(WASHINGTON, D.C., 12/21/2023) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said Israel’s new ethnic cleansing order, the bulldozing of bodies in a Gaza cemetery and the forced starvation of Palestinian children are the latest “Israeli car crimes of the day.”
In a new act of ethnic cleansing, the United Nations said Israel ordered the evacuation of large areas of Khan Yunis in which more than 140,000 displaced people are sheltering.
Al Jazeera reports that Israeli Bulldozers destroyed the Sheikh Shaban cemetery in the as-Saha neighborhood in eastern Gaza, with dead bodies exhumed and crushed under the bulldozers’ tracks. “Parts of the dead bodies, including those of children, are clearly visible around the area.”
Associated Press reports that a quarter of the population of Gaza – more than half a million people – are starving. Disease is also spreading in Gaza following Israel’s destruction of the medical infrastructure.
Reuters says that hunger “has become the most pressing of the myriad problems facing hundreds of thousands of displaced Gaza Palestinians.” UNICEF reports that “children in the Gaza Strip do not access 90 per cent of their normal water use.”
SEE: Gaza Children Dizzy from Hunger as War Impedes Food Deliveries (Reuters)
A report published today by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says that the proportion of Gaza households facing crisis levels of hunger is the highest it has ever recorded globally. IPC reported that “over 90 percent of the population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.08 million people) was estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity.”
“Intentionally denying children food and bulldozing bodies would be regarded as war crimes in any conflict and are crimes our nation’s leaders would condemn in every other circumstance,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “The fact that the Biden administration is not only failing to condemn the forced starvation of children, and the many other war crimes committed daily by the far-right genocidal government of Israel, means that our claim to be a standard-bearer of human rights has been permanently shredded.”
Yesterday, CAIR joined calls for a United Nations investigation of the latest “Israeli war crime of the day” – allegations that Israeli forces in Gaza carried our summary executions of unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members. Eyewitnesses are now coming forward to confirm these allegations.
Israel has now killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and including hundreds of UN workers, journalists and medical personnel.
Earlier this week, CAIR condemned other “war crimes of the day,” including the reported mass killing of a Palestinian grandfather’s family in front of his eyes, vandalism of West Bank homes by Israeli forces, the deaths and alleged torture of Palestinian detainees, and more massacres in refugee camps and residential areas of Gaza.
Also this week, CAIR condemned a deadly Israeli strikes on a Gaza maternity hospital and other medical facilities, the killing of more than 100 people in a refugee camp and the killing of two Christians seeking shelter in a besieged church.
Pope Francis condemned Israel’s killing of two Christian women sheltering at a Catholic parish in Gaza, noting that “unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire.”
At least 110 people were killed in Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
Over the weekend, CAIR called for United Nations to investigate reports that Israeli forces in Gaza bulldozed medical tents with injured Palestinians inside, allegedly burying civilians alive and said that the Israeli military’s killing of three unarmed, shirtless Israelis waving a white flag is further proof that Israeli troops are “wantonly killing Palestinian civilians.”
Earlier today, CAIR said that the Israeli military’s killing of three unarmed, shirtless Israelis waving a white flag is further proof that Israeli troops are “wantonly killing Palestinian civilians.”
CAIR recently called on the Biden administration to respond to reports that Israel forces shot women, children and babies “execution-style” after they sought refuge in a school in Gaza.
CAIR condemned the attempted assassination of an Al Jazeera journalist (and the ultimate death of another) by Israeli forces, the desecration of Gaza cemeteries by Israeli troops in Gaza, and a deadly airstrike targeting a UN school in Gaza.
OTHER ISRAELI WAR CRIMES:
A new US intelligence assessment concluded that nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided, also known as “dumb bombs.” Unguided munitions are typically less precise and can pose a greater threat to civilians.
CAIR condemned the Israeli government’s celebration of IDF troops who took over and desecrated a mosque in the West Bank as an “attack on Islam.”
CAIR said the far-right Israeli government’s controlled demolition of a U.N. school in Gaza is “further evidence of the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing.”
Video posted online shows a man, reportedly with special needs, being detained by Israeli soldiers and then shot at point-blank range.
CAIR condemned an Israeli attack on another hospital in Gaza and said the Biden administration is actively participating in Israel’s “ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.”
CAIR condemned another “war crime of the day” – the slaughter of at least 50 civilians in airstrikes on two UN-run schools sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
CAIR recently called on the Biden administration to address reporting that the U.S. supplied the Israeli government with white phosphorus used in attacks on civilian areas.
The Israeli government’s extremist leaders have declared that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, justified cutting off water, electricity and other basic necessities because Palestinians are ‘human animals,’ embraced an ancient biblical verse about the mass slaughter of an entire city from animals to infants, demanded a million residents of northern Gaza leave their homes or face death, and announced that the aim of the bombing in Gaza was destruction rather than accuracy.
CAIR said a new report by Heritage for Peace detailing Israel’s ongoing destruction of Palestinian cultural sites shows its desire to entirely “eliminate Palestinian existence.”
Washington, D.C., based CAIR questioned whether Western leaders even regard Palestinians as “human” after more than 700 women, children and men were massacred by Israel within just the last 24 hours.
CAIR condemned the “Israeli war crime of the day” after more than 100 men, women and children were killed in the bombing of residential buildings hosting displaced families in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com, CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com