2023-10-10 10:14:01
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of essential supplies is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
ADVERTISING
“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of essential supplies is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement on Tuesday.
He also recalled that “any restriction on the movement of people and goods to enforce a siege must be justified by military necessity,” otherwise it amounts to collective punishment.
“Taking hostages is prohibited under international law”
Volker Türk said he was deeply shocked and outraged by reports of executions of civilians and, in some cases, “horrific massacres” carried out by members of Palestinian armed groups.
He called on these groups to immediately and unconditionally release all captured and still detained civilians. “Taking hostages is prohibited under international law,” he emphasized.
Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip following the Hamas terrorist attack that left hundreds dead and kidnapped. Israeli Defense Minister Joav Galant announced that there would be no electricity, no food and no fuel.
WHO calls for a humanitarian corridor
The World Health Organization (WHO), for its part, has called for a humanitarian corridor to supply the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
It must be possible to provide people with the essentials, said a WHO spokesman in Geneva on Tuesday. Before the latest escalation, the WHO maintained material storage facilities in the Gaza Strip, but everything has now been used up. The hospitals would not be able to cope with the high number of wounded without further support.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army’s efforts to track down infiltrated Palestinian fighters continued.
1,500 bodies of Hamas fighters on Israeli soil
According to the Israeli army, there are “approximately 1,500 bodies” of Hamas fighters on Israeli soil. Hundreds more Palestinian attackers were captured. In addition, according to army spokesman Richard Hecht, the army has “more or less” taken control of the border with the Gaza Strip.
Israel had previously decided to completely seal off the Gaza Strip and declared that it wanted to use “enormous force” once morest Hamas. Airstrikes on the Gaza Strip continued for the third night in a row.
Israel is calling up 300,000 reservists for a likely ground offensive
Meanwhile, there are increasing signs that Israel is planning a ground offensive. The country has called up around 300,000 reservists. “We are now concentrating on our offensive in the Gaza Strip,” said military spokesman Hecht. According to his statement, the military was also setting up “infrastructure for future operations” at the border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed revenge and declared that Hamas would experience “terrible things”:
“I know that we all want immediate results, but it will take time. I promise you, dear Israeli citizens, that at the end of this campaign, all of our enemies will know that attacking Israel was a big mistake. What we tell our enemies in the “What we’re going to do in the coming days will be felt for generations.”
In response to the blockade of the 40-kilometer-long, six- to twelve-kilometer-wide Gaza Strip, Hamas’ armed wing has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel carries out an airstrike without warning civilians. The hostages were kidnapped from Israel on Saturday.
Hamas threatens to kill Israeli hostages for any unannounced air strike
Footage from the Israeli military is said to show the places hit in the Gaza Strip. About 900 people have died in Israel since the Hamas attack began, including 260 people who were attacked by gunmen at a music festival.
Since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip, nearly 700 people have died on the Palestinian side.
Israeli airstrikes have razed homes, mosques and the central bank to the ground. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Tuesday, 790 housing units were destroyed and 5,330 were seriously damaged. Damage to three water supply and wastewater disposal systems has left 400,000 people cut off from supplies.
On Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete blockade” of the Gaza Strip and said authorities would cut off electricity and block imports of food and fuel.
ADVERTISING
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), warned that Israel’s siege was an “absolute catastrophe” for the people of Gaza.
“There is no doubt that collective punishment violates international law,” he told the AP news agency. “If this results in wounded children dying in hospitals because of a lack of energy, electricity and supplies, it might amount to war crimes.”
The Israeli blockade will leave the Gaza Strip almost entirely dependent on its border crossing with neighboring Egypt at Rafah, where cargo capacity is lower than at other border crossings into Israel.
Hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents continue to flee. According to the United Nations on Tuesday, more than 187,000 of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents have left their homes – the most since an Israeli air and ground offensive in 2014, when around 400,000 people were displaced.
1696935972
#Complete #Gaza #blockade #violates #international #humanitarian #law
