According to recent reports, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res has filed a request with the Israeli Supreme Court, seeking an investigation into six incidents where Israeli forces fired upon the organization’s facilities and vehicles.<\/p>\n
These attacks resulted in the deaths of seven staff members and their family members in the Gaza Strip. Despite these incidents occurring over two years ago and extensive follow-ups by military prosecutors, the organization has received no indication that investigations have commenced. The latest decision from the Israeli cabinet has prohibited the continuation of the organization’s activities in Gaza and the West Bank.<\/p>\n
An Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported that Omer Shats, the lawyer representing M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res in the occupied territories, stated that this request is not aimed at prosecuting anyone. Instead, the organization is focused on future measures to protect its staff, medical professionals, and their families.Shats emphasized the necessity for the military prosecutor to provide a legal opinion on whether these incidents were lawful, asserting that an investigation must be initiated. He remarked that the failure to investigate constitutes a serious violation of war laws and international rights.<\/p>\n
The first incident mentioned in the request occurred on November 18, 2023, when the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of an area where M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res staff were present. The organization coordinated with the army to send a convoy of staff and their families south, obtaining all necessary permits. However, the convoy encountered a checkpoint, where a military officer denied passage. After several hours of delay, the convoy was forced to return to Gaza and came under attack by the army, despite the vehicles being clearly identifiable and the military being aware of their presence in the area. Two occupants were killed in this assault.The second incident occurred two days later when staff and their families were trapped in a M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res clinic in Gaza. An Israeli bulldozer attacked the organization’s vehicles, crushing them, while tanks opened fire, destroying the only means of escape for the group. A convoy sent from Rafah to rescue them was also attacked, despite coordination with the Israeli army and the United Nations.<\/p>\n
The day before, two M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res doctors were killed in an attack by the Israeli army at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza. The organization’s request emphasizes that this attack occurred despite prior knowledge of the clinics’ locations by the military.The fifth incident, reported by Haaretz, involved an attack on the Lotus Shelter in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, near the European Gaza Hospital, where organization staff and their families had sought refuge. In November and December 2023, the organization repeatedly informed the Israeli army of the shelter’s coordinates, requesting that it not be targeted.<\/p>\n
On January 7, the Israeli army issued an evacuation order for the area but did not name the shelter or the hospital. The organization sought clarification from the coordinator’s office in the occupied territories, where they were assured that the shelter and hospital were not included in the evacuation order and that staff could remain there.However, the following day, a shell struck the building, severely injuring a five-year-old girl, the daughter of one of the organization’s staff, who later succumbed to her injuries.<\/p>\n
A similar incident occurred about a month later, in February 2024, when a tank fired at another building in Khan Younis where staff members were sheltering. This attack resulted in the death of one staff member’s wife and daughter, along with severe injuries to seven others, including women and children.In July 2024, the organization’s lawyer, Omer Shats, approached the military prosecutor, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, requesting an investigation into these incidents and clarifying how they might align with international law. The Israeli army did not respond to this request and ignored subsequent follow-ups. Five months later, Shats learned that the cases had been transferred to the army’s review section, responsible for investigating potential violations of international law. However, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res has yet to receive any information regarding the investigation’s outcomes, even more than two years after the incidents occurred.Human rights organizations have strongly criticized Israel for its refusal to investigate potential war crimes. Haaretz noted that a recent United Nations report indicated a prevailing atmosphere of impunity within the Israeli army regarding legal accountability for such actions. In its response the Israeli army stated that it has a professional effective and independent system for examining claims of violations of war laws including those related to harm to medical personnel or facilities with each case being assessed individually in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res reports six lethal assaults by the Israeli military against its personnel and their families in Gaza, with no formal investigation conducted to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}