Israel has executed dozens of elderly people in the besieged Gaza Strip in direct shooting operations, a report says, while the occupying regime has turned all people into targets since the onset of the current war.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported on Friday that Israeli soldiers had killed 1,049 elderly men and women during the regime’s 76-day brutal war on the densely-populated sliver.
The figure, according to the Geneva-based rights organization, is about one percent of the estimated 107,000 elderly people who live in Gaza and 3.9 percent of all Palestinians who have been killed so far in the war.
The report said that most of these Palestinian elderly lost their lives as they were crushed under the debris of their bombed homes or shelter centers where they had sought safety, or while trying to secure basic necessities in the streets and marketplaces.
Citing horrifying testimonies, the rights group, however, stressed that dozens of these elderly were targeted by Israeli soldiers in killings and field executions.
“These incidents included soldiers shooting elderly people immediately after ordering them to evacuate their homes, and in some cases, executing them just moments after their release from hours or days of arbitrary detention,” the report said.
The rights group recounted the shocking execution of several of these elderly Palestinians, stressing, “All of these cases are merely examples of the killings and field executions that have occurred in areas where Israeli land incursions are taking place, resulting in the deaths of dozens of elderly people.”
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
Since the start of the US-backed offensive, the Israeli regime has killed more than 20,057 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 53,320 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
“Israel is waging a campaign of widespread punishment and killing, and oppressing Palestinian society’s most vulnerable groups in a way that is seldom seen in the modern history of wars or armed conflicts. Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza fully unveils its blatant disregard for international humanitarian law and is a serious transgression of the principles of war,” Euro-Med Monitor added.
In conclusion, the rights group renewed its call on the international community, particularly the signatory countries to the Geneva Convention, to take over their responsibilities to ensure protection for civilians in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.