Israeli forces brutally target civilians in Gaza City, burning homes

Israel has been carrying out a horrendous campaign of bloodshed and human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in Gaza City, according to testimonies.

Israeli occupation forces are burning Palestinian homes and properties, escalating the genocidal war being committed against the residents of the besieged strip since 7 October 2023, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported on Saturday.  

The Monitor has documented shocking testimonies about a series of crimes systematically committed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the past 24 hours.

The crimes include deliberate killings, extrajudicial executions, communication cutoffs, and intense shelling targeting areas and homes surrounding the al-Shifa Medical Complex.

This medical facility, which serves as a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinian families, has been under inclusive Israeli military attack for the fifth consecutive day.

Israeli occupation forces have been strip-searching civilians and using them as human shields, raiding residential homes, conducting arbitrary arrests, and torturing residents, including women and children, according to the testimonies.

Shockingly the children were forced by occupation forces to evacuate without the presence of male family members towards the central and southern areas of the strip, before burning their homes.

"We saw death before our eyes. They stormed the residential building where my family resides, and suddenly we found 50 armed soldiers in the middle of the living room,” Roula Saad stated.

“They ordered the men to strip naked and the women to follow them. They took us to the first floor, where they placed the men in a room next to us before taking them to al-Shifa Hospital,” she added.

“As for us women, they ordered us to go down and head towards the southern areas of the strip." 

Another witness reported that the Israeli forces raided her house during the iftar (fast-breaking meal), separated women from men, and instructed women to go alone with their children to the southern areas of the strip, and then set their house on fire and burnt it completely.

More than half of Gaza’s population on brink of famine: World Bank

Palestinians in Gaza are at an imminent risk of famine as food shortages approaching catastrophic levels are projected to hit more than a million people, the World Bank warned.

Israel launched the war against Gaza on October 7. However, almost six months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives of "destroying Hamas" and finding Israeli captives despite killing at least 31,923 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 74,096 others.

In response, resistance movements from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen have been carrying out military operations against the Tel Aviv regime and its interests in the region.

The regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the Palestinians living there.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk condemned the rampant hunger and looming famine in Gaza.

He lamented the world’s inaction in the face of what he described as a man-made catastrophe despite the UN’s repeated alerts in the past months.

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