The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the United Nations to address allegations in a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) exposing war crimes Israeli forces committed while occupying Gaza hospitals.
- Israeli military forces caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients while occupying hospitals in the Gaza Strip during the current hostilities, amounting to war crimes.
- The Israeli military’s denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals.
- Israeli authorities have not investigated Israeli forces’ horrific abuses. Those responsible, including senior Israeli officials, should be held to account…
Witnesses at three hospitals told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces denied electricity, water, food, and medicines to patients; shot civilians; mistreated health workers; and deliberately destroyed medical facilities and equipment. Unlawful forced evacuations put patients at grave risk and left desperately needed hospitals nonfunctional.
“Israeli forces repeatedly demonstrated deadly cruelty against Palestinian patients in hospitals that they seized,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military’s denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals.”
In a statement, CAIR said:
“Relevant bodies of the United Nations must address the serious allegations of war crimes committed by the forces of the far-right Israeli government while forcibly occupying hospitals in Gaza. The world community must end its abandonment of the Palestinian people to Israel’s ongoing campaign of slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”
Yesterday, CAIR said that President Trump is acting like a “hostage of Benjamin Netanyahu” after the far-right Israeli government used American weapons to slaughter 183 Palestinian children in just 36 hours, destroying the ceasefire agreement that President Trump brokered and triggering the risk of further regional conflict, all so that Netanyahu can maintain political power.
CAIR also said the Trump administration must “stop this madness” as Israel has slaughtered more than 400 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, since it broke the existing ceasefire during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@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