Full Reoccupation of Gaza: A Criminal Aggression At the Height of Genocide

Salah Abdel-Ati, chairman of the International Commission to Support the Palestinians’ Rights, condemned in the strongest terms the dangerous decisions approved by the Zionist cabinet to reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip and forcibly displace nearly one million Palestinians from Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip to the south.

Abdel-Ati said this is a complete crime, representing a continuation of the policy of genocide, systematic killing, starvation, and siege, and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, international legitimacy resolutions, and the 2024 International Court of Justice ruling that the occupation is illegal and must end.

The lawyer warned that implementing plans to complete the occupation would lead to unprecedented mass massacres of civilians, especially if ground military action were to escalate. This reflects a dangerous level of brutality, a denial of all rules of international humanitarian law, and a disregard for all international condemnation and demands to halt genocide. It also represents an extension of impunity and immunity enjoyed by the occupying state due to American support and partnership in these crimes.

In written statements to Echorouk, Abdel-Ati warned of the dangers and repercussions of escalating the military assault on civilians in Gaza, given the absence of any equipment or safe corridors, and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions facing the population, in addition to the disastrous consequences of the forced displacement of nearly one million Palestinians living in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip.

He emphasised that reoccupying the remaining areas of the Gaza Strip would mean the final demise of the faltering humanitarian response efforts and the entrenchment of a ban on the work of international organisations, especially the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). This would amount to a death sentence and would result in the mass destruction of the Gaza Strip’s population, a situation that represents the height of brutality and genocide.

Abdel-Ati asserted that these plans, based on mass killing, starvation, and forced displacement, will lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and pave the way for the imposition of displacement plans outside the Palestinian territories, in addition to the colonial settlement activities carried out by the occupation forces in the West Bank, including the annexation of Palestinian lands, settler terrorism, attacks on Christian and Islamic holy sites and places of worship, the confiscation of Palestinian assets, and the undermining of the chances of establishing a Palestinian state constitute a brutal and unlawful aggression against the Palestinian people and threaten regional and international security and peace.

“The occupation’s attempts to justify its plans under the pretext of ‘control’ do not change the fact that they are an illegal military occupation, and they manipulate terminology to evade its legal responsibilities as an occupying power, including the protection of civilians, ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid, providing basic services, and reconstruction. However, the occupation continues to evade these obligations through aggression, destruction of property, perpetuating famine, creating chaos, igniting internal conflicts, and reshaping the Gaza Strip geographically and demographically in an attempt to create a new Nakba more dangerous than the Nakba of 1948,” he asserted.

Abdel-Ati called for a unified Palestinian position based on a struggle program, a true national partnership, and a unified leadership to confront the liquidation plans, reject the policy of diktats or the imposition of facts by force, and take action at the Arab, Islamic, regional, and international levels to form a bulwark against these crimes.

He also called for referring the file of the occupation’s crimes to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and demanding that the Security Council and the General Assembly, in the “United for Peace” formula, implement Chapter VII to stop the aggression, impose sanctions on the occupying state, suspend its membership in the United Nations, and form an international humanitarian coalition to protect Palestinian civilians.