The human rights group, Adalah, today called on the international community to intervene immediately to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza, most of whom are Palestinian refugees, who are now subject to Israel’s ruthless retaliatory actions.It said in a statement that declaration by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel ‘will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel’s other enemies for decades to come’, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister, stating: ‘We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed’, and the ensuing retaliatory actions indicate the intent to commit war crimes against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.Adalah said that the root causes of the conflict are the illegal 56-year-old Israeli military occupation, the longest occupation in modern history; the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians; the blockade on Gaza; Israel’s settler-colonial policies in the West Bank, including E
ast Jerusalem; and the denial of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, as well as the total disregard by the international community of its obligations to fulfill UN resolutions.’The extremist, racist Israeli government is using the attacks by Palestinian militants as a pretext to launch illegal attacks and commit war crimes toward ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people in Gaza,’ it said.’The dead, wounded and displaced of the last few days join the tens of thousands of Palestinian victims of earlier Israeli military offensives in Gaza, primarily airstrikes. The Israeli military is also striking and destroying infrastructure, including water and sewerage systems, cutting off electricity and humanitarian supplies, and targeting medical facilities and personnel and journalists, creating one of the cruelest humanitarian crises in the world,’ said Adalah, calling on both sides of the conflict ‘to cease all violations of international humanitarian law’ and on ‘the internat
ional community to protect the Palestinian people in Gaza from Israel’s brutal and illegal actions, to stop the inhumane blockade on Gaza, and to put an end to the Israeli prolonged occupation, in order to uphold Palestinians’ right to self-determination.’
Source: Palestine news and Information Agency – WAFA