Children wait for rations of food from a charitable organization in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip (Reuters)
UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk said that the entire population of the Gaza Strip is at imminent risk of famine, noting that Israel's actions may constitute the use of starvation as a means of war, while the European Parliament called for the first time for a ceasefire in the Strip.
Turk confirmed - in his latest report submitted to the Human Rights Council in Geneva today, Thursday - that many incidents recorded during about 5 months of war may amount to war crimes committed by Israeli forces, as well as indications that these forces participated in random or unlawful targeting. Proportionately violates international humanitarian law.
The UN Commissioner indicated - in his speech before the Council - that Israel imposed a complete ban on all supplies of aid, food, fuel and electricity to Gaza, between 8 and 21 last October, and since then it has continued to obstruct humanitarian aid.
Turk stated that the siege imposed on Gaza amounts to collective punishment, and also amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war, and both of them - when committed intentionally - constitute war crimes, according to him.
Turk confirmed that much of what the Israeli forces did in Gaza amounted to war crimes (Reuters - Archive)
The UN Commissioner also stated that almost the entire population of Gaza was forcibly displaced, and thousands of people were detained, many of them incommunicado, in conditions that may amount to enforced disappearance.
There are about 9,000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, according to data provided by the Commissioner.
Turk warned of the consequences of Israel launching a military operation in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, and called for a final ceasefire and the release of Israeli detainees in the Strip.
In the same context, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said - after his visit to Gaza - that civilians are falling ill due to hunger and thirst resulting from the restrictions imposed and deliberately imposed by Israel on the entry of life-saving supplies.
Egeland explained that the threat of famine poses a growing threat in the Strip, and that millions of residents are trapped and facing a "nightmare of violence and hunger."
On the other hand, the European Parliament called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as part of its approval of the 2023 report on “The Situation of Human Rights and Democracy in the World,” by a majority of 265 votes to 253 votes against.
The phrase “call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza” was added to Article 62 of the report at the request of members of the left-wing group in the European Parliament.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on January 18 that made the “permanent ceasefire” conditional on the release of all detainees and the elimination of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Since the Al-Aqsa Flood operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that left tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Source: Al Jazeera + agencies