Thread by @btselem

1/14 Killing blockaded civilians and destroying infrastructure on a massive scale:
Israel is committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip

btselem.org/gaza_strip/202…

2/14 According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, from the beginning of Israel’s attack on Gaza on 10 May until midday on 15 May, 139 Palestinians, including 39 minors and 22 women, were killed in the Gaza Strip, and about 1,000 more were injured.

3/14 In some cases, entire families were wiped out after Israel bombings. Some of the deaths have been attributed to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, B’Tselem is looking into these claims.

4/14 In the West Bank, Israel killed 14 Palestinians between 11-14 May, including one minor. Another Palestinian was killed, either by Israeli security forces or by a settler. The circumstances of his death are being investigated.

5/14 Yesterday, Friday, saw the highest death toll in the West Bank in a single day since Operation Defensive Shield (2002), with Israeli security forces killing at least 10 Palestinians, most of them during protests and clashes.

6/14 The forces also injured 251 Palestinians; 26 are in serious condition, and one is in critical condition with a head injury. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians were injured by Israeli security forces in East Jerusalem between 10 and 14 May 2021.

7/14 Palestinians living everywhere Israeli apartheid reigns – the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and within the Green Line – are being subjected to an almost unprecedented scale of killings, destruction, violence and intimidation.

8/14 In Gaza, since this operation started, Israel has bombed and shelled civilian population centers and residential buildings, including high-rises housing dozens of families.

9/14 The UN estimates that over 10K Palestinians have left their homes and sought shelter in 29 UNRWA schools. Israel has reportedly caused massive damage to businesses, electricity and water infrastructure, roads and farmland. Three hospitals have reportedly been damaged.

10/14 The Israeli airstrikes are targeting one of the most densely populated places in the world, already gripped by a humanitarian crisis caused, in part, by 14 years of Israeli blockade imposed on its roughly two million residents.

11/14 Most of Gaza’s residents live in abject poverty and inhuman conditions. The crisis has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to rage in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank while Israel refuses to provide residents with vaccines.

12/14 Israel repeatedly boasts that it takes care to safeguard civilians’ lives and claims all its actions are lawful. For instance, regarding the bombing of residential high-rises, Israel has claimed they were empty as it had warned the occupants prior to the strike.

13/14 This claim ignores the fact that those buildings cannot be considered legit. military targets, both because they are inhabited by civilians and because their destruction provides no military advantage. Targeting civilian objects is prohibited and constitutes a war crime.

14/14 Israel bombs the Gaza Strip from time to time killing people and damaging civilian property and infrastructure. Israel also successfully whitewashes its actions with mechanisms it has put in place to shield policymakers from liability.

In the current circumstances, Israel is showing no sign of changing its policy. The violence has to stop now. That is why the international community must step in immediately and use its leverage to force Israel to change its policy, before it claims even more victims.