Human Rights Watch pleads for arms shipments to Israel and Palestinian groups to stop

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) requested this Monday that Israel’s allies and those who support the Palestinian militias stop sending weapons to the parties in conflict for “the real risk that they will be used to commit serious abuses.”

The organization asserted that Israel and Palestinian armed groups have committed serious abuses amounting to war crimes during the current hostilities, detailing that while Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups deliberately killed hundreds of civilians in Israel on October 7, 2023 and They took more than 200 hostages. Then, “Israel cut off electricity, fuel, food and water to the people of Gaza and severely restricted life-saving humanitarian aid, all acts of collective punishment.”.

The organization referred in particular to The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany, which support Israel through military assistance and the sale of weapons; and to Iran, which offers weapons to Palestinian groups such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

“The United States, Iran and other governments risk becoming complicit in serious abuses if they continue to provide military assistance to known offenders,” said HRW deputy executive director and former Costa Rican foreign minister Bruno Stagno, who warned that civilians are being punished at an “unprecedented” level in the recent history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“They have also repeatedly used explosive weapons with widespread effects in densely populated areas, reducing entire blocks and large parts of neighborhoods to rubble and raising serious concerns about indiscriminate attacks, and have indiscriminately used white phosphorus, an incendiary material that burns human flesh and can cause lifelong sufferingin populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon,” stated the NGO.

HRW also recalled the Israeli Army’s orders to the population of the Palestinian enclave to leave the north of the territory, despite the fact that there was no way to move safely, something that “threatens (to become) a massive forced displacement, a crime.” of war”.

*With information from EFE.

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