Israel's Aggression Against Occupied Palestine: December 2024

The end of December marked the 452 days of Israel's genocidal aggression against the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Occupation Forces, IOF, continued targeting defenseless Palestinian civilians and their property by air, land and sea committing dozens of massacres. The IOF continued targeting residential homes, shelter centres, displaced persons’ gatherings and their tents without warning, in addition to widespread destruction of infrastructure and issuing more forced displacement decisions to clear Palestinians from the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Israeli military operations continued during December in all areas of the Gaza Strip. Still, they were focused in particular on the northern Gaza Strip in Beit Hanoun, Jabablia and Beit Lahiya, targeting hospitals and shelter centres. On 27 December 2024, IOF stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, set it on fire, detained most of its medical staff, and ordered those who had remained to leave.

During the same week, as part of a broader campaign to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system, three other hospitals were attacked: Al-Wafa and Al-Ahli Arab Hospitals in Gaza and Al-Awda Hospital in the north. EuroMed Human Rights Monitor revealed that IOF committed heinous crimes while storming Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding areas which included deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area. Moreover, the UN Human Rights Office accused Israel in a report of committing war crimes by deliberately launching attacks against hospitals and civilians. IOF has also been using starvation as a weapon of war to kill and displace Palestinians by blocking the entry of humanitarian aid, particularly in the north. According to UNOCHA, between October 6 and December 30, 2024, the UN attempted to get to the besieged Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip 164 times.

However, the Israeli authorities categorically rejected 148 of these attempts and obstructed 16. For his part, the head of the UN aid coordination office in Gaza, Georgios Petropoulos, stated that “dying hungry and in pain” is an increasingly likely outcome for children, mothers, aid workers, and teachers alike that “when we raise these things with Israeli authorities, they reject virtually every single practical solution that we table; the aid system has been weaponised.”