Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza
Amnesty International has accused Israel of forcibly displacing Gazans and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe, allegations Israel dismissed as ‘blatant lies’.
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In its annual report, Amnesty said Israel was acting with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide”.
“Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said.
“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools.”
Gaza’s civil defence agency on Tuesday said Israeli strikes killed at least seven people, including four in tents for displaced people near Al-Iqleem in southern Gaza.
“I just want to lay my head on a pillow and sleep. We don’t want to be collecting remains (of body parts),” said Widad Fojo, who lost relatives in one of the strikes.
Israel resumed its Gaza offensive on March 18 after a two-month ceasefire, saying it aimed to secure the release of hostages.
“We will bring them back,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, referring to captives held in Gaza.
Amnesty said it had “documented multiple war crimes by Israel”, including attacks on civilians, and that Israel had “deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.
The London-based rights group said 1.9 million people - about 90 percent of Gaza’s population - had been forcibly displaced.
Israel rejected the report, accusing Amnesty of spreading Hamas propaganda. “The radical anti-Israel organisation Amnesty has once again chosen to publish baseless lies against Israel,” said foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.
“Israel is targeting only terrorists and never civilians. Hamas, on the other hand, deliberately targets Israeli civilians and hides behind Palestinian civilians, stealing humanitarian aid intended for the people of Gaza and causing suffering for both Palestinians and Israelis,” he told AFP.
UNRWA said children and the sick were suffering the most.
“Children in Gaza are going to bed starving. The ill and the sick are not able to get medical care because of shortages in supplies in hospitals and clinics,” its spokeswoman Juliette Touma said.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation... The siege on Gaza is a silent killer, a silent killer of children, of older people, of the most vulnerable in the community.”
UNRWA also said more than 50 of its staff, including teachers and doctors, had been abused by Israeli forces in detention.
“They have been treated in the most shocking & inhumane way. They reported being beaten + used as human shields,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.
Israel has accused some UNRWA employees of involvement in the October 7 attack and has subsequently banned the agency from operating within its territory.
Amnesty said the war represented a collective failure by the international community.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s regional director, said Palestinians had endured “extreme levels of suffering while the world showed a “complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it”.
Separately, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said Israel released from detention on Tuesday a medic held since a deadly attack on ambulances in southern Gaza on March 23.
The attack had left 15 medics and emergency responders dead, which an Israeli military investigation said was a result of “operational” failures on part of the troops on the ground.
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ISRAEL UNLEASHES NEW WEAPON ON GAZA
The Israeli Defence Force has confirmed they have used a powerful new weapon in Gaza for the first time.
The IDF released a video on X demonstrating the new Bar rockets which will be used by the
282nd Artillery Regiment to hit Hamas targets in southern Gaza
A statement from the Israeli military says the new rockets boast a “navigation mechanism tailored to challenging combat environments.”It adds they can strike targets within “a very short time.”
לר××©×•× ×” × ×’×“ מטרות טרור ברצועה:
— ×¦×‘× ×”×”×’× ×” לישר×ל (@idfonline) April 28, 2025
כוחות צה"ל ביצעו שימוש מבצעי ברקטת "בר"
לכל הפרטי×:https://t.co/TZA5CiEUSypic.twitter.com/2nPy2vhjKZ
It comes as the International Court of Justice in The Hague heard Israel has turned Gaza into a “mass grave.”
Palestine’s ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi told the court Israel is shunning “fundamental principles of international law.”
Mr Hijazi also said Israel was “impeding the presence and activities of the UN and the international organisations must be viewed in the context of erasure and forced displacement.” He decried the demolition of refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm which displaced more than 40,000 Palestinians.
“Israel has announced the displaced will not be allowed to return,” Mr Hijazi said, adding the Jewish state had destroyed the “fundamentals of life in Palestine” while it blocking “life saving aid.”
‘STARVATION IS HERE’
A top Palestinian official told the United Nations top court on Monday that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as a “weapon of war”.
Kicking off the hearings at the International Court of Justice about Israel’s obligations to United Nations aid agencies, Ammar Hijazi told judges: “Starvation is here. Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that hearings at the UN’s top court this week on the country’s humanitarian obligations toward Palestinians are part of a “systematic persecution” of Israel.
“This case is part of a systematic persecution and delegitimisation of Israel,” Saar told journalists in Jerusalem.
“It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the UN and UNRWA,” he added, referring to the UN aid agency for Palestinians.
The ICJ is holding a week of hearings over Israel’s obligations to the UN, including aid agencies, in war-ravaged Gaza before delivering a non-binding “advisory opinion”.
Dozens of countries and organisations will address the 15-judge panel in a marathon set of hearings.
Israel is not participating in the hearings but its ally the United States will take part on Wednesday.
“All UN-supported bakeries in Gaza have been forced to shut their doors. Nine of every ten Palestinians have no access to safe drinking water,” said Hijazi. “Storage facilities of the UN and other international agencies are empty.”
Another 38 countries will then address the 15-judge panel, including the United States, China, France, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The League of Arab States, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union will also make submissions.
The UN’s General Assembly approved a resolution in December asking the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the matter “on a priority basis and with the utmost urgency”.
The resolution, spearheaded by Norway, was adopted by a large majority.
The UN has asked judges to clarify Israel’s legal obligations towards the UN and its agencies, international organisations or third-party states to “ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population”.
Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid vital for the 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
It halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of a ceasefire that had significantly reduced hostilities after 15 months of war.
ISRAEL STRIKES BEIRUT
Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles” in a south Beirut air strike on Sunday that prompted Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to call for French and US intervention.
“Under the instruction of Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, the (military) has strongly attacked infrastructure in Beirut where Hezbollah’s precision-guided missiles were stored,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
In a separate statement, the military said it hit the site in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
“The storage of missiles in this infrastructure site constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians,” the military said.
Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger and create any threat against it – anywhere in Lebanon”.
– with AFP
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