Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, expressed alarm over the escalating civilian death tolls in Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank.
“We are deeply alarmed by the mounting civilian death tolls in Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank and urgently call on all parties to the conflict to abide by international law and make every effort to avoid further civilian bloodshed. Under international humanitarian law all sides in a conflict have a clear obligation to protect the lives of civilians caught up in the hostilities,” Callamard said Monday.
More than 700 Israelis have died since Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday, and the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says least 413 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military response. Thousands on both sides have been injured, and Hamas holds more than 100 Israeli hostages.
“Deliberate killings of civilians, hostage-taking, and collective punishment are heinous crimes that have no justification,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
“The unlawful attacks and systematic repression that have mired the region for decades will continue, so long as human rights and accountability are disregarded,” Shakir said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza strip and cut off water supplies, food and electricity Monday after Hamas militants attacked Israel.
“I ask you to stand firm because we are going to change the Middle East,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told authorities from southern Israel. “I know you have been through terrible and difficult things. What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible … We have only just begun.”
Robert McCaw is government affairs director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a member of U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, in Washington, D.C. He told VOA there is only one way to end the violence between Palestinians and Israelis.
“All reasonable people do want this violence to stop and every human life has value, whether it’s Palestinian or Israeli, but the only way to permanently stop this violence is to end the occupation” of Palestinian territories, McCaw said.
He said the conflict is the result of years of Israeli policies. “Americans and the international community would like to side with the oppressed, not the oppressor. The international community’s refusal to hold the radical, far-right, Israeli apartheid government accountable for its escalating human rights abuses and theft of Palestinian land has only emboldened more abuses and led to this violence,” he said.
In 2007, the radical group Hamas defeated the Fatah party in elections. Since then, it has ousted the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and taken control of the Gaza Strip.
In response to the attacks on Israel by Hamas, the European Union said it is “immediately” suspending hundreds of millions of euros in aid for Palestinian authorities because of what an EU commissioner called the “scale of terror and brutality.” Germany and Austria also announced similar measures. EU Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi tweeted that “we need action and we need it now.”
During an earlier briefing Monday, the European Commission sought to draw a clear line between Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization, and the Palestinian people, who are in need of humanitarian aid.
McCaw reiterated that the violence must end, saying if it does not, “it will only “create new barriers for a lasting solution.”
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press
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