Over six months since Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children, most of the 2.3 million residents are displaced, and caused the most severe starvation crisis in recent decades.

In recent weeks the Israeli government had increasingly advocated for a renewed invasion of Rafah. On Saturday 20 April these fears became reality, with the Israeli army renewing attacks against Rafah, in the south of Gaza. At least 10 people, many women and children, have been killed in Israeli air attacks on residential homes in Gaza’s Rafah city.

Moreover, there have been increasing bombing attacks in the al-Mawasi ‘evacuation zone’ in Khan Younis. This is where approximately 1.8 million displaced families were ordered by the Israeli military in the initial weeks of the genocide to go and shelter to avoid being bombed.[1]

What the Israeli military calls a ‘humanitarian zone’ has in fact become a tool of ethnic cleansing because it forced Palestinians to abandon their homes, which have been subsequently destroyed or are unlikely to be able to return to them. Israel has also repeatedly carried out deadly attacks in these ‘humanitarian zones’. [2]

The new official death toll, according to the Ministry of Health, is counting at least 34,049 Palestinians have been killed and 76,901 wounded in Israeli attacks on.

The Palestinian Return Centre calls on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to immediately issue arrest warrants for the commission of war crimes within the Israeli government and military.

As Israel’s Rafah invasion seems under way and risks further aggravating the ongoing genocide, there is enough evidence produced by international human rights organisations, at the International Court of Justice, and emanating from the United Nations to ascertain that at the very least war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed against Palestinians in Gaza, since October 2023. More delays would continue to put in jeopardy Palestinian survival.

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[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/4/20/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israelis-continue-intense-raid-on-nur-shams-camp?update=2848339

[2] https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/humanitarian-violence-in-gaza