B’Tselem: The world must stop the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza
The magnitude of the crimes Israel is currently committing in the northern Gaza Strip in its campaign to empty it of however many residents are left is impossible to describe, not just because hundreds of thousands of people enduring starvation, disease without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire defies comprehension, but because Israel has cut them off from the world.
Ever since Israel’s current operation in the northern Gaza Strip began on 5 October, the area has been under a near complete siege, relentlessly pummeled by the military. Other than in the most exceptional cases, Israel does not allow humanitarian aid or emergency crews in, taking advantage of the fact that global attention has been diverted to irreversibly change reality on the ground.
According to reports from humanitarian agencies, about 50,000 people have already been forced out of their homes since the offensive began. The three hospitals that still operate in northern Gaza are on the brink of collapse and themselves vulnerable to attack. The same goes for public buildings used as IDP camps, where many people who had sought refuge were killed in Israeli bombardments. The few testimonies that have trickled out of northern Gaza describe dead bodies lining the streets, hunger, drinking water nowhere to be found, and civilians being killed as bombs are dropped on their homes without warning or as they flee for their lives.
For a year now, since the war began, the international community has shown utter impotence to stop the indiscriminate attack on civilians in the Gaza Strip. Now, when it is clearer than ever that Israel intends to forcibly displace northern Gaza’s residents by committing some of the gravest crimes under the laws of war, the world’s nations must take action. Without immediate, decisive action from the international community, without using every tool available – political, legal, economic – the mass killings in the northern Gaza Strip will continue and the suffering of its besieged civilians will grow. All international bodies and institutions must act now to compel Israel to stop the war and end the carnage.