The UN human rights office yesterday said that 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for aid in the shortage-stricken Gaza Strip since late May – most of them by the Israeli military.
“In total, since May 27, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of (US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys,” the UN agency’s office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement.
“Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,” it added.
Experts from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also expressed alarm at Israel’s deliberate withholding of access to safe drinking water from Palestinians in Gaza, calling it a serious violation of international law and a crime against humanity.
“Israel is using thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians,” the experts said. “Cutting off water and food is a silent but lethal bomb that kills mostly children and babies.
“The sight of infants dying in their mothers’ arms is unbearable. How can world leaders sleep while this suffering continues?” they pointed out.
“This catastrophe was not only predictable; it was predicted. Israel’s blockade and destruction of civilian infrastructure has left most of Gaza’s two million residents displaced and without access to the minimum vital amount of drinking water,” the experts said. This has led to deaths and widespread illness caused by water pollution, and a lack of sanitation and hygiene.
Since October 2023, Israel’s military operations have repeatedly targeted water facilities, wells, pipelines, desalination units and sewage systems. Eighty-nine per cent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s forces, leaving over 90pc of households water insecure.
“Israel’s acts right now in Gaza are barbaric, and the related actions of government officials constitute crimes under the Rome Statute: extermination is committed by cutting off the supply of medicine, food and water,” the experts said.
“These intentional, widespread and systematic attacks against Palestinians are a deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a population – another act of genocide.”
In its Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2024, the International Court of Justice confirmed Israel’s obligation, as the occupying power, to ensure that the local population has an adequate supply of foodstuffs, including water.
However, Israel has reduced the amount of water allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, including emergency water deliveries, which has resulted in water shortages and rationing, forcing residents to rely on unsafe and contaminated water sources.
With fuel supplies almost completely depleted, humanitarian actors have been forced to reduce life-saving activities, including the distribution of drinking water.
Rising summer temperatures and catastrophic hygiene conditions, combined with a lack of access to clean water, continue to have devastating consequences, including increased fatalities from dehydration, and an increase in waterborne diseases, they warned.
&uuid=(email))