The third month of the Zionist regime’s war against the people of Gaza continues under the circumstances that this regime has committed the four crimes specified in the statute of the International Criminal Court: (a) The crime of genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression.
including war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression against the people of Gaza. In this article, the cases of war crimes committed by the Zionist regime against the people of Gaza are briefly evaluated.
Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court addresses the issue of war crimes. In this report, dozens of crimes that are examples of war crimes are discussed. Some of these crimes that were committed blatantly and repeatedly by the Zionist regime against the people of Gaza and bear testimony to the fact that this regime has committed war crimes. They are as follows:
1. War crime of murder.
The Zionist regime has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians in the recent war in Gaza. The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that the number of martyrs in Gaza as a result of the aggression of the Israeli regime has increased to 18,205 people since October 7 until Monday, December 11. Meanwhile, more than 6,000 people are missing. 70% of the martyrs are children and women. The spokesperson of UNICEF has confirmed the killing of about 7,800 Palestinian children in Gaza. Most importantly, the people of Gaza are deliberately targeted and martyred by the Zionist regime. There is plenty of evidence proving that the regime intentionally targets the civilian people of Gaza, including the targeting of hospitals, camps, residential houses and schools. Knowing that civilians are present in these places, the Zionist regime bombards them in order to increase the death toll. Moreover, the regime indiscriminate killing is aimed increasing the pressure against Hamas, which does not release the Zionist prisoners, and also, to restore its lost deterrence, two goals that it has so far failed to achieve.
2. War crime of willfully causing great suffering
Another example of the war crime mentioned in Article 8 of the ICC War crime of wilfully causing great suffering to the body or health of people. The Zionist regime commits this crime in the form of injuring civilians, besieging Gaza, preventing the entry of medicine and food into Gaza, besieging hospitals and preventing the treatment of patients, as well as forcing the people of Gaza to evacuate. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, during the Zionist attacks, 49,645 people were injured.
3. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;
4. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part. 1. The conduct took place in the context of and was associated with an armed conflict not of an international character;
5- Targeting civilians or civilian property is an offence when not justified by military necessity;
6- War crime of intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peace keeping mission;
7- Launching an attack against works or installations containing dangerous forces in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects. This war crime is listed as a grave breach in Additional Protocol I;
8- Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;
The Zionist regime has repeatedly and publicly carried out each of paragraphs 3 to 8 against the people of Gaza. In fact, another example of the Zionist war crime against Gaza is the widespread destruction of residential, health, educational, economic, etc. properties.
The information office of the Gaza government announced in a statement that the Israeli army has so far destroyed 61% of the Palestinian homes in this strip. In the statement, the office says, “The Zionist invaders have destroyed more than 305, 0000 residential homes during the brutal attacks against the Gaza Strip.” In a report published at the beginning of the third month of the war, the Zionist regime media acknowledged that Palestinian civilians account for 61% of the casualties in Gaza during Israeli airstrikes.
9- Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;
10- Declaring that no quarter will be given;
The forcible displacement of the people of Gaza is another example of committing a war crime by the Zionists. In the Rome ICC Statute two clauses refer to this issue, namely: deportation or illegal transfer and declaring that no one will be safe (no quarter will be given). During the first round of the war, which lasted for 48 days and ended in a 7-day ceasefire, the Zionist regime repeatedly threatened the people of Gaza that they would be killed if they did not leave North Gaza. In the second stage of the war after the ceasfire, this warning was given to the people of south Gaza. The Zionists demanded the reopening of the Rafah crossing and the forced transfer of the people of Gaza to Egypt.
11- Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals or places where the sick and wounded are collected, which were not military objectives;
12- Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions or International law;
In the recent Zionist regime’s war one Gaza and before the start of the second round of the war, which began on December 1st, at least 255 schools and about 60 mosques were destroyed in the enclave. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, said that since the beginning of the war (until December 11), more than 449 attacks were carried out by the Zionist regime on medical centers in Gaza and the West Bank. The health system of the Gaza Strip is on the verge of collapse, and only 14 of the 36 hospitals are partially working. The director general of the World Health Organization has stated that due to the widespread attacks on these centers, it has become “impossible” for health workers to continue their work. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip also announced that since the beginning of the war in this strip on October 7, 296 medical staff were martyred and hundreds of others were injured in the attacks of the Israeli occupation forces, and 36 medical personnel are still missing. Among them, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the general manager of Shafa Hospital in held by the Zionist regime. As a result of the bombing of civilian places and civilians, 75 journalists and media workers in Gaza have been martyred and around 80 others have been injured.
13- Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival” is a war crime in international armed conflicts.
Another example of the Zionist regime’s war crime against the Gaza Strip is the forced starvation of the people of the enclave. This is while since 2007, Gaza has been under an all-round siege by the occupying Quds regime, which has turned this enclave into the world’s largest open-air prison, and on the other hand, despite the fact that international authorities and institutions have warned many times of human catastrophe in Gaza as a result of the war, and the fact that they have recently reported and warned about this, but the Zionists prevent any humanitarian aid from being sent to Gaza, and the Rafah crossing is also closed by Egypt. Subsequently, the people of Gaza, in addition to the daily bombardment by the Zionists, are witnessing deliberate starvation as a result of the all-round siege. Under such circumstances, observers say poverty in the Gaza Strip has reached 90% and unemployment has reached 65%. Also, according to several reports, a large part of the people of Gaza do not even have enough food for one meal, and mothers have to give their children the food they have for one meal in order for their children to survive.
All in all, the cases briefly discussed in this report, as well as many other cases, clearly prove that the occupying Israeli regime has committed war crimes in its campaign against Gaza. This is while the United States government still argues that the Zionist regime is defending itself and vetoes any proposed resolution in the Security Council that sought a ceasefire in the war. Despite all US efforts, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter after 33 years and called the situation in Gaza an example that ” may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security “.
MNA
