On this International Day for Solidarity with the Palestinian People (29 November), we focus on the people of Gaza. What has been happening in Gaza over the last two months represents one of the darkest pages in the history of the Palestinian people, with a scale of suffering not seen since the 1948 Nakba.

For the past 17 years, Israel has imposed a siege on Gaza, enforcing a harsh system of domination and control over the lives of over 2 million Palestinians, and waging several devastating wars against them. But Israel’s current ruthless assault on Gaza is unprecedented in its scale and severity. Following the brutal attacks by Palestinian armed groups on Israeli civilians and soldiers on 7 October and the taking of hostages, the Israeli military has bombarded Gaza indiscriminately and incessantly from air, land, and sea. To date, more than 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 children, have been killed during the War, and over 36,000 injured, with extended families totally wiped out. Thousands of bodies remain under the rubble, and nearly 80 per cent of the population are internally displaced (OCHA-OPT, 28.11.2023)

Israel’s complete siege on Gaza, in which it has cut off supplies of water, electricity, food and fuel for the civilian population, labelled as “human animals” by the Israeli Defense Minister, grossly violates international humanitarian, human rights and criminal law, as do Israeli military orders for Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate their homes in the north and move south, along routes where they were vulnerable to Israeli military attack. Homes, churches, mosques, universities, hospitals and schools have been bombed; nowhere is safe.

In the view of Adalah and Al Mezan, what we have witnessed—and have been subjected to in the case of Al Mezan staff trapped in Gaza—amounts to ethnic cleansing, forcible transfer and a genocide in the making at the hands of the Israeli military. Israeli government officials have made their intentions to erase Gaza and create a second Nakba clear on an almost daily basis (NY Times, 15 November 2023).  
 
Adalah and Al Mezan call for an immediate ceasefire, the provision of unhindered humanitarian aid, and accountability. All states have a duty to prevent, and not to aid and abet, the crime of genocide, and we call on the international community to adhere to their legal obligations.

In this newsletter, we highlight “voices from Gaza”, that describe life under total siege and relentless bombardment. We also discuss two of our most tragic legal cases—those of Nabaheen and Shuheibar—involving the killing and serious injury of children and their families during both the 2014 and the 2023 Gaza Wars, and which demonstrate how Palestinians in Gaza are denied any criminal and civil accountability by the Israeli legal system.