Five Months after the First ICJ Order, the International Community Still Fails to Stop Israel’s 263 Day-Long Genocide on Gaza

PIPD has been releasing monthly briefs, highlighting Israel’s key violations of the ICJ order. This brief covers violations from 27 May to 26 June

 

On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined the plausibility that Israel is carrying out genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and ordered Israel to:

  1. prevent the commission of genocidal acts.
  2. prevent and punish public incitement to genocide.
  3. ensure aid and services reach Palestinians.


We note that since the January Order, the Court has issued another two modified provisional measures based on South Africa’s urgent requests on 6 March and 10 May:

  • On 29 March, the Court ordered Israel to ensure unhindered provision of aid, and avoid military actions violating Palestinians’ rights under the Genocide Convention.
  • On 24 May, the ICJ ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, and open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision of services and aid.

Summary  

In the five months since the ICJ binding ruling on 26 January, Israel has continued its genocide on Gaza with intense bombardment and attacks from air, land, and sea, resulting in the killing of around 11,635 Palestinians, bringing the total number of killings since 7 October 2023 to around 37,718. The delivery of aid has declined since the Court ruling, with a significant decrease since the closure of the Rafah Crossing on 7 May. Over one million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced since the ground invasion into Rafah on 7 May. Nine months on the genocide have left 96% of Gaza’s population facing high level of acute food insecurity, while 22% of the population are already facing famine

Ongoing Genocidal Acts – Killings and Causing Serious Bodily or Mental Harm

Since the ICJ’s ruling five months ago, Israel has killed around 11,635 Palestinians, and wounded 21,890 others, bringing the total number of killings since 7 October 2023 to around 37,718 including at least 14,778 children, and the injuries to 86,377.

Israel has continued to commit horrendous massacres across Gaza. On 8 June, Israel conducted a military attack by air and with ground forces without prior notification on the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp, during mid-morning, framing the massacre as an “operation to free four Israeli hostages”. The Nuseirat massacre has resulted in the killing of 274 Palestinians, including 64 children, the injury of 698 Palestinians, and the bombing of 89 residential buildings. Testimonies of Palestinians in Nuseirat reported hours of artillery shelling, and mass executions on the street. One Palestinian reported how he was shopping at Nuseirat market before “a crazy bombardment started hitting everywhere… maybe 150 rockets fell in less than 10 minutes, while we were running away more fell on the market.” Another Palestinian described how “the street was filled with civilian body parts and many injuries bleeding out without ambulances being able to reach them.” Palestinian witnesses furthur filmed Israel’s usage of civilian and humanitarian vehicles to infiltrate the Camp, and how some of the Israeli forces were disguised as displaced Palestinians and as members of Hamas’s military wing. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese wrote that Israel’s killings in Nuseirat “while perfidiously hiding in an aid truck is humanitarian camouflage at another level.” 

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported the killing of 101 Palestinians and wounding of 169 in several Israeli attacks on 21 June, including by bombing yet another camp of Palestinians who had taken refuge in a designated “safe zone” in Al Mawasi, as well as in the Shati refugee camp and the Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City. This is the highest daily killing toll in Gaza since the Nuseirat Massacre on 8 June.

On 18 June, Palestinian prisoners groups reported on the enforced disappearance of Palestinians detained from Gaza and the lack of information about the circumstances of death of Palestinians in Israeli custody. Addammeer reported that between 7 October 2023 and 26 June 2024, 54 Palestinian prisoners had died in Israeli custody, 36 of whom are from Gaza, due to systemic torture, ill-treatment and deliberate medical negligence.

On 2 May, it was revealed that Dr. Adnan Al-Borsh, head of the Orthopaedic Department at Shifa Medical Complex, had died under torture in Israeli prison on 14 April. On 18 June, another revelation highlighted that Dr. Iyad Al Rantisi, head of the Maternity Department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, died in prison on 16 November. Dr. Rantisi had been detained at an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza on 10 November 2023. The Ministry of Health reported that since 7 October and as of 21 June, Israeli forces have detained at least 310 medical personnel from Gaza.

