Rights and Accountability 18 April 2025
Gaza’s health ministry condemned Israel’s “organized crime of starvation” as crossings remain closed for seven consecutive weeks.
APA imagesThe following is from the news roundup during the 17 April livestream. Watch clips, read the article or watch the entire episode here.
Israel has attacked all areas of the Gaza Strip, while, for nearly seven consecutive weeks, it has closed all the crossings – banning the entry of food, fuel, medicines, construction vehicles and essential supplies – driving Palestinians into multiple crises of starvation, displacement and unmitigated trauma.
“Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance,” said Amande Bazerolle, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza.
“We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza.”
Since Israel resumed its mass-scale attacks on 18 March, approximately 1,700 people have been killed and more than 4,400 have been injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry, as the last partially-functioning hospitals remain out of medications, supplies, fuel, clean water, and are routinely bombed and attacked by Israeli forces.Around 420,000 Palestinians have also been newly displaced over the last four weeks of attacks.
Before dawn on Thursday, 17 April, Israeli airstrikes across Gaza targeted displaced families living in tents in three separate places – in al-Mawasi Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Deir al-Balah in the center and in Jabaliya in the north.
Journalists and eyewitnesses reported that the tents were engulfed in flames and the victims, including many children, were burned alive, with bystanders desperately trying to put the fires out.
A physician in northern Gaza, Dr. Ezzideen Shehab, who has been narrating this genocide on social media while caring for his patients, stated earlier this week that “after 556 days, Gaza is no longer a place. It is an experiment, a question posed to humanity: How long can a population be bombed, starved and displaced before it ceases to exist? And how quietly can this be done before the world looks away for good?”
Yahya Sobieh, a photojournalist, recorded this footage in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a home belonging to the Hassouna family in Gaza City on 16 April, killing 10 Palestinians and critically injuring at least 13.On Sunday, 13 April, just after 1:30 am, the Israeli army issued forced evacuation orders to patients and medical staff inside Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.
And then Israel bombed it, in an attack that Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called the “targeting of Gaza City’s last refuge for the sick and wounded, who should always be protected, and of medical personnel working under catastrophic conditions to save lives.”
In the dark, hospital staff and patients were forced to leave the hospital on gurneys and on foot. Israeli warplanes then launched two missiles at the hospital, completely destroying the laboratory, pharmacy and emergency department, according to the human rights group Al Mezan.
The hospital’s church and other sections also sustained severe damage, the group added. The attack resulted in the death of a 13-year-old child, who had lost access to critical medical care during the evacuation.According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the attack completely disabled the hospital and destroyed its CT scanning and radiology services, which were the only such services available in all of Gaza City.
Al-Ahli Hospital “is one of Gaza’s oldest medical institutions, established in 1882. Affiliated with the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, it has long served as a vital healthcare provider for Gaza’s population,” Al Mezan stated.
It was the first hospital to be bombed by the Israeli army in October 2023, killing hundreds of Palestinians in that first attack 18 months ago, and with no repercussions from the Biden administration and the rest of the international community then, Israel has bombed every single hospital and medical facility since.
Sunday’s attack was the fifth time Al-Ahli hospital has been bombed.
Dr. Sam Attar, a Chicago-based physician working at Al-Ahli Hospital, recorded a message for Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford later in the day, after the attacks. You can hear the Israeli drones buzzing overhead.
On Tuesday, 15 April, Israel bombed the Kuwaiti field hospital in Khan Younis, killing a medic and wounding 10 people.The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the attack “confirms the occupation’s deliberate intent to inflict greater damage to the health care system and threaten the treatment of the wounded and sick, even in hospital beds.”
The ministry warned that Israel’s crimes against medical facilities “will not cease as long as there is no firm stance from international and humanitarian institutions.”
“Complete humanitarian collapse”
Because of Israel’s ongoing closures of the crossings, banning all humanitarian aid, the director of field hospitals in Gaza told Al Jazeera that they have lost 99 percent of cardiac catheterization and heart surgery services in Gaza.
The Gaza government media office stated on 16 April that the health situation is “entering a phase of complete humanitarian collapse due to the systematic blockade and starvation policy imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on civilians and residents of the Gaza Strip.”Long lines at the remaining food distribution points “have become a tragic daily occurrence in all governorates of the Gaza Strip,” the media office added.
“The occupation has targeted more than 37 aid distribution centers and 28 food banks, which have been bombed and rendered inoperable, as part of a systematic plan to impose starvation as a tool of war against civilians.”
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a passing crisis,” the office stated, “but rather an organized crime of starvation that amounts to a war crime, perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces with international complicity and silence.”
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, reported this week that medication shortages from Israel’s blockade are leading to a catastrophe.
The agency profiled several children who visit the medical point to have burn wounds treated and to receive essential medication.
A physician who leads one of the agency’s medical clinics in Gaza City said that “standard medical protocols are simply not feasible here.”
“Moreover, the doctors and caregivers themselves are displaced, having lost their homes, yet they continue to come to work every day, providing medical care to all who need it. We are doing everything we can, but the conditions are dire. We make do with what we have, but the severe shortages of medicine, painkillers and other essential medical supplies pose a grave threat to the lives of our patients and exacerbate this medical crisis.”
On 12 April, the Gaza government media office stated that in addition to the banning of all food and medications, more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are being deprived of clean water, “turning water into a tool of genocide and a weapon of slow murder.”
Israel has systematically targeted water infrastructure, halted supply lines, destroyed water stations and wells, killed water repair workers and cut off electricity and fuel needed to operate water and sanitation facilities, the media office stated.
The office affirmed that Israel’s “deliberate deprivation of the population of water constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, a crime of genocide, as concluded by the reports of the UN International Commission of Inquiry, and a flagrant violation of the precautionary measures issued by the International Court of Justice, which called for ensuring unhindered access to water and food for the residents of Gaza.”
Reporter killed
Israel murdered a reporter this week in Gaza.
Photojournalist Fatima Hassouna was killed along with her entire family in an Israeli strike on their home in al-Tuffah, a neighborhood of Gaza City, on 16 April.
Her colleague, Anas al-Sharif, wrote this post in her honor:
Palestinian prisoners
Thursday, 17 April, was Palestinian Prisoner’s Day. According to the Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer, 64 Palestinian prisoners and detainees have died in Israeli prisons and detention camps since 7 October 2023, including at least 40 Palestinians from Gaza and a child.
The legal center Adalah calls the number “a staggering figure that reflects the scale of violence, medical neglect and appalling conditions Palestinians face in Israeli prisons.”As of April 2025, according to the rights group HaMoked, the Israel Prison Service is holding nearly 9,800 Palestinians under the classification of “security” detainees and prisoners.
“Israeli prisons and detention camps transformed into sites of vengeance, where appalling torture methods and extrajudicial killings became commonplace,” Addameer states.
Highlighting resilience
Finally, as we always do, we wanted to highlight people expressing joy, determination and resilience across Palestine.
Abdulrahman Ismail, a journalist in Gaza, played football in the street on Tuesday, with his good friend – and our beloved contributor – Abubaker Abed.
Here are clips of Abubaker and Abdulrahman playing in the street.
Add new comment