Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that the Israeli army’s repeated and apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transports are further devastating the health care system in the Gaza Strip and should be investigated as “war crimes.”
The organization added, “Despite the Israeli army’s claims on November 5 regarding Hamas’s ‘disdainful use of hospitals,’ no evidence has been presented to justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law.”
The World Health Organization reported that at least 521 people, including 16 medical workers, were killed in 137 “attacks on health care” in Gaza as of November 12.
The organization considered that “these attacks, along with Israel’s decisions to cut off electricity and water and obstruct the access of humanitarian aid to Gaza, severely impede access to health care.”
As of November 10, the United Nations found that two-thirds of primary care facilities and half of hospitals in Gaza were not functioning, while medical teams were dealing with unprecedented numbers of seriously injured people, and hospitals had run out of basic medicines and equipment.
The organization quoted doctors in the Gaza Strip that they had to perform operations without anesthesia and use vinegar as a disinfectant.
The organization said that it investigated attacks on hospitals and found that Israeli forces bombed the Indonesian hospital several times between October 7 and 28, killing at least two civilians. The International Eye Center was subjected to repeated bombardment and was completely destroyed after a raid on October 10 or 11. The Friendship Hospital complex was also bombed. Palestinian Turk and its surroundings on October 30 and 31, noting that the damage to the hospital, in addition to the lack of fuel needed for the hospital’s generators, led to its closure on November 1.
The organization added, “Repeated Israeli raids damaged Al-Quds Hospital, wounding a man and a child in front of it. Israeli forces also bombed several clearly marked ambulances on several occasions.”
She continued, “Israeli forces carried out dozens of strikes, causing damage to several other hospitals throughout Gaza.”
The World Health Organization reported that as of November 10, 18 out of 36 hospitals and 46 out of 72 primary care clinics had been forced to close. The reason for the forced closure of these facilities is the damage caused by the attacks, as well as the shortage of electricity and fuel.”
The Israeli army claims that “Hamas uses hospitals as terrorist infrastructure,” and published footage claiming that Hamas operates out of the largest hospital in Gaza, “Al-Shifa Hospital.” Israel also claimed that Hamas was using the Indonesian hospital to hide an underground command and control center, and that it had installed a rocket launch pad 75 meters from the hospital.
But Human Rights Watch says that it was unable to confirm these allegations and did not see any information justifying the attacks on Gaza hospitals, adding that “even if the Israeli allegations were accurate, Israel did not prove that the attacks that followed on hospitals were proportionate.”
The organization stressed that “the Israeli government must immediately end the unlawful attacks on hospitals, ambulances and other civilian objects, as well as the comprehensive siege it imposes on the Gaza Strip, which amounts to the war crime of collective punishment.”
The organization also called on Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions to take all possible precautions to protect civilians under its control from the effects of attacks, and not to use civilians as “human shields.”
The organization called on “the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and other countries to suspend military aid and arms sales to Israel as long as its forces continue with impunity to commit serious and widespread violations that amount to war crimes against Palestinian civilians.”
2023-11-14 13:42:45
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