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Occupation forces turn Gaza schools into execution sites — Euro-Med
Jordan News
last updated:
Dec 16,2023
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GENEVA
— The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have transformed schools, which were providing
shelter for tens of thousands of displaced people, into military centers and
field execution sites as part of its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, which
commenced on October 7, as stated by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on
Wednesday.اضافة اعلان
Euro-Med
Monitor received testimonies about the IOF conducting unjustified field
executions and killing Palestinian civilians after detaining them for days
inside the same schools where they had sought refuge from the violence.
The
testimonies reveal horrifying human rights violations and atrocities against
civilians killed after their release. The timing of the murders suggests that
there was no reason to shoot them other than to satisfy the desires of Israeli
soldiers or express the comprehensive moral permissibility—in the eyes of
Israel’s military—when it comes to slaughtering and humiliating Palestinian
civilians.
Approximately
15 decomposed bodies of Palestinians were found in the Al-Falujah neighborhood,
west of the Jabalia camp. Based on its initial investigation, Euro-Med Monitor
confirmed that the individuals were subjected to field executions while being
questioned by members of the Israeli army at the Shadia Abu Ghazaleh government
school.
The
bodies were discovered following the IOF’s withdrawal from the surrounding area
of the school, after several days of abuses and violations against displaced
people evacuating there.
“We
were shocked to discover 15 bodies after the Israeli forces left the school,”
said Muhammad Jalal, 37, to the Euro-Med Monitor team. “It was obvious that
they were directly shot, and some of them had their bodies disintegrated due to
the heavy gunfire.”
Similarly,
displaced people at the Salah al-Din School in Gaza City affirmed that they
were subjected to heavy gunfire three days ago, after the Israeli army stormed the
school amid heavy and random gunfire, leading to the deaths of about 50 people.
One
of the displaced people, who requested anonymity, said that after Israeli
forces separated the women and children from the men, they forced them to take
off their clothes and subjected them to rough interrogations before forcing
them to leave the school at gunpoint.
As
the displaced people moved toward the Gaza Valley, he continued, the Israeli
forces opened machine gun fire at them, leaving five dead and several others
injured.
The
same incidents reported at the Salah al-Din school also occurred at the nearby
Al-Ma’umaniyah and Al-Mukadssa Family schools in the same area, according to
Euro-Med Monitor.
Field
observations and eyewitness accounts indicate that IOF stormed the Al-Mukadssa
Family School, arrested the males, mistreated them, set some of them free, and
severely tortured others.
Three
days later, members of the Israeli military released more detained Palestinians
before firing upon them without justification, killing two individuals: Abdel
Nasser Khader Haboub, an engineer, and Dr. Ahmed Hamdi Abu Absa, dean at the
University of Palestine.
Additionally,
according to Euro-Med Monitor, a direct Israeli artillery shelling of the
UNRWA-run Abu Hussein School in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza
Strip resulted in the deaths of 20 Palestinians and the wounding of numerous
others, some of whom were critically injured.
The
bodies were found in pieces inside the school, which had been sheltering
thousands of internally displaced people who had escaped Israeli artillery and
air strikes on their neighborhoods.
Euro-Med
Monitor said that it receives daily reports of horrific atrocities and killings
committed by Israeli forces, who regularly storm schools sheltering displaced
people, and called for an independent and impartial international investigation
into these egregious incidents.
The
Geneva-based organization called for allowing the entry of investigation
committees and specialized technical committees into the Gaza Strip to document
and determine the extent of the horrific Israeli crimes in shelter schools,
including field executions, torture, starvation, and the Israeli military’s use
of civilians as human shields.
Euro-Med
Monitor stated that Israel is determined to escalate its genocidal war against
Palestinian civilians to push for their forced displacement, violating
international law. This amounts to a war crime, stressed the rights group.
A
total of 24,142 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including 9,420
children and 4,910 women, while 48,901 more have been injured, according to
Euro-Med Monitor estimates.
Israel
has relentlessly violated the International Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
emphasized, by collectively targeting the people of the Gaza Strip for simply
being Palestinians. This targeting, the organization reiterated, is ongoing and
has included mass killing, physical and psychological torture, and undermining
the basic living conditions necessary for survival.
“The
Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace
or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to
prevent and to punish,” reads Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Article
2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts: killing
members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children
of the group to another group.