‘APPROXIMATELY 110,000 Palestinians are reported killed, missing or injured, leaving many suffering long-term disabilities four months into Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip,’ Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said yesterday.
According to Euro-Med’s report, the figure includes a total of 35,096 fatalities – 32,220 of whom are civilians – including 12,345 children, 7,656 women, 309 health personnel, 41 civil defence personnel, and 121 journalists.
The death toll provided by the rights organisation also includes those who have been trapped beneath the debris of buildings hit by Israeli air and artillery strikes for more than 14 consecutive days and are, therefore, presumed dead.
Euro-Med said the number of those wounded throughout the Israeli war of aggression now stands at 67,240, including hundreds who have suffered critical injuries.
Its report added that the Israeli atrocities continue unabated despite an interim ruling issued by the International Court of Justice last week, obliging the regime to take all possible measures to prevent genocide against Gaza’s population.
‘Within a week of the International Court of Justice’s ruling, the Israeli army killed over 1,048 Palestinians – most of them civilians – and injured over 1,800 others, and carried out 108 massacres.’
The rights organisation stated that the continuation of the regime’s crimes is ‘against international humanitarian law, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and amounts to war crimes according to the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court’.
It also urged the international community to act swiftly ‘to impose a binding executive decision on the International Court of Justice’s ruling, establish an immediate ceasefire and guarantee the safety of civilians and their return to their homes.’
Throughout its unrelenting aggression, the Israeli military has uprooted about two million Palestinians – approximately 90 per cent of the total population of Gaza – from their homes and residential areas amid a lack of safe shelters.
Euro-Med added that the regime’s displacement spree has led to complete destruction of 79,200 housing units and partial damage to 207,000 units.
‘Israel has targeted more than 245 square kilometres – 67 per cent of the entire Gaza Strip.
‘This includes all of Gaza City and the Strip’s northern regions, where residents have been ordered to evacuate since late October. The majority of them have not yet been able to return; neither have residents of large areas in the central and southern sections of the Strip that Israel had designated as safe areas.’
Elsewhere in its report, the rights organisation warned that the Israeli military aggression is apparently aimed at re-occupying Gaza – from which the regime withdrew in 2005.
‘Israel continues to escalate its military assaults against Palestinian civilians in an apparent attempt to expand its territory to include the entire Gaza Strip by uprooting the vast majority of the Strip’s population in violation of international law.
‘This likely amounts to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.’
It also emphasised that the regime is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in order to cause as many casualties, material losses, and as much general destruction as possible as a form of retaliation and collective punishment.
According to Euro-Med Monitor’s team, the facilities targeted by Israel during its ongoing attacks include 334 schools, 1,720 industrial facilities, 183 health facilities, 478 mosques, three churches, 171 press offices, and 199 archaeological sites.
