Photos: YouTube Screenshots
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/3/2023) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned the Israeli government’s latest massacre of Palestinians civilians on a roadway who were fleeing to avoid its genocidal attacks on Gaza. That massacre reportedly took place on al-Rashid road, which the Israeli military previously told civilians to use to flee south.
SEE: Israeli attack kills 14 fleeing south: Gaza health officials
CAIR also condemned and Israeli strike on Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, noting that international laws of war prohibit targeting medical facilities.
To date, Israel has killed 9,227 Palestinians in Gaza,including 3,826 children and 2,405 women. Some 23,516 other people have been wounded.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has said Gaza is turning into a “graveyard of children.”
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“These war crimes by Benjamin Netanyahu’s openly racist and genocidal far-right government are just the latest reminder of why the Biden administration must change course and demand a ceasefire. How many more innocent Palestinians have to die before our nation stops this violence? How can so many human hearts have turned to stone in the face of images of dismembered children, women scattered across a roadway, killed as they fled to safety? Our nation must stop this horror.”
Earlier this week, CAIR condemned a repeat Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, which left an unknown number of people killed and injured, and said it is “running out of words” to describe the American Muslim community’s disappointment with the Biden administration’s refusal to demand a ceasefire.
Washington, D.C., based CAIR said the repeated attacks on refugee camps, other residential areas, medical facilities, mosques, churches, schools, journalists, and U.N. facilities is further proof of Israeli war crimes, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing.
SEE: Another Wave of Israeli Strikes Hit Gaza Refugee Camp
CAIR called on President Biden to “stop the madness” after Israeli forces massacred more than 100 Palestinians in bombings of the same camp, tortured naked Palestinian prisoners on camera in the West Bank, forced a blindfolded captive to shout “long live Israel,” and used a tank to blow up a fleeing civilian vehicle in northern Gaza.
CAIR recently said it is “unacceptable” for the Biden administration to continue refusing to seek a ceasefire in Gaza despite the fact that many American travelers and hostages are under Israeli bombardment that has already killed more than 8,000, including thousands of children.
CAIR previously called Israeli government’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza “genocide” after the death toll of Palestinians topped 5,000.
CAIR also said U.S. officials will be complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza unless they intervene after the Israeli government announced that any Palestinian civilians who refuse to leave their homes in north Gaza could be identified as accomplices with a terrorist organization, and presumably targeted for killing by Israeli forces.
[NOTE: More than 87,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and the renewal of U.S.-led efforts to end the occupation. SEE: Urge Your Members of Congress to Address Root Cause of Mideast Violence (cair.com) ]
BACKGROUNDER:
CAIR condemned a deadly Israeli airstrike targeting the Greek Orthodox Church campus in Gaza that killed 17 people.
Israel’s far-right defense minister has said that Israel is fighting “human animals” and that the entire Gaza population would be treated accordingly through a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip that block all supplies of electricity, food and fuel. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres he is “deeply distressed” by that blockade.
According to the Geneva Convention, states must allow the free passage of medical supplies, food, and other relief supplies for the benefit of a civilian population.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that it a war crime to: “Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, includin[sic] impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions.”
Collective punishment is also prohibited by Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions, which states: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”
