Palestinian HR ORGs: Israel intensifies bombing of homes with residents inside in Rafah

Gaza: Palestinian human rights organizations said that as Israel continues to threaten to launch a large-scale military ground attack on Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, the occupation forces have intensified their airstrikes on the city, which is crowded with hundreds of thousands of displaced people, including bombing houses, while their residents inside, without prior warning, killing 40 residents, including 13 children and 12 women, in less than 72 hours.

The organizations said in a statement on Monday that the intensification of Israeli airstrikes on houses comes in conjunction with the intensification of artillery shelling targeting the eastern area of Rafah in what appears to be part of the process of intimidation by killing and indiscriminate destruction against civilians to forcibly displace them again from the city, which is home to at least 1.3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and residents.

As a result of the repeated Israeli threats coinciding with the intensification of the bombardment,
researchers observed tens of thousands of displaced people from Rafah city to the Mawasi area west of the city and west of Khan Yunis, which led to massive overcrowding in this small area (about 12,000 dunums), where the IDPs resorted to setting up tents or nylon tarps in the lands, roadsides, and seashore, without the basics of life, and without any infrastructure suitable for the needs of hundreds of thousands of residents in the agricultural area.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center, and Al-Haq affirmed that the occupation continues to commit these horrific crimes as a result of the policy of impunity and the absence of executive mechanisms that bind it to the rules of international humanitarian law.

The organizations warned Israel’s partners in the crime of genocide, whether by their unlimited military and political support or by their silence, calling for practical steps to protect Palestinian civilians, stop the mass killing, and prevent the completion of the ongoing genocide.

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ource: Jordan News Agency