Gaza – SABA:
The Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip has declared that the health and humanitarian situation in the territory has reached a stage of total collapse due to the ongoing policies of genocide carried out by the Israeli occupation.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, Director General of the Media Office, told the Palestinian Safa news agency on Friday that Gaza is facing a catastrophic food crisis and famine as Israel systematically prevents the entry of food, resulting in actual cases of starvation.
He explained that the absence of hygiene and the leakage of sewage have led to the spread of epidemics and skin and digestive diseases in overcrowded shelter centers.
Al-Thawabta added that the near-total destruction of water and electricity infrastructure has rendered basic services unavailable to the majority of the population.
He stressed that this situation constitutes not only a humanitarian catastrophe but an ongoing crime against humanity that amounts to genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
He noted that Israel has deliberately committed massacres against Palestinian civilians and families in Gaza, with over 15,000 massacres reported since the start of the genocide campaign.
Among these, 14,000 families have been subjected to massacres, with 2,483 families completely erased from the civil registry, totaling 7,120 martyrs. Additionally, 5,620 families were mostly wiped out, leaving only one survivor in each, with a death toll of 10,151 martyrs.
“This pattern of targeting clearly reflects a genocidal intent and contradicts the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly the four Geneva Conventions, which prohibit attacks against civilians and protected families,” Al-Thawabta stated.
Regarding hospital attacks, he emphasized that the systematic targeting of hospitals, shelters, and the killing of children is not random, but part of a deliberate strategy to inflict maximum pain and destruction for multiple objectives.
These objectives, according to Al-Thawabta, include depopulating the land through mass killings of children and families to force displacement, dismantling societal resilience structures including the healthcare system, shelters, schools, mosques, and churches, and paralyzing humanitarian and medical efforts to increase death tolls and deepen the catastrophe. These acts aim to use suffering as a political bargaining tool, which is in blatant violation of international law.
He pointed out that under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, targeting protected medical and humanitarian facilities constitutes a clear war crime.
Al-Thawabta confirmed that since March 18, the pace of Israeli crimes has seen a bloody escalation aimed at enforcing a “surrender or genocide” equation before summer, using starvation and brutal bombardment as pressure tools. This includes the destruction of what remains of community infrastructure in Rafah – the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of displaced people – where a major massacre occurred.
The escalation also aims to create a state of total shock to obstruct any political or field solutions, enforce new realities on the ground, and attempt a final forced displacement from Gaza – all in direct violation of international law and amounting to a crime of mass deportation.
Al-Thawabta highlighted the catastrophic outcomes of this escalation, including over 5,500 civilian deaths in just two months and the destruction of thousands of tents and shelter centers in southern Gaza, including the so-called “safe zone.” This also included attacks on rescue teams and field hospitals, rendering the remaining humanitarian response systems inoperative.
He concluded by asserting that what is happening in Gaza is not just a military assault, but a described and systematic act of genocide being perpetrated by the occupying forces amid a disgraceful international silence and absence of accountability.
Al-Thawabta called on relevant international bodies, particularly the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, to act immediately to halt this genocide and hold its perpetrators accountable.
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