A new report Thursday from New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch, or HRW, accuses Israel of deliberately carrying out genocide by depriving civilians in Gaza of adequate water supplies, likely resulting in thousands of deaths.
The 179-page report published on the group’s website shows that since the start of the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas in October 2023, Israeli authorities and forces have cut off piped water supplies to Gaza and later restricted it. Also cut power and restricted fuel. , rendering most of the enclave’s sanitation infrastructure useless.
Additionally, the report stated that Israel deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked access to vital water supplies.
In a statement, HRW executive director Tirana Hassan accused Israel of deliberately depriving Palestinians of an element essential to human life for more than a year.
“This is not just negligence,” Hasan said. “This is a deliberate policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands of people from dehydration and disease, amounting to nothing less than a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.”
Israel vehemently denies the allegations. In a statement, Israel’s regional agency coordinating government activities in COGAT, called HRW’s allegations an “outrageous claim” and “a grave lie.”
The COGAT statement said millions of liters of water flow into Gaza through three pipelines, and that Israel has “facilitated the repair of hundreds of water infrastructure and hundreds of water lines leading from Israel to Gaza.” “Repaired those that were damaged by Hamas.”
“We operate in accordance with international law,” COGAT’s statement said. “Anything to say otherwise is just blatant deception,” the statement said.
Earlier on Thursday, medics in Gaza reported that overnight Israeli air strikes killed at least 13 people in northern and central parts of the Gaza Strip.
The attacks came as mediators tried to secure a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would include the release of hostages still in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Wednesday that he was “hopeful” an agreement could be reached and pledged to spend the remaining days of the Biden administration trying to hammer out a deal.
“It should be like this. It is necessary that this happens. We need to bring people home,” Blinken said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We need to get a ceasefire. “We need to move people in a different direction, toward a better life, toward repairing the terrible damage that has been done.”
Blinken said Hamas has been the “main obstacle” to a ceasefire agreement, but he thinks Hamas leaders understand at this point that their backers like Hezbollah and Iran “are not coming to the rescue.”
CIA Director William Burns arrived in Qatar on Wednesday for a meeting with Qatari officials, the latest in months of efforts by the United States, Qatar and Egypt to sign an agreement.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, spoke to reporters on Wednesday and expressed hope that an agreement would be reached.
“After several denials by Hamas, we are hopeful that we will have some news before the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays,” Danon said.
Still, Danon cautioned that in the past, Hamas had made such demands at the last minute, which had scuppered other potential agreements, while the militants blamed Israel for the months-long standoff in stalling the war. Was.
New possible terms for a ceasefire and the release of hostages seemed variable.
“We hope this will happen in one step with the release of all the hostages”, Dannon said, “because we want to see all the hostages return home.”
However, he added, “Maybe it won’t happen in one phase. And basically, it will be similar to what we saw in the past, more than a year ago – that you have a ceasefire, a long one, and at the same time of the ceasefire, during that ceasefire, hostages are released Will go. “And we are mainly talking about the humanitarian aspect of women and sick and elderly hostages.”
Months of talks have proved futile in stopping the fighting that began with a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and captured 250 hostages.
Gaza health officials say at least 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli counterattacks, more than half of them women and children, while Israel says thousands of Hamas fighters are among the dead.
Hamas is designated as a terrorist group by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and others.
VOA United Nations correspondent Margaret Beshear contributed to this report. Some information came from Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters,