In the midst of war in the Middle East, the list of organizations strongly criticizing the military actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government against Hamas is growing. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday added their voices to accusations attributing genocide or acts of a genocidal nature to Israel for its conduct of the war in Gaza.
“Israeli authorities deliberately created living conditions aimed at causing the destruction of part of the population of Gaza, by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians in the enclave of adequate access to water, which likely resulted in caused thousands of deaths,” HRW wrote in a press release accompanying its investigation of more than 200 pages. “In doing so, the Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide.”
“Signs of ethnic cleansing”, according to MSF
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has rejected a report “riddled with blatant lies”, and accused HRW of once again seeking [à] promote its anti-Israeli propaganda. The United States, Israel’s first ally, expressed its “disagreement with the conclusions” of HRW.
“What our teams saw on the ground is consistent with what a growing number of legal experts and organizations are saying, that what is happening in Gaza amounts to genocide,” he said. said Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of MSF. He was speaking on the occasion of the publication of a thirty-page report on Gaza noting that “the signs of ethnic cleansing and ongoing destruction – including massacres, serious physical and psychological injuries, displacement forced and impossible living conditions for the besieged and bombed Palestinians – are undeniable.” The spokesperson for Israeli diplomacy described this report as “totally fallacious and misleading”.
ICC arrest warrants
Since the start of the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Israel has been accused several times of committing genocide in Gaza, by various NGOs, UN experts, and even before international justice, at the initiative of South Africa. Israeli authorities have always vigorously rejected these accusations.
Our file on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Yoav Gallant, former Israeli Defense Minister, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are the subject of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued at the end of November for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. A procedure against which Israel appealed, denouncing an “anti-Semitic” decision and “absurd accusations”.
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