Ramallah: Human Rights and Democracy Media Center- SHAMS, strongly condemns the Israeli massacre committed in Jabalia Refugee Camp within the ongoing Aggression on the Gaza Strip. The massacre targeted innocent civilians in one of the most crowded quarters in the Gaza Strip. The massacre took place on 31/10/2023 in a place close to the Indonesian Hospital, leading to 400 persons as martyrs and injured. The residential quarter that was targeted, was entirely wiped out and the majority of the victims are women and children. The Israeli forces targeted the quarter with 6 bombs of internationally prohibited lethal; each bomb is one ton of weight. According to the feedback from the medical teams, most of the victims were wounded with critical wounds and burns. According to the remark of the director of the Indonesian hospital, to where the victims were referred, Israel used prohibited lethal in its attack against the residential quarter in Jabalia. Even though those who were not killed, will suffer permanently as a result of the injuries.
SHAMS Center stresses that the current massacre is within the series of massacres committed daily by the Israeli occupation against civilians in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current aggression. The Israeli occupation is targeting Palestinians for the sake of killing, genocide, and displacement. The Israeli army is proceeding in its crimes against Palestinians with negligence to the various international conventions and treaties as well as denying the various international legal and human, religious, and ethical values. The occupying force is giving no attention to the customs and laws that protect human beings under armed conflicts and wars.
SHAMS Center condemns the international silence in front of the Israeli crimes against civilians and civil life and targets populated quarters intentionally to kill the maximum possible number of Palestinians. The world is maintaining silence in front of Israeli crimes and double standards are applied in dealing with international issues. Not only that but also, some European countries and the United States are supporting the Israeli aggression financially and militarily. These countries are supporting Israel with the most advanced lethal. The European countries and the USA are sending their naval war fleets to support the Israeli forces in their aggression on Palestinians. Such behavior contradicts with all the values and principles of democracy and human rights that these countries pretend to adopt and pretend that they promote them on the level of the globe.
SHAMS Center distains the silence of the Arabic and Islamic official regimes against the criminal attack of the occupation on the Gaza Strip and the murdering, demolishing, and displacement of civilians. The position of these regimes is limited to issuing condemning weak statements that are below the level of aggression and the committed crimes against Palestinians. Arabic countries are requested to declare a strong position to face the aggression and stop it.
“Shams Center” commended the courageous stance of the Director of the United Nations Human Rights Office in New York (Karim Makhieh), who resigned from his position after the Israeli occupation army committed the massacre in Jabalia Camp in protest against the positions of the United Nations, its agencies, institutions, and their inability to make any decisions to halt the acts of aggression carried out by the Israeli occupation army against the Palestinian people.
“Shams Center” reaffirmed that the actions carried out by the Israeli occupation army in the Gaza Strip, characterized by acts of aggression, are a serious violation of international humanitarian law and are crimes described as war crimes. The massacre that the Israeli occupation army committed in Jabalia Camp is a complete act of genocide, in clear defiance of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907, which prohibits the use of weapons, projectiles, and materials that can cause injuries and suffering without justification.
This also constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention dated August 12, 1949, which calls for the protection of civilians, especially women and children, in armed conflicts, keeping them away from areas of combat and military operations and providing them with special protection. Moreover, Article 33 of the Convention emphasizes that “no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed, and it prohibits collective penalties and all measures of threat or terrorism.” This new aggression represents a serious violation of Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998, which prohibits “intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population
“Shams Center” called upon the United Nations and its various organizations, as well as all international governmental and non-governmental institutions, including the International Red Cross, to fulfill their humanitarian, ethical, and legal responsibilities and to exert pressure on the Israeli occupation government to cease its aggression against the Palestinian people. It urges democratic forces worldwide to take immediate action and unite their efforts to form a global lobby to halt the aggression against the Palestinian people. The Center also advocates for the establishment of specialized teams consisting of experts, lawyers, and legal scholars in international law to file complaints with the International Criminal Court and national courts in some democratic countries whose legal systems permit it, for the prosecution of Israeli war criminals for their crimes against the Palestinian people.