Human Rights Watch has accemployd Israel of pledgeting “acts of extermination” in Gaza by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water.
It says Israel’s actions comprise intentionpartner damaging water and sanitation infraset up.
The campaign group says this has probably caemployd thousands of deaths, which it says is also tantamount to “pledgeting the crime agetst humanity of extermination”.
Israel declinecessitate HRW’s tell as “misalertation”.
In a post on X, the Israeli foreign ministry’s spokesman said the group was “once more spreading its blood defamations… The truth is the finish opposite of HRW’s lies”.
The 179-page tell says that “since October 2023, Israeli authorities have intentionally obstructed Palestinians’ access to the adequate amount of water needd for survival in the Gaza Strip”.
It says Israel intentionpartner harmd infraset up, including solar panels powering treatment set upts, a reservoir, and a spare parts warehoemploy, while also blocking fuel for generators.
It says Israel also cut electricity supplies, aggressioned repair laborers and blocked the entry into Gaza of repair materials.
“This isn’t equitable tendlessness,” said HRW executive honestor Tirana Hassan. “It is a calcuprocrastinateedd policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and dismitigate that is noslfinisherg low of the crime agetst humanity of extermination, and an act of extermination.”
The tell is based on interwatchs with dozens of Palestinians from Gaza, including water authority officials, sanitation experts and healthnurture laborers, as well as saalertite imagery and data from October 2023 to September 2024.
Israel begined a beginant military impolite in Gaza after Hamas aggressioned