Gaza - The Hague: Europe and the Arabs - Agencies
Coinciding with the International Criminal Court's decision to reject Israel's appeal against a court order to arrest the prime minister and defense minister, at least 50 Palestinians, most of them women and children, were killed and 152 others injured over the past 24 hours as a result of an escalation in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The Israeli airstrikes targeted residential areas, civilian buildings, displacement sites, temporary camps, and a police station, resulting in a large number of casualties. In the northern Gaza Strip, one strike killed at least 18 people, while another strike killed 11, including at least one child, according to health officials.
The Israeli military claimed that the strike on the police station targeted a site used as a command center for militants.
In the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, at least seven people, including a mother and her two children, and two other children, were killed in three separate airstrikes. In the central Gaza Strip, six people, including two women and two children, were killed in similar raids. According to the Brussels-based Euronews website, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the total death toll in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, has risen to 51,355, while the number of wounded has exceeded 117,248.
Since Israel resumed its air and ground operations on March 18, a stifling blockade has been imposed on the Strip's two million residents, preventing the entry of food and other imports in an attempt to pressure the movement to release the hostages, as Israel claims. Human rights organizations have deemed this a tactic that constitutes a war crime and a form of collective punishment.
Amid the worsening health crisis, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the Mohammed al-Durrah Children's Hospital, east of Gaza City, was completely out of service after suffering severe damage from an Israeli bombardment two days earlier. This brings the number of hospitals out of service to 37. The ministry noted that 11 patients requiring dialysis have died since the beginning of March, due to the complete collapse of the health system and the lack of necessary medical facilities.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called on world leaders to intensify pressure on Israel to allow the flow of humanitarian aid and essential supplies into the Gaza Strip.
In a post on the X platform, the office stated that Palestinians are "deprived of the necessities of life," warning that humanitarian relief operations are on the verge of complete collapse, given the sharp decline in medicine and food supplies.
Israel justifies the blockade on Gaza by attempting to prevent Hamas from obtaining the supplies needed to strengthen its capabilities and reorganize its ranks, repeatedly accusing the movement of plundering aid intended for civilians.
This comes after the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court rejected Israel's request to suspend the arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. It also rejected any other legal proceedings taken by the court based on the same decision, deeming the request "futile." This came in a ruling issued by the Court yesterday, Thursday, regarding Israel's appeal against the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I, which dismissed Israel's challenge to the Court's jurisdiction as premature.
In the details of the ruling, the Appeals Chamber concluded that the contested decision relates to and is based on the Court's jurisdiction, and therefore the appeal was admissible on the merits, in accordance with the Statute.
The Court also found that the Pre-Trial Chamber committed an "error of law" when it failed to consider Israel's argument regarding its right to challenge jurisdiction, prompting the Court to overturn the decision and remand the case for a new hearing.
Despite admissing the appeal on the merits, the Court affirmed that the request to suspend the execution of the two arrest warrants was no longer valid at this stage. The Court also dismissed, by a majority vote, Israel's appeal against a previous decision rejecting its request for a new notice from the Office of the Prosecutor, deeming the decision not subject to appeal under the Statute.