The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Al-Haq, and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al Mezan) assert that Israel’s commission of two new deliberate massacres against Palestinians in Gaza is the result of the international community’s failure to end the ongoing genocide.
On 13 July 2024, in the span of a few hours, Israel committed two new horrific massacres. One occurred in the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis—designated as a “humanitarian area” by the Israeli military itself. Israeli warplanes carried out a multi-stage military attack on an area crowded with displaced Palestinians. A second massacre took place in Al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza city, where Israeli warplanes attacked an area for prayer while tens of Palestinians were praying. These massacres are part of a pattern of conduct in which Israel is destroying Palestinian life in Gaza. Israel’s dehumanisation of Palestinians and blatant disregard for Palestinian lives stands in marked violation of the International Court of Justice’s three provisional measures orders as well as the basic rules and principles of international humanitarian law.
Attack on Al-Mawasi Area in Khan Younis, Israel’s self-declared “humanitarian safe zone”
According to information collected by our field researchers, the multi-stage attack on the Al-Mawasi area, Khan Younis, began at approximately 10:30 am and lasted for around an hour and a half, with no prior warning given to the residents and displaced persons. Israeli warplanes first fired at least four missiles on a chalet near a house belonging to the Al-Shorbaji family in Al-Nusf Street. This was followed by several missiles on the land and tents of displaced Palestinians surrounding the chalet. Quadcopters then surrounded the area and fired at anyone approaching. The attack resulted in the destruction of the chalet and many tents sheltering displaced Palestinians, who were found buried in the sand and under the rubble.
A few minutes after the attack began, Palestinian civil defence vehicles headed to the scene in an attempt to retrieve the bodies of those killed and evacuate the injured. As soon as one of the civil defence vehicles arrived and the crew disembarked, an Israeli drone fired a missile in front of their vehicle, killing two civil defence personnel, including the Deputy Director of the Fire and Rescue Department of the Civil Defense, and injuring eight others, three of whom are in a critical condition.
According to the initial information released by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the attack resulted in the killing of at least 90 Palestinians, half of whom were children and women, and the injury of around 300 others, including dozens of children and women, some of whom are in a critical condition. Our researchers note that the number of killed and injured Palestinians is likely to increase as search and rescue teams continue their search operations. They also note that a number of victims were blown into pieces and there were cases of limb amputations among the injured.
The targeted area had been crowded with displaced Palestinians and their tents. The area also had a charitable food centre where food is prepared for the displaced, as well as a water station where they can get some water –– the bombing coincided with their active movement in the area.
The Israeli military claimed that the aim behind the attack in the Al-Mawasi area was the assassination of senior military commanders of the Al-Qassam Brigades. However, Israel’s commission of such crimes under the pretext of targeting military leaders is nothing but an attempt to justify the mass killing of Palestinians, which has been a recurring pattern over the last 10 months. The manner in which the Israeli forces executed the attack, including the launching of several missiles with enormous destructive power in such a densely populated and active area, indicates Israel’s clear intention to cause the maximum damage to Palestinians.
In addition, in an effort to hide the truth, the Israeli military claimed that the strike targeted an open area surrounded by trees, buildings, and sheds, as the photo uploaded to the Israeli military’s X account showed no tents. However, in reality, the targeted area housed hundreds of tents for thousands of displaced Palestinians who had been forced out from their homes due to Israel’s forcible displacement orders and constant bombardment. This area had been declared by the Israeli military itself as a humanitarian zone, where it explicitly and repeatedly directed the displaced people to go in order to be safe.
In this regard, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that Israel’s insistence on the use of weapons with wide area effect in densely populated areas, despite the overwhelming evidence that these means and methods have led to disproportionate harm to civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure, indicates “a pattern of wilful violation of the disregard of IHL principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution” –– “[t]he use of such weapons in an area to which IDF is ordering people to evacuate demonstrates a rampant disregard for the safety of civilians”.
Despite declaring it a “humanitarian zone” and directing displaced Palestinians there, yesterday’s targeting of Al-Mawasi area is not an isolated incident, but rather an expression of a systematic Israeli policy to destroy Palestinian life in Gaza, through killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Attack on Al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City
Less than three hours after the horrific massacre in the Al-Mawasi area, at around 1:00 pm, Israeli warplanes bombed a prayer site near the White Mosque in Al-Shati Camp, west of Gaza City, while worshippers were performing the noon prayer. This resulted in the killing of 19 Palestinians, some of whom were torn into pieces, and the wounding of more than 30 others, including several critically injured.
A video from the first moments after the bombing showed dismembered Palestinian bodies on the carpet of the prayer site, which the residents had set up after the Israeli military targeted and destroyed the local mosque. The near-total shutdown of hospitals and the lack of medicines and equipment necessary to perform surgeries may result in further Palestinian deaths.
Call for An Immediate Ceasefire And Accountability
These massacres come amid harrowing conditions for Palestinians across the Gaza Strip who have been deprived of the most basic humanitarian necessities for months including water, electricity, food, and fuel, held under an illegal occupation and total military siege while Third States watch Israel continuing to commit international crimes, including starvation, unabated. So far, at least 38,443 Palestinians, the majority of whom are children and women, have been killed, and more than 88,000 have been injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Genocide cannot and should not be normalised.
Ten months and 76 years on, international inaction continues to embolden Israel to perpetrate international crimes. States arming and financing Israel’s genocidal acts are complicit in these crimes, including genocide. We call on the international community to take immediate and urgent action to impose a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and to compel Israel to comply with the three provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice. We also call on Third States to abide by their legal and moral obligations to put an end to Israel’s impunity by stopping the supply of weapons and ammunition and holding perpetrators accountable for crimes. Finally we call on Third States to fully support the request for arrest warrants of Israeli leaders and perpetrators of international crimes, and to ensure that the independence and impartiality of the International Criminal Court is respected.