Rights and Accountability 26 March 2025
People at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, mourn their loved ones killed in Israeli strikes overnight, 23 March.
ActiveStillsAt least 39 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry in the territory stated.
An additional 124 people were injured as Israel tightens its vise on the population of Gaza and is reportedly moving towards prolonged direct control of the territory under a more united right-wing political and military leadership.
The health ministry said that 830 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed its intensive attacks by air, land and sea on 18 March. Nearly 40 percent of those killed were children, according to the ministry.
The death toll in Gaza since 7 October 2023 reached a grim threshold of more than 50,000 confirmed fatalities in recent days, more than half of them women and children, according to the health ministry.
Another 11,000 people in Gaza are missing, according to the government media office in Gaza.Israel meanwhile issued new forcible transfer orders affecting tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza’s north, including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Shujaiya, using the launching of rockets from the areas as an apparent pretext.
The military also ordered people to move from areas in Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza.
On Monday, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, said that 124,000 people in Gaza had been displaced in recent days under “relentless bombardment.”
Some 15 percent of Gaza is currently under forced displacement orders, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which said that the affected 55 square kilometers across Gaza is “nearly the size of Manhattan.”
The Israeli military said that it intercepted three rockets fired from Gaza on Monday.
Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian faction, claimed credit for the projectiles that reportedly caused no injuries or damage. Hamas fired rockets from Gaza on two occasions last week, including three long-range projectiles reportedly aimed towards central Israel.
Longest suspension of aid yet
The government media office in Gaza said that Israel cut off the supply of electricity to the desalination plant in Deir al-Balah, threatening to exacerbate the water crisis in Gaza and increase the spread of disease “amid a deteriorating health environment and a severe shortage of medical services.”
Since October 2023, Israel has prevented the entry of fuel to Gaza’s sole power plant, denying electricity for critical infrastructure including hospitals as well as households. Thousands of electricity grids and transformers were destroyed during the war, according to the media office.
Gaza’s crossings have remained shut since early March, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid and fuel in violation of the ceasefire agreement reached in January.
The United Nations said that the ongoing closure of the crossings is “the longest such suspension” of the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza since 7 October 2023.
The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration in Washington was consulted before Israel cut off all aid to Gaza.
“Since the beginning of March, 15,000 aid trucks and 1,250 fuel trucks were supposed to enter,” the government media office said. The absence of the aid and fuel portends “a real catastrophe and a profound humanitarian crisis,” the media office added.
Tents belonging to Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza are set up in Gaza City after new Israeli displacement orders, 24 March.
APA imagesBakeries have stopped producing bread due to the fuel shortages, worsening the food crisis in Gaza that risks “imminent famine,” according to the media office.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, also said that the tightened blockade on Gaza is bringing the population “closer to an acute hunger crisis.”
Despite the risk of famine, the United Nations announced earlier this week that it would “reduce its footprint” in Gaza after a Bulgarian national was killed by what the UN said was Israeli tank fire at a guest house last week.
“Around a third of the approximately 100 international staff working in Gaza will be temporarily relocated,” the UN news agency said.
Badil, a group focused on the rights of Palestinian refugees, said that the UN decision “reflects how Israel and its colonial allies dictate the international order through impunity.”
The group added that the withdrawal of UN staff “highlights the failure of global institutions to act” and that “UN protection must be increased, not decreased” in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Israeli military demolishes cancer hospital
On Friday, the Israeli military destroyed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only dedicated cancer hospital in Gaza. The facility was out of service since November 2023 after it was targeted by the Israeli military and was later turned into a military barracks, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.
Video that circulated on social media showed that the hospital was blown up in a controlled demolition.
Israeli media reported that the military is investigating “the apparent unapproved demolition” of the hospital. Yehuda Vach, an Israeli brigadier general, is reportedly suspected of ordering the demolition of the facility without approval.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that the destruction of the hospital constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – which has issued arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister. The demolition of the hospital also deliberately inflicts conditions of life on a group intended to bring about its destruction in whole or in part, according to the rights group, and is thus a genocidal act.
