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OPT: Al Mezan sends letters to the UN SG, High Commissioner for Human Rights and Diplomatic Missions on the human rights situation in the Gaza Strip

Today, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights send letters to the United Nations' Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Louise Arbour and the diplomatic missions to the Palestinian National Authority. The letters addressed the Israeli gross human rights violations in Gaza. Al Mezan urged them to take urgent action to protect civilians after the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Killed 96; including 25 Children and six women, and injured over 200 in Gaza in four days. It warned from exacerbating civilians' suffering under continued unlawful collective punishment.

In the letters, Al Mezan directed attention to the IOF's military action in Gaza since Wednesday 27 February 2008, which has left one Palestinian killed and more than two injured every hour - over one fourth of whom were children. This escalation is coupled with collective punishment of Gazans; rendering them vulnerable to extreme poverty, disease and de-development. Al Mezan warned about graver human rights violations when the IOF execute its threat of expanding the military operations; especially after the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, described the large scaled attacks as a 'routine operation'.

Al Mezan indicated that the IOF grossly and deliberately violated the dignity and human rights of the civilians, as frequent statements by Israeli government officials indicate.

The letters informed the UN chiefs and the diplomats that, the employment of excessive, indiscriminate force inside urban areas, and IOF's failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants, most of the civilian casualties occurred as civilians were inside their homes. An air strike on 27 February 2008 destroyed a government building in Gaza City, killing a baby and causing vast destruction to homes. On the same day, another air strike targeted a group of children west of Jabalia town, killing two children and injuring five. On Thursday 28 February, Israeli warplanes targeted five children as they were playing soccer near their homes, killing four and injuring one critically.

On 1 March 2008, the IOF fired three missiles at a house in Gaza City, killing six of its residents, including the parents, two sons and two daughters. Another child is still missing under the rubble of the destroyed house. Other artillery and missile attacks hit homes and civilian structures. On Saturday 1 March 2008, at least 59 civilians were killed from Israeli attacks; the majority of those were civilians.

Moreover, the IOF restricted the movement of ambulances and, at least in two occasions, opened fire at them despite prior coordination with the IOF to allow access to neighborhoods under its control. Over 60,000 civilians do not have access to food, water, medicine or electricity because the IOF refuse to allow access of technical teams to their areas since Saturday morning.

The letters added that Gaza's hospitals have been facing serious difficulties trying to cope with the high number of casualties while suffering shortages of medicine, fuel and electricity as a result of the IOF's tight blockade on Gaza, which has also disrupted many aspects of the population's life and wellbeing.

Al Mezan explained its awareness that during the same period rocket attacks have killed an Israeli civilian and injured many; nevertheless these unlawful attacks cannot justify a deliberate breach of the protections that international law provide for civilian persons and objects under armed conflict and occupation. It asserted that the IOF's violations followed a pattern that can be traced back before these rocket attacks started.

Al Mezan Center called on the UN officials and the diplomats to act upon their human rights responsibilities and ensure Israel's compliance with the principles and the rules of the United Nations' Charter, human rights instruments and its obligations under international humanitarian law. Israel bears the obligation to observe the principles of proportionality, discrimination and military necessity; and to refrain from targeting civilians or collectively punish them. It also bears obligations to respect the human rights of the population in the occupied Palestinian territories; including Gaza. The international community, on the other hand, bears an obligation to ensure its compliance with international law.

Al Mezan emphasized that it is at these times of emergency and conflict that human rights are most needed. It called on them to act upon their moral and legal obligations and intervene to protect the population of Gaza, which has lived under occupation and oppression for over four decades now, mostly because of the failure of the international community to enforce international law.

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