Despite the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that began Jan. 19, on March 2 Israel began blocking the promised delivery of food, fuel, medicine and other aid to the 2.3 million people in Gaza. Israel continued to seal border crossings. Since that time, the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) have deliberately escalated the war and their intentional genocide against Palestinians.
Amnesty International reported March 20 that Israel cut off the electricity supply to a desalination plant for drinking water in Gaza, effectively reducing the water supply by 85%. This turned water into a weapon of war. While Gaza has been under an electricity blackout since Oct. 11, 2023, the South Sea desalination plant had remained connected to Israel’s electrical grid.
The ceasefire was abruptly brought to a halt March 18 when Israel resumed bombing attacks on the civilian population. Now, weeks after returning to their homes, residents of Gaza City are once again being forced to evacuate due to Israel’s bombing of three shelters. The IOF is also sending booby-trapped vehicles into neighborhoods and remotely detonating them. (Mondoweiss, April 4)
Speaking to Mondoweiss, Mahmoud Basal, with the Gaza Civil Defense, reported: “The bombing is non-stop. We are talking about a massacre in every sense of the word.” Basal was describing how hundreds of people were killed or injured by the targeting of three schools that were providing shelter for displaced people.
‘Execution-style’ killing of rescue workers
On March 23 the IOF carried out “execution-style” killings of 15 paramedics and rescue workers outside Rafah in Southern Gaza. The aid workers intentionally killed were with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the Palestinian Civil Defense and United Nations on a humanitarian mission to collect dead and wounded civilians. After the IOF killed them, their bodies were buried in the sand by a bulldozer, which also flattened their vehicles. (The Guardian, April 3)
Five of the recovered bodies were examined by forensic consultant Ahmad Dhaher, who reported that all had apparently been shot at close range, with multiple shots to one person’s head, to another’s heart and a third with six or seven bullets in the torso — “execution-style.” Dhaher called the wounds “specific” and “intentional.”
The IOF claimed its soldiers opened fire on the ambulances and rescue vehicles, because they were “advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals.” Witnesses, including the sole survivor of the attack, a Red Crescent volunteer, said the ambulances were observing safety protocols when they were attacked, noting that external and internal lights are on during the day and at night. (BBC Radio 4, April 3)
Video footage, recovered from the phone of one of the workers killed, also shows that the vehicles were traveling with headlights and flashing red lights that identified them, plus workers were wearing high visibility vests.
According to a Guardian investigation from February, more than 1,000 medical staff have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, and most hospitals have been reduced to ruins.
Intentional silencing of journalists
There has been worldwide outrage against Israel over the March 23 murders of aid workers. Many officials, including those from some of Israel’s closest allies, called for a full investigation and accountability. The Israeli regime’s response has been to continue a pattern employed even before October 7, 2023 — to purposely murder journalists, so there will be no one to report on the IOF crimes.
On April 7 Israel bombed a clearly marked media tent outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip, killing two journalists, including a local reporter, and wounding six others. (AP, April 8) The strike that set the tent ablaze killed Yousef al-Faqawi, a reporter for the Palestine Today news website.
On April 7 an Al Jazeera article stated that Israeli forces have killed 232 journalists and media workers since October 2023, when Israel unleashed the now 18-month-long assault on Gaza. Hundreds of reporters have been wounded and many arrested, despite their protection as civilians under International Law. Deliberately targeting media workers is a war crime.
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna stated: “Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives — for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth. Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.” (cpj.org, April 9)