As an unrelenting Israeli bombardment intensified in the Gaza Strip, with bread and water supply running short amid power outages, a UN human rights expert warned on Saturday that Palestinians are in “grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing”. Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas for the offensive a week ago, in which its fighters killed 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians, and seized scores of hostages. It has imposed a “total blockade”, halting food supplies and cutting electricity to Gaza, and bombarded it with unprecedented air strikes. A week after that began, shops are running out of many items. Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since last week have killed at least 2,215 people, including 724 children, the Palestinian territory’s Hamas-controlled health ministry said on Saturday. Some 458 women were among those killed, the ministry said. It added that 8,714 people have also been wounded, after an earlier statement said at least 324 people were killed in the past 24 hours alone.
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel has reached fever pitch,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, according to a press release by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“The United Nations and its member states must intensify efforts to mediate an immediate ceasefire between the parties, before we reach a point of no return,” said Albanese.
“The international community has the responsibility to prevent and protect populations from atrocity crimes. Accountability for international crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces and Hamas must also be immediately pursued,” she said. The OHCHR statement added: “[…] over 423,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Israeli strikes. This fate befell a population which has already experienced five major wars since 2008 in the context of an unlawful blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, which Albanese said has been widely condemned by the international community as collective punishment”. “Palestinians have no safe zone anywhere in Gaza, with Israel having imposed a “complete siege” on the tiny enclave, with water, food, fuel and electricity unlawfully cut off. Rafah, the only border crossing that remained partially open to the Gaza strip, was closed after damage caused by Israeli airstrikes,” OHCHR stated. “There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,” Albanese said.