Tel Aviv steps up Gaza massacre after Hamas frees US-Israeli captive: Rights group
A Geneva-based rights organization says Israel has intensified its deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip over the past week following the release of an Israeli-American captive by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group.
In a statement released on Monday, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) said that since Edan Alexander’s release on May 12, the occupying regime has killed an average of 98 Palestinians per day, including 81 through bombardment and 17 others due to starvation and lack of medical and life-saving supplies.
“Despite the hopes raised by the release of American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, which was expected to pave the way for a ceasefire and facilitate the effective entry of humanitarian aid, the reality has been quite the opposite,” it added.
“The pace of killings has intensified, no aid has been allowed in, and the international community remains silent, while US statements have yet to translate into meaningful action.”
Hamas released Alexander after several days of talks with the United States, which bypassed Israel and formed part of an effort to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and resume the flow of humanitarian aid into the besieged territory.
US President Donald Trump described Alexander’s release as a “step taken in good faith toward the United States and the efforts of the mediators.”
Euro-Med said hundreds of Israeli airstrikes, combined with ground incursions into Gaza over the past few days, clearly indicate the beginning of a large-scale assault that endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
It also condemned remarks by Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff, who claimed recently that the United States seeks to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that it is working to facilitate the delivery of aid.
“Such statements obscure an undeniable reality; the situation in Gaza has transcended a conventional humanitarian crisis, becoming a compound catastrophe and an organized genocide, executed with Israeli weapons and fully supported, both politically and militarily, by the United States,” it noted.
Meanwhile, the rights group called on all countries to fulfill their legal responsibility by taking urgent action to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza and hold the regime accountable for its crimes against Palestinians.
It further urged the international community to impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel for its systematic and grave violations of international law.
Israel waged its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, but it failed to achieve its declared objectives despite killing at least 53,339 Palestinians and injuring 121,034 others.
The usurping entity accepted longstanding negotiation terms by Hamas under a Gaza ceasefire, which began on January 19.
However, Israel violated the truce on March 2, cutting off humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Just over two weeks later, the criminal regime also resumed its deadly bombing campaign and redeployed troops to the territory.
Reports said on Monday that Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 32 Palestinians, mostly women and children, across Gaza since dawn.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis was among the areas targeted in the raids.