Another Palestinian human rights group, Al-Haq, said that the detonation of the hospital “demonstrates Israel’s brazen impunity and dedication to destroying every single hospital in the Gaza Strip.”
In a report published earlier this month, an independent UN commission of inquiry stated that Israel is carrying out a “concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system.”
People search through the rubble after a building belonging to the Agha family was destroyed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, 23 March.
APA imagesThe Palestine Red Crescent Society stated on Wednesday that the fate of nine of its medics “remains unknown after they were targeted by occupation forces while carrying out their humanitarian duty in Rafah,” southern Gaza, on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, Israel targeted the surgical ward of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, killing two people and injuring eight others and severely damaging part of southern Gaza’s largest referral hospital.
Israel admitted to deliberately targeting the hospital, with defense minister Israel Katz stating that Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’ political wing, was killed in the strike.
Several officials in Hamas’ civilian leadership have been killed in Israeli strikes since 18 March in what appears to be an effort to undercut the faction’s ability to maintain control over Gaza’s internal affairs.
On Monday, Israel killed two journalists – Al Jazeera correspondent Hossam Shabat and Palestine Today reporter Mohammad Mansour.
Last year, Israel alleged that Shabat, whose car was hit in a targeted drone strike, and five other journalists were operatives for the armed wings of Palestinian factions in what was widely viewed as a thinly veiled threat of assassination.
Al Mezan, a Palestinian human rights group, said that Shabat and Mansour, the latter of whom was killed in a strike on his home in Khan Younis, were “deliberately targeted” in a situation of “complete impunity” that has allowed for the killing of nearly 200 journalists since October 2023.Israel’s “more aggressive” tactics
Meanwhile, Hamas said that it was studying a “bridge” proposal put forward by US special envoy Steve Witkoff to extend the ceasefire into April to give more time to negotiate a permanent end to the war.
Hamas reportedly agreed to a similar plan recently put forward by Egypt to revive the ceasefire deal.
According to Haaretz, the plan would see the release of five living captives held in Gaza, including Edan Alexander, an Israeli soldier with US citizenship. The Egyptian initiative would also include “the provision of information to Israel on the hostages’ wellbeing” in exchange for Israel allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza and ceasing attacks.
But Israel “is insisting on the release of 11 living hostages, which is about half the total believed to be held by Hamas,” according to Haaretz, which cited an Israeli source involved in negotiations.
Of the more than 250 captives seized on 7 October 2023, 59 remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to still be alive.
On Monday, the armed wing of Hamas released a new video showing two Israeli men being held in Gaza and later said that the Israeli bombardment was endangering their lives.
But it appears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, have little interest in a permanent ceasefire that would ensure the release of the remaining captives in Gaza.
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a proposal by Katz to create an administrative body to facilitate “voluntary” migration from Gaza in what the defense minister said was “in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s vision” to relocate the Palestinian population from the territory. Trump has apparently backtracked from that “vision,” recently telling a reporter that “nobody’s expelling any Palestinians.”
Amos Harel, an analyst writing for Haaretz, said that the cabinet decision “reflects the continued preparations for a new Israeli takeover of Gaza” in which a military government will be restored throughout the territory – something that has not yet been formally decided upon by the cabinet.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Israel’s “new and more aggressive tactics” will be “a more intense version” of the siege imposed on northern Gaza last year.
The blueprint for that offensive was the so-called Generals’ Plan aimed at depopulating northern Gaza through siege, starvation and extermination – and anyone remaining after being ordered to leave would be treated as a combatant, effectively turning the area into an extermination zone.
An explosion following an Israeli airstrike targeting a building in Gaza City on 23 March.
APA imagesThe tactics of a “more aggressive” version of this campaign would likely include “direct military control of humanitarian aid; targeting more of Hamas’ civilian leadership; and evacuating women, children and vetted noncombatants from neighborhoods to ‘humanitarian bubbles’ and laying siege to those who remain.”
This approach is enabled by greater unity between the Netanyahu government and the military – with its new leadership more sympathetic to right-wing political leaders than what it replaced – and the absence of even verbal opposition from the Trump administration about minimizing harm to civilians, according to The Washington Post.
