GENEVA —
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor urged in a statement on Sunday that an
international investigation must be opened into horrific crimes committed by
the
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) during its land excursions into the Gaza Strip,
including field executions, torture, and rape threats, citing testimonies from
newly-released civilians.
اضافة اعلان
Euro-Med Monitor said that the IOF is reenacting the same crimes committed by Zionist
gangs during the
1948 Nakba, which resulted in the collective displacement of
Palestinians. These crimes include premeditated murder, setting fire to
Palestinian homes and properties, torture, and insulting and humiliating
detained civilians.
The human
rights organization highlighted the Israeli forces’ brutal storming of civilian
homes in crowded residential neighborhoods during the ongoing genocide. Members
of Israel’s military terrorized and beat residents, plus arrested hundreds of
them, including women, children, and sick people.
According to
testimonies gathered by
Euro-Med Monitor from several detainees who were newly
released, the Israeli forces took the detainees from their homes, stripped them
naked, and attacked them with machine guns, electric cables, and cold water.
16-year-old
Muhammad Mahmoud Aslim told the Euro-Med team that the occupation forces
stormed his family’s home in the
Al-Shuja’iya neighborhood, east of Gaza City
after they were trapped for an entire week without food and water. He stated
that over the past few days, Israeli forces killed everyone in his neighborhood
who tried to leave their home, including Aslim’s brother.
Occupation forces
later stormed his family’s house, said Aslim, and destroyed its contents with
heavy gunfire. His family members were gathered naked and handcuffed before
being violently assaulted and beaten. Aslim still does not know what happened
to his mother and sisters, who were captured and kidnapped by the IOF.
The Euro-Med
Monitor team has gathered statements and testimonies about occupation forces
raiding refugee centers in
Gaza City and its northern areas, which housed
thousands of displaced Palestinians. These raids have involved the execution of
young men who were shot with live ammunition at point-blank range.
Displaced
people at the Cairo School, which houses hundreds of displaced people west of
Gaza City, told Euro-Med Monitor’s team that several civilian cars carrying
Israeli special forces stormed the schoolyard on Friday, killing and wounding
several unarmed young men.
According to
the testimonies, the Israeli special forces ordered all of the men in the
school to quickly gather and line up opposite them. Four of the men were
executed, and the others were arrested after a brief interrogation.
Muhammad Abu
Mustafa said that three individuals—two from the Abdul Ghafour and Abu Zaid
families and one from his own family—were shot and killed by Israeli snipers
after they went to assist a neighbor in the Al-Shuja’iya neighborhood. The
victims were left bleeding to death.
Similar
violations were reported on Saturday by other internally displaced people at
the
UNRWA-run Khalifa Bin Zayed School, in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit
Lahia. They reported that the occupation forces arrested dozens of men and
minors in the school. The detainees were stripped of their clothes, bound, and
taken to another location, where they were interrogated and tortured. Some of
them were released, while the rest were kept in custody.
One of the
released men, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said that they
were ordered to take off their clothes after being handcuffed and blindfolded.
They were then put in trucks and taken to the seashore, where they were kept
shackled for about 19 hours. According to the young man, they were subjected to
insults, severe beatings, threats of being shot in the head, and had numbers
written on their hands. They were also deprived of drinking water for many
hours.
Upon their
release, they were transferred naked to Salah al-Din Street, south of Gaza
City, where the soldiers ordered them to walk on foot toward the central areas
of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli
random arrests also targeted a young disabled man who suffers from hemiplegia.
The young man had been displaced from the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City
to a relative’s apartment in the city center before he and his brother were
arrested; their fate remains unknown.
Ms. M.Z., a
resident of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood who was displaced to Shuhada Al-Aqsa
Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the southern part of the Strip, said that an
Israeli soldier pointed his gun at her head and threatened to kill her even
though she had told him she was five months pregnant. The soldier ordered her
to take off her clothes and threatened to rape her.
As it
continues to document testimonies from victims of the occupation army crimes
and random arrests, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor renewed its call for an
urgent international investigation into Israel’s violations and crimes against
civilians and called on the United Nations to assume its responsibilities and
provide a safe passage for the displaced to use to evacuate.
Israel is
required by international humanitarian law to take all reasonable steps to
prevent harm to civilians and to guarantee their safe shelter. The Geneva-based
rights organization emphasized, however, that civilians who choose to stay in
areas designated for evacuation do not forfeit their protection, and cannot be
singled out or targeted for any reason.
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