On 18 June, Israeli media reported that “the Israeli military is investigating 36 deaths at its Sde Teiman detention facility”.

More documentations are highlighting Israel’s torture, rape, sexual abuse and degrading treatment of Palestinian prisoners, particularly at the Sde Teiman detention center in Al Naqab, where Gaza residents have been detained since October 2023. On 6 June, a three-month-New York Times investigation revelaed systematic torture and sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees. One Palestinian detainee reported that two soldiers lifted him up and pressed his rectum against a metal stick, penetrating his rectum and causing it to bleed and leaving him with “unbearable pain.” On 19 June, Khaled Mahajneh, the first lawyer to access the detention center described the conditions as “criminal” and “beyond imagination”. Mahajneh reported that more than 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza held there, are subjected to rape, sexual abuse, torture, and degrading treatment, including being forced to sleep on the ground without blankets or pillows, constant handcuffing and blindfolding (even while sleeping), and limited to one-minute showers. Mahajneh added that prisoners who accumulate violations, or dare to ask for something are dragged by Israeli soldiers to the square, who would take turns raping him with sticks in front of the other detainees.

On 24 June, Save the Children estimated that over 21,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have been missing, many detained, trapped under the rubble or buried in mass graves.

On 25 June, an investigation by the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism revelaed how Israel’s genocide on Gaza is the “deadliest conflict on record for journalists”, where one in 10 reporters in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military attacks. Furthermore, Forbidden Stories reported Israel’s “destruction of press infrastructure in Gaza: as a strategy to blind the public.”

Ongoing Genocidal Acts – Inflicting Conditions of Life to Bring about Physical Destruction

Since the ground invasion into Rafah on 7 May, over one million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced. A UN assessment from 7-14 June of living conditions at displacement sites in Khan Younis, Deir Al Balah and Al Mawasi area of Rafah found that over 130,000 internally displaced Palestinains in these sites live in overcrowded makeshift shelters and tents, needing urgent repair and lacking protection from extreme heat. The sites have limited medical services and supplies, no fuel, scarce water and meals, and a critical lack of nutritional supplements for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women. There is also a spread of communicable illnesses, amid sewage overflow, and a near-total lack of hygiene and sanitation items and facilities.

Following Israel’s withdrawal from Jabalya town, Jabalya Refugee Camp, Beit Lahya and Beit Hanoun on 31 May, North Gaza municipalities declared the areas as “disaster zones.” The Municipalities reported that the most recent three-week ground invasion in northern Gaza resulted in the destruction of 50,000 housing units, UNRWA shelters, and more than 15 water wells and other public infrastructure. 

On 25 June, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released a new assessment, raising alarm on the “high risk of Famine” across the whole Gaza Strip, finding that 96% of Palestinians in Gaza face “high level of acute food insecurity” and 495,000 Palestinians (22% of the population) are under famine and starvation.

On 12 June, the World Health Organisation reported that over 8,000 children under the age of five have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition, including 1,600 children with severe acute malnutrition. On 11 June, UNICEF warned that 3,000 children, who were receiving treatment for acute malnutrition, are at risk of “dying before their families’ eyes”, as Israel’s ground invasion cut them off from life-saving services. On 31 May, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network emphasized that irrespective of whether famine thresholds have been reached or surpassed – an accurate assessment of which is not possible due to humanitarian access and data collection – malnutrition is extremely high among children and “people are dying of hunger-related causes across Gaza.”  On 4 June, Action Against Hunger​​​​​​​ stressed that the lack of food is impacting children’s development, delaying their growth, weakening vital organs such as the heart, kidneys and lungs, and making them more vulnerable to infections such as pneumonia.

In June, the Food Security Cluster reduced food rations and limited coverage to central and southern Gaza, warning that food parcels would be depleted in July if safe access to the Kerem Shalom Crossing is not restored.

