humanitarian law, which contributes to supporting and perpetuating the aggressive war on the Gaza Strip, and deprives the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination represented by ending the occupation, dismantling settler colonial rule, and achieving independence.
The Arab Council condemns in the strongest terms the ongoing Israeli aggression against Gaza, the massacres committed against civilians, especially children and women, and the systematic and widespread destruction of civilian objects, and recommends:
The Israeli occupation authority immediately ceases fire and allows free and safe access to humanitarian relief materials in the Gaza Strip to reduce the human suffering of the civilian population, especially women, children, and newborns.
The Israeli occupation authority immediately stopped targeting schools, hospitals, medical places, and infrastructure.
Humanitarian intervention by the international community to stop the Israeli war on Gaza, protect the Palestinian people, and provide suitable living conditions for the displaced, especially children, women, and newborns in the Gaza Strip, in a way that reduces the suffering and tragedies they suffer, which are likely to intensify with the arrival of winter.
The international community must exert all forms of pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to force it to fulfill its obligations under international law, including ensuring that vital supplies of water, gas, fuel, electricity, and basic supplies reach the Palestinians in Gaza, and to stop any attack on civilians and civilian facilities.
Urgent international intervention to stop the killing, starvation, and displacement of the people of Gaza to confront the humanitarian crisis they are experiencing and to ensure the continuous supply of medical supplies, relief, and fuel to the civilian population, including children, women, and newborns.
Obligating the Israeli occupation forces to immediately open safe corridors to allow the entry of humanitarian supplies necessary for the survival of the population, including fuel, medical and food stores, and to ensure that the population has access to water and electricity, and to neighboring countries to open the Rafah crossing and others in an unrestricted manner and without permission from the occupation authorities.
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will investigate Israeli crimes under the Rome Statute, in particular the indiscriminate targeting of civilian homes and the killing of entire families, and prosecute and hold accountable every individual who carried out those crimes, ordered them to be committed, or remained silent about them.
All Palestinian armed groups must fulfill their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians, immediately release all civilian hostages, and stop firing indiscriminate rockets into Israel.
Urgent international intervention and the allocation of humanitarian funding to ensure the survival of the civilian population in Gaza, especially children, women, and newborns, to provide the necessities for survival, especially water, food, medicine, and fuel.
The Israeli occupation authority must immediately stop attacks on hospitals, Medical centers, and ambulances due to the devastating effects they have on the lives of patients and those injured as a result of the bombing, especially children, women, and newborns.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, investigates unlawful Israeli attacks targeting civilians, civilian objects, infrastructure, and health facilities in Gaza, killing civilians, including children, women, and newborns.
The states party to the signed agreements resort to confronting Israel in the Court of Justice and demanding it implement its international obligations.
Obliging Israel to pay financial compensation for the destruction of buildings and facilities and the killing and displacement of civilians it caused.
