Center for Human Rights Protection: We issue an urgent international briefing to the foreign ministers of the world’s countries, calling on them to take immediate political, diplomatic and legal action to stop the escalating humanitarian catastrophe threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in the Gaza Strip with the onset of winter.

Center for Human Rights Protection:

▪We issue an urgent international briefing to the foreign ministers of the world’s countries, calling on them to take immediate political, diplomatic and legal action to stop the escalating humanitarian catastrophe threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in the Gaza Strip with the onset of winter.

▪We warn that the continued prevention of the entry of caravans, temporary housing and shelter materials, and keeping residents in worn-out tents and unsafe areas, portends turning winter into a new season of mass death in the Strip.

▪The tragedy witnessed in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of four citizens, including two children, after sand and rock masses collapsed on their tents, is not an isolated incident or a natural disaster detached from its context, but a highly dangerous warning that reveals the scale of the threat looming over the lives of displaced persons who were forced to take shelter in exposed areas and fragile earthen slopes, and next to destroyed buildings at risk of collapse, amid the absence of safe alternatives and the lack of the minimum elements of humanitarian protection.

▪We affirm that the Israeli occupation authorities bear responsibility for the worsening of these conditions amid the continued ban on the entry of caravans, temporary housing, construction and shelter materials, and the basic supplies necessary to provide safe housing for displaced persons, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians at the mercy of worn-out tents and temporary shelters that do not protect them from the severity of winter or from the dangers of collapse and flooding.

▪We affirm that subjecting basic humanitarian needs to restrictions and political bargaining constitutes a serious violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and turns human suffering into a tool of pressure on the civilian population.

▪The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 imposes clear obligations on the occupying power toward the civilian population, as Article (55) obliges it to ensure food supplies and medical supplies, Article (56) to ensure and maintain health services, while Article (59) affirms the obligation to allow and facilitate relief operations when the population is not sufficiently supplied.

▪We call on the foreign ministers of the world to act immediately through political, diplomatic and legal pressure tools on the Israeli occupation authorities to allow the entry of caravans, temporary housing and shelter materials, and to establish safe shelter centers that preserve the lives and dignity of displaced persons without restrictions or political bargaining.

▪We call for pressure on the occupation authorities to compel them to open the crossings and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid, relief and shelter materials, heating supplies, and protection from rain and floods in proportion to the actual needs of the displaced and in a way that prevents further casualties.

▪We call on the international community to activate international accountability tools and investigate the grave violations associated with depriving the population of the means of survival and preventing the arrival of humanitarian aid, and to prosecute those responsible in accordance with the rules of international law and ensure that perpetrators of international crimes do not evade punishment.