A Geneva-based human rights group has called Israel’s two weeks long military operation inside Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, which has left hundreds killed including medical staff and aid workers as “one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history.”“Euro-Med Monitor is able to confirm from its initial investigation and testimonies that hundreds of dead bodies, including some burned, and others with their heads and limbs severed, have been discovered both inside Al-Shifa Medical Complex and in the hospital’s surrounding area,” the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement released on Monday. The human rights group chaired by Richard Falk, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said that the assault on the hospital “is the most visible aspect yet of Israel’s systematic and carefully crafted plan to destroy and besiege the Gaza Strip’s health sector, bring it to the brink of collapse, and deny the Palestinian population any chance at survival or medical care, or shelter.”“Though the exact number of casualties from the atrocity is still unknown, preliminary reports suggest that over 1,500 Palestinians have been killed, injured, or are reported missing as a result of the massacre at Al-Shifa, with women and children making up half of the casualties,” the rights group said. It further said that at least 22 patients were killed in their hospital beds during Israel’s siege as the army “willfully deprived them of their access to food, medical care, and supplies.”“Israel’s army also purposefully prevented relief teams and representatives of international organisations from entering Al-Shifa to carry out humanitarian missions or evacuations, plus purposefully cleared the Complex of all working personnel—particularly medical personnel—either by summary execution or forced displacement or arrest,” the rights group said in its statement adding that the whereabouts of some of these individuals who were taken into custody remain unknown.The rights group also pointed out the violation of international laws by the Israeli army during its operation in the Al-Shifa hospital. “The Israeli army committed the Al-Shifa Medical Complex massacre with the utmost disregard for international humanitarian law, particularly its rules pertaining to distinction, proportionality, and military necessity; respect for the unique protections enjoyed by civilian hospitals and medical teams; protection for civilians; protection for the sick and wounded; and the prohibition against targeting them even if they are military personnel,” it said.
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