Press Releases

Israeli airstrikes on the Al-Mawasi refugee camp killed at least 90 civilians, constituting an act of genocide. Another attack violating international humanitarian law. The UN Human Rights Office has condemned Israel's use of indiscriminate weapons in populated areas. BADIL calls for accountability urge the UN and other states to impose sanctions on Israel to prevent ongoing genocide.

On 13 July 2024, Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Al-Mawasi refugee camp, allegedly targeting Mohammad Deif, Hamas military chief and Rafa Salama, a senior Hamas commander. Targeting Al-Mawasi refugee camp, an Israeli-designated “humanitarian safe zone” in Khan Younis Governorate in the Gaza Strip, densely populated with forcibly displaced persons, resulted in a massacre against the Palestinian civilian population killing at least 90. In accordance with international law, the presence of resistance fighters does not justify, excuse or legitimize the willful killing of civilians, which constitutes an act of genocide.

Since the onset of the genocide, Israel has been systematically targeting Palestinian civilians and intentionally causing civilian casualties in Gaza, committing over 3,300 massacres and killing 38,713 Palestinians. This pattern starkly constitutes international law violations of fundamental principles including distinction, proportionality, and precaution.

As highlighted by the UN Human Rights Office, the Israeli forces “continue to choose weapons with wide area effect in densely populated areas, despite the overwhelming evidence that these means and methods have led to disproportionate harm to civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure, suggests a pattern of willful violation of the disregard of international humanitarian law principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.” The UN Human Rights Office stressed that even in the presence of Palestinian resistance fighters among civilians, Israeli forces are obligated under international humanitarian law to adhere to principles of proportionality, distinction, and precaution to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. However, their consistent pattern to disregard these principles clearly reveals their systematic policy of overwhelming willful mass killing against the Palestinian population, as part of the Israeli genocidal acts calculated to “destroy the group” in violation of Article 2 of the Genocide Convention.

According to international human rights and humanitarian law, the arbitrary deprivation of the right to life constitutes “unlawful killing” and is strictly prohibited on a non-derogable level. Both indiscriminate attacks against civilians, or “attacks against military objectives causing excessive loss of civilian life are prohibited by the rules on the conduct of hostilities.” The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court considers such killings committed against persons protected under one or more of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as “war crimes of willful killings” under Article 8 (2/a/i). 

In a report to the UN Human Rights Council, titled “Anatomy of a Genocide”, Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, highlighted that Israel’s accusation of Palestinian resistance groups use of Palestinian civilians as “human shields” has “become a pretext, justifying the killing of civilians under a cloak of purported legality, whose all-enveloping pervasiveness admits only of genocidal intent.”

Israel’s perpetration of willful killing and other crimes and violations of international law trigger states’ positive duty to implement sanctions as the bare minimum to hold Israel accountable and fulfill their obligation to stop and prevent genocide.

Therefore, BADIL calls on:

• The United Nations to take all measures under international law to hold Israel accountable before international binding mechanisms.
• Third States to impose arms embargoes, strict military, economic and diplomatic sanctions, and activate and facilitate universal jurisdiction against Israel for its ongoing commission of willful killings and over 10 months of genocide.
• The Global Solidarity Movement to take strategic and effective direct actions that imposes a material effect on governments to end their involvement in the genocide.