‘ALL ACTS of genocide are being perpetrated against Gaza,’ Amjad Al Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) said yesterday.
‘What is required now is to declare Gaza Strip as a famine-stricken zone’, he told a press conference of Palestinian NGOs and professional unions held in Ramallah on the situation in Gaza.
He explained that sewage water has overflowed between tents, leaving people without any water supply.
The situation, he said, is getting more dire by the minute and is made worse by the ‘ruthless, merciless bombardment by the Israeli warplanes’.
‘It is Israel’s goal to starve the population in Gaza’, he said.
He issued an ‘SOS message to declare the Gaza Strip a famine-stricken zone as the Israeli genocidal war enters the eighth month’.
He said the Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from starvation, lack of medical supplies, malnutrition among children, dehydration and diseases from the contamination and pollution caused by the overflow of sewage water.
‘Many dead bodies are still trapped underneath the ruins,’ he said, adding that others are ‘still strewn on the roads’.
‘It is Israel’s goal to starve the population to force them out of Gaza Strip’, he continued.
According to Article 14 of the second additional protocol of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1977, it is prohibited to starve a civil population as an act of aggression, he said, adding that targeting or destroying property or other basic necessities of life is also prohibited.
Rights advocate Helmy Al Araj, speaking at the Ramallah press conference, singled out the US for sending Israel the weapons Israel used to bomb a tent camp in Rafah, killing dozens.
‘We reiterate that the US is an accomplice in this crime, as they continue to support Israel and provide them with arms,’ said Al Araj, as well as ‘total political and diplomatic’ backing.
Elsewhere, Izzat al-Resheq, member of the Hamas political bureau, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his army were struck by a state of frenzy, thirst for blood, murder, and revenge ‘because of the defeats and losses they are suffering at the hands of the Palestinian heroic resistance, and the state of international isolation.
‘It has become clear to the world that the Israeli occupation decided to directly and deliberately kill the largest number of civilians in Rafah and the entire Gaza Strip.’
He pointed out that women, children and the elderly are the direct targets of the Israeli army and US missiles, ‘which are claimed to be accurate!’
He further considered Israel’s attempts to justify its massacres in Rafah by targeting resistance fighters as ridiculous arguments that the world will not believe.
‘No one on earth believes your lies, and no one is waiting for the results of your false investigations,’ he added.