But there are still apparent disagreements between the political establishment, on the one hand, and the security and military establishment, on the other.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a former Israeli military intelligence official, told The Post that the security establishment had opposed removing Hamas from power because in that scenario, the Israeli military “would have to rule Gaza.”
While there are some in the political and military establishments who are advocating for direct Israeli control over Gaza, the more likely scenario may be that the current escalation in Gaza is aimed at putting pressure on Hamas in the context of negotiations – while risking the lives of the remaining captives.
An unnamed Israeli official indicated to The Washington Post that the escalation in Gaza is a form of coercive diplomacy and that the “bridge” proposal from Witkoff is “still on the table.”
Israeli military enlistment dips
As the analyst Harel notes, if prolonged, direct military control of Gaza is in fact Israel’s strategic objective, “it’s not self-evident that the [Israeli military] will be able to find enough troops to carry out such an ambitious goal.”
According to Haaretz, some army units are recruiting volunteers on social media and offering economic incentives due to fears that reservists, doubting the strategic direction of the war, will not report for duty in the event of another mass mobilization.
Reservists are now being threatened with fines by their commanders, contrary to military procedures, if they don’t show when called up. Israeli media outlets have stated that the current rate of enlistment is only 60 percent in certain units.
Meanwhile, even a weakened Hamas “remains a potent adversary,” as Reuters stated in a report published last week after interviewing sources close to the faction, as well as Israeli and Palestinian analysts.
“In the weeks before the ceasefire took effect in January, Hamas killed dozens of Israeli soldiers with hit-and-run guerrilla warfare that was some of the deadliest of the conflict,” Reuters stated.
If it attempts prolonged, direct control, the Israeli military would be up against the resistance in Gaza while the political establishment is already being met with massive protests demanding a negotiated return of the captives.
Vicky Cohen, the mother of an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza, said in an interview with a Haaretz reporter during a protest in Jerusalem last week that “Israel never intended to go through with the second stage” of the ceasefire. She said the renewed offensive is not aimed at returning the captives in Gaza, who have been forsaken by the Israeli government.
“As far as [the government] is concerned, it is time to go back to war, to take revenge on Hamas and to bring Hamas down,” she said. “It hasn’t brought Hamas down in over a year, how will it succeed now?”
Danny Elagart, whose brother Itzik was killed while being held in Gaza, accused the Israeli government of sacrificing the captives for its self-preservation.
“Israel today is neither democratic nor Jewish. It is a messianic dictatorship that uses the lives of civilians for the sake of remaining in power,” Elagart told protesters outside of Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Domestic turmoil amid right-wing power grab
An estimated 200,000 Israelis gathered in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and other cities on Saturday night to protest the renewed fighting in Gaza and to demand the release of the captives.
Many of the protesters, which include right-wing Israelis as well as centrists and those on the left, also oppose Netanyahu’s moves to sack senior officials including intelligence chief Ronen Bar and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara as he consolidates his control over state institutions.
“Those decisions have set the stage for a constitutional crisis,” the JTA reported. “The protesters portray them as an abrogation of the popular will that will endanger the 59 remaining hostages … as well as Israel’s democracy.”
Israel’s parliament passed a state budget on Tuesday, preserving Netanyahu’s coalition government and preventing snap elections.
“This is a budget of war, and with God’s help, it will be a budget of victory,” Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, said shortly before the vote.
The preservation of the government allows Netanyahu and his far-right allies to move forward with their efforts to undermine the independence of Israel’s judiciary – efforts that fomented massive protests in the country on the eve of the 7 October 2023 attack.
The stabilization of the coalition government will also allow it to approve the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jews from compulsory military service and advance bills formalizing the de facto annexation of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli parliament will be voting on proposed legislation to overhaul the judiciary on Thursday.
Benny Gantz, the former Israeli defense minister, reportedly warned Israel’s current justice minister that moving ahead with the vote would be a “mistake” and that Israel is on “the brink of a civil war” – echoing comments made by Aharon Barak, the former president of Israel’s high court, reported by media last week.
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