After Cutting Off Water and Electricity and Calling for Evacuation of Residential Areas, Israeli Occupation Collectively Punishes Gaza Strip Population

PCHR.org

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns against the rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, especially after Israeli officials’ statements to broaden the scope of attacks and their calls upon thousands of residents across the Gaza Strip to evacuate their houses amid airstrikes targeting residential towers and civilian houses.

UNRWA has declared receipt of 20,000 persons in 44 of its schools across the Gaza Strip, except Khan Yunis. According to UNRWA, only 28 schools have been equipped to be used as shelters in emergencies while the rest 16 have not. Meanwhile, three UNRWA schools sustained partial damage due to the Israeli airstrike. As a result of the ongoing aggression, UNRWA has announced that the distribution of foodstuffs is on hold until further notice.

PCHR condemns the Israeli collective punishment policy and inhumane and illegal reprisals against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip following the decision of the Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Yisrael Katz, to stop electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the Israeli companies halted water supplies to the Gaza Strip, depriving the population of 50% of their water needs. This policy has inflicted catastrophic repercussions on all service and health sectors, which already suffer from continuous and serious deterioration due to 17 years of closure. Therefore, this violates all international conventions, particularly Article (33) of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

According to the Gaza Electricity Distribution Corporation (GEDCo), the energy deficit rate has reached 80% after IOF halted supplying the Gaza Strip with 120 megawatts, rendering the Gaza Strip reliable only on the Gaza Power Plant’s 60 megawatts. In light of the inhumane Israeli decision, Gaza’s sole power plant is at risk of imminent shutdown within only 6 days, as it only depends on fuel storage amid the closure of the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing.

This will inflict serious repercussions on the basic services of 2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip and cause a 20-hour blackout a day. As a result, all vital sectors will deteriorate, seriously affecting health facilities such as hospitals and service facilities such as the stations pumping water into civilian homes and sewage treatment plants.

On Saturday, the Gaza Municipality announced that sewage treatment plant No. 1 had stopped after it was bombed by the IOF, threatening the halt of sanitation services to large areas in western Gaza. The ongoing Israeli aggression risks the halt of basic services, including 200 water wells that will stop pumping 250,000 cups of water to the Gaza population, or continue to operate for limited hours with a large deficit. It is also feared that sewage treatment plants will stop operating, daily contaminating seawater with more than 120,000 cups of wastewater. Moreover, daily collection and transportation of 180 tons of solid waste to the main landfills will be affected, causing a health hazard that will exacerbate the already deteriorating environmental conditions in the Gaza Strip.

PCHR is alarmed by the continued Israeli aggression’s repercussions on the work of the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip as only on its first day the health facilities received hundreds of injuries. These facilities operate amid poor capabilities and a shortage of essential drugs list that reached 40% in addition to failing to refer critical injuries outside the Gaza Strip due to the closure of the Beit Hanoun “Erez” crossing.

Moreover, the imminent power outage will also affect health facilities, threatening the functioning of (48) operation rooms distributed across the Gaza Strip’s hospitals. This will also risk the lives of patients on ventilators in the Intensive Care Units (ICUs), where the bed occupancy rate is about 80%. Also, this power outage will substantially affect important departments such as the Hemodialysis Department, where there are 131 dialysis machines serving 923 patients across the Gaza Strip governorates.

Also, the ongoing closure of the only commercial crossing Kerem Shalom worsens the conditions of several service and commercial sectors and causes further deterioration of the economic conditions of the Gaza population. The current situation and the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza suspended foodstuffs and basic supplies to civilians due to the halt of imports and exports. Additionally, thousands of daily paid workers in all commercial and economic sectors have been affected due to the suspension of work in local markets.

PCHR is alarmed by the Israeli escalating hostilities and ongoing collective punishment policy that have deprived the Gaza population of their economic and social rights, most notably the right to health. Therefore, PCHR:

■ Calls on the international community, including the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to exert pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to end the aggression instantly, stop collective punishment policy against civilians, assume their legal responsibilities towards the Gaza Strip’s population, including patients, and ensure an appropriate and safe mechanism for their travel to receive treatment abroad.

■ Calls upon the international community to take immediate action to exert pressure on Israel to allow the entry of fuel supplies to ensure the continued operation of the only power plant in the Gaza Strip.

■ PCHR believes that the international community’s silence towards the Israeli crimes has contributed to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where more than half of the population lives in poverty as the poverty rate recorded 60%, and the unemployment rate reached 46%: 70% among youth, while 68.5% of the Gaza population suffers from food insecurity and 80% of them relies on international aid.

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Source: pchrgaza.org. IMG: © N/A; pchrgaza.org. AWIP: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/aO2m