The International Commission calls on the Palestinian Foreign Ministry to intensify its diplomatic work and to call the Human Rights Council to hold an extraordinary session to discuss the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip

Ref: 102/2019

Date: 13 Nov 2019

Timing: 19:30 local time

Press Release,

 The International Commission calls on the Palestinian Foreign Ministry to intensify its diplomatic work and to call the Human Rights Council to hold an extraordinary session to discuss the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip

The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR) condemns in the strongest possible terms the continuation of the Israeli occupation forces crimes against civilians and civilian properties in the Gaza Strip for the second day in a row. These crimes, which began since Tuesday dawn, 12 November 2019 until the time of issuing this statement, resulted in the martyrdom of 24 Palestinians, including a woman and three children, and the injury of 73 others, including 30 children and 17 women, in addition to a total and partial destruction of 52 civilian facilities, and extensive damage to thousands of dunums of agricultural land.

The Israeli occupation forces deliberately targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, where today morning, the Israeli occupation forces committed two crimes that killed civilians in cold blood, the first was the killing of three brothers: Ibrahim Ayman Fathi Abdel Aal (17 years), Ismail Ayman Fathi Abdel Aal (16 years) and their brother Ahmed Ayman Fathi Abdel Aal (23 years), due to the direct targeting of a carpentry owned by their father, and the second crime killed Raafat Suleiman Mohammed Ayyad (54 years) and his son Amir Raafat Suleiman Mohammed Ayyad (7 years) and his other son Islam Raafat Suleiman Mohammed Ayyad (24 years) as a result of targeting a motorcycle the father was riding next to his house in al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City.

The Israeli occupation forces have continued to carry out war attacks against Palestinian civilians and their properties despite the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, especially with the continued closure of border crossings and denying the entry of essential goods, including medicine and food, and restricting the work of fishermen, , contrary to the obligations imposed by the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War on the Occupation state as an Occupying Power by facilitating the passage of food and medicine to the civilian population of the Occupied Territories in all circumstances.

It is now the responsibility of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the 47 member states of the Human Rights Council to fulfill their obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and save the lives of more than 2 million Gazans who alone face the brutal Israeli machine of terror and murder. The Israeli violations, which have increased in the past few hours, make the proposal to hold an extraordinary session of the Human Rights Council a duty and a right commensurate with the substantive competence of the Council in light of the increasing frequency of Israeli threats to go to an open battle, similar to what happened in the last three times.

ICSPR warns that these current military attacks are a prelude to a wider aggression that only the Palestinian citizen will pay dearly for, and reaffirms its readiness to contribute to any role that would advance the legal battle against the Israeli occupation and its leadership, and it believes that it is the duty of the PLO Executive Committee and the Palestinian Authority to shoulder its responsibilities in a serious and effective intervention to put the Israeli crimes on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council, including the urgent action to call for a special session of the Council, and reiterating its call on the international community to intervene promptly and urgently to force the Israeli occupation to stop its ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip. Therefore, ICSPR demands the following:

• ICSPR calls on the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Member States of the Council to work to ensure the convening of an extraordinary session of the Human Rights Council in an effective and immediate manner, to discuss the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and to work on issuing international resolutions to condemn and stop the aggression.
• ICSPR emphasizes that the continued silence of the international community and its organizations contributes to the continued Israeli occupation disregard of Palestinian civilians’ lives and rights.
• ICSPR urges the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention to carry out their moral and legal obligations by taking urgent action to stop the Israeli aggression and to provide international protection to the civilians, especially children and women.