Rights group accuses Israel of 'starvation' tactic in Gaza

[December 18, 2023]  By Bassam Masoud, Henriette Chacar and Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -A global rights group accused Israel on Monday of committing a war crime by starving people in the Gaza Strip who continued to face relentless attacks in the war with Hamas militants.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no let-up in the bombardment and siege of the densely-populated coastal enclave, where buildings lie in ruins, hunger is rife, and health authorities say around 19,000 Palestinians have been killed.

Despite rising global pressure to protect civilians, who have nowhere to go, Israel is bent on eliminating the Hamas group behind an Oct. 7 rampage that killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

U.S.-based Human Right Watch (HRW) said Israeli forces were deliberately blocking delivery of water, food and fuel, razing agricultural areas and depriving Gaza's 2.3 million people of items needed for survival.

"The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip," HRW said in a report. "World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime."

There was no immediate response to the HRW report from Israel. It has denied targeting civilians while saying Hamas embeds itself in residential areas, and adds that it is trying to facilitate aid to innocents while choking off supplies to thousands of Hamas fighters operating from tunnels.

The HRW report came after Pope Francis accused Israel of "terrorism", deploring the reported killing by the Israeli military of two women inside a church complex.

Israel has not responded to his comments.

DEATHS MOUNT

In the latest bombardments, 90 Palestinians died in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. Hamas Aqsa radio reported an attack on Gaza's main hospital, Al Shifa.

In Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, medics said 12 Palestinians had been killed and dozens wounded, while in Rafah in the south, an Israeli air strike on a house left at least four people dead.

An Israeli tank shell hit the maternity building inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing a 13-year-old girl named Dina Abu Mehsen, according to Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra.

Al-Qidra said that Abu Mehsen had previously lost her father, mother, two of her siblings, and one of her legs during a previous shelling.

Israeli soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in this handout picture released on December 18, 2023. Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS

On the Israeli side, the military released the names of four more soldiers killed in combat in Gaza, making it 126 dead in the strip since its ground invasion began in late October.

Residents reported gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters in various spots up and down narrow Gaza, with the militants saying they had launched a series of attacks.

Reuters was unable to verify the state of operations or claims from either side.

Increased violence also continued in the occupied West Bank, where four Palestinians were killed in an ongoing Israeli army raid on the Faraa refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday.

HOSTAGE DEATHS SHAKE ISRAEL

In the latest U.S. visit to the region, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Israel for talks expected to focus on how its ally can transition from a high-intensity war of ground operations and aerial bombardment to a more limited, focused conflict, keeping pressure on Hamas while shielding civilians.

Washington wants this to happen sooner, perhaps in a few weeks, while Israel feels it needs more time, said Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In Israel, consternation continued over last week's mistaken killing of three hostages in Gaza by Israeli forces, even when they had been holding a white flag.

Avi Shamriz, father of slain hostage Alon Shamriz, said the three had done everything right to protect themselves and demanded to see footage of the incident.

"They took their shirts off. They waved a white flag. They marched in daylight in the middle of the street, not in hiding. And they yelled for help. But our army doesn't know how to observe open-fire regulations," he told Army Radio.

Shamriz said he recognised his son's handwriting on a white cloth saying "Help" in Hebrew and called the deaths an execution. A military official has acknowledged the incident went against the army's rules of engagement.

(Reporting by Bassam Masoud in Gaza, Henriette Chacar in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Reuters bureaux; writing by Michael Perry and Andrew Cawthorne; editing by Stephen Coates and Mark Heinrich)

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