العربية
HE
العربية
HE
On April 17, 2025, human rights organizations Gisha, HaMoked, ACRI and PHR – Israel appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Ghassan Alian, demanding the immediate and full opening of all crossings into the Gaza Strip and the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilian population.
The appeal followed Israel’s decision on March 2, 2025, to completely close the crossings into Gaza and prevent the entry of aid to the civilian population. In their letter, the organizations noted that in its March 12 response to the organizations’ High Court petition in the matter, the State declared that the aid blockade results from “political-security” motives aimed at applying pressure in negotiations with Hamas, rather than an urgent or concrete military need. According to the organizations, this is an illegal policy, causing severe harm to the civilian population, violating international law, and ignoring the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The organizations’ appeal detailed the severe consequences of this policy on Gaza’s population, based on recent reports from international aid organizations operating in the area. For example, on April 3, 2025, it was reported that all 25 bakeries operating under the supervision of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Gaza had been forced to shut down due to shortages of flour and cooking gas. Alongside this, food prices have skyrocketed by several hundred percent. Additionally, the organizations emphasized in their letter that the Israeli claim that there are aid reserves adequate to meet the needs of the population in Gaza is baseless, and Israel has not developed any factual infrastructure to assess the scope of aid required by the population. As a result of these conditions, there has been a significant increase in reported hospitalizations of children due to malnutrition: from 2,027 in February to 3,696 in March.
Additionally, the appeal noted that the water crisis in Gaza has reached extreme proportions and that over 90% of households report water shortages, forcing families to make impossible choices such as drinking less water and consuming dangerous water in the struggle to survive. The poor sanitation in Gaza, combined with deteriorating access to clean water, increases the risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases in the densely populated areas to which civilians were displaced by Israeli military orders.
Regarding Gaza’s healthcare system, the organizations noted that hospitals in the Gaza Strip are extended beyond capacity. Due to Israel’s decision to block aid, the World Health Organization (WHO) is unable to deliver essential medical supplies needed to provide infants and children with urgent and life-saving treatment. Organizations on the ground describe a severe shortage of medications, anesthesia, vaccines, and basic equipment – to the extent that surgeries are being performed in non-sterile conditions, the letter stated.
The organizations emphasized in their letter that Israel’s policy forces the population to endure living conditions that “may lead to their physical destruction,” warning that it “raises serious concerns about the use of food and humanitarian aid as a weapon of war that could amount to a war crime, including the crime of genocide.”