On 21 June, the Palestinian Ministry of Education reported that Israel’s genocide has deprived 39,000 high-school students in Gaza to set for their General Secondary Examinations, which started on 22 June. Overall, since the onset of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023, around 625,000 students have been deprived their right to education, with more than 7,000 students and 378 educational staff killed as of 11 June. On 3 June, the Education Cluster issued an assessment revealing that over 76% of schools in Gaza require full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to be functional again.

On 7 June, the International Labour Organization and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel’s aggression has caused “unprecedented devastation to the Palestinian labour market and the wider economy.” Between October 2023 and May 2024, real Gross Domestic Product in Gaza has declined by over 83%, and  unemployment rate has skyrocketed to over 79%, compared to the corresponding pre-war period. Overall, Gaza’s economy has shrunk to only 4% of the Palestinian economy, down from nearly 17%.

On 18 June, the UN Environment Programme issued a report on the environmental impacts of the military aggression on Gaza, which has resulted in “a rapidly growing soil, water and air pollution and risks of irreversible damage to its natural ecosystems”. For each square metre in the Gaza Strip, there is now over 107 kg of debris, which poses risks to human health and the environment.

Between 7 October and 29 May, there were 464 attacks on health care across Gaza, resulting in the killing of 727 Palestinians and the injury of 933 others, detention and arrest of 128 health workers, while affecting 102 health facilities and 113 ambulances.

As of 24 June, there are no fully functional hospitals in Gaza, with 17 out of 36 hospitals only partially functional. In Rafah, no hospitals are functional. In central and southern Gaza, where over a million people have been displaced from Rafah, only seven hospitals remain partially functional. On 21 June, the UN reported that the partially functioning hospitals operate with only minimal operations, and access to them is so fragile that some pregnant women have been requesting early Caesarean sections for fear of not being able to access the hospital safely later.

The already limited capacities of Gaza hospitals exacerbate as Israel continues its military aggression. For example, following the massacre on Nuseirat Refugee Camp on 8 June, which led to the injury of 698 Palestinians, the injured were transferred to Al Aqsa and Al Awda hospitals in Deir al Balah, and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. A video after the massacre shows medics at Al Aqsa hospital standing among injured Palestinains lying on every square inch of the floor, amidst screamings, agony and blood. Médecins Sans Frontières reported that Nasser hospital faced a surge of critical injuries including amputations, eviscerations, trauma, brain injuries, fractures and severe burns, while already dealing with a full ICU, limited CT scanning, and a shortage of painkillers.

The volume of medical supplies entering Gaza is insufficient to sustain the health response, and all medical evacuations of critically ill and injured patients outside Gaza have been halted since the closure of Rafah Crossing on 7 May. On 21 June, the WHO appealed for the evacuations for over 10,000 patients, including trauma cases and people with cancer, heart, mental health and other conditions, through all possible crossings. As Israel continues its genocide, with overwhelming number of injuries, critically wounded patients had been prioritized over those suffering from chronic illnesses, leaving the latter in extremely precarious conditions. Moreover, thousands of Palestinians who have suffered from amputations and other life-threatening injuries lack access to adequate nursing and rehabilitative care, as underscored by Humanity & Inclusion on 4 June.

Disrupting Humanitarian Aid 

Before 7 October, the average number of aid trucks that entered Gaza daily was 500. This dropped to 102 trucks per day between October 2023 and April 2024. The closure of the Rafah Crossing since 7 May has exacerbated the disruption of aid. Between 7 and 30 May, the daily average fell to 60 trucks, and from 1 to 24 June, 73 trucks entered Gaza per day.

The denial of aid delivery to northern Gaza is particularly alarming. In April, 55% of humanitarian aid missions were facilitated by Israeli authorities. This dropped to 37% between 1-20 May, and to 49% between 1-23 June.

No Prevention of Public Incitement to Genocide

No charges were pressed against any public official for public incitement to genocide.

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This brief has been prepared by the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD). For related inquiries, please reach out to us at: info@thepipd.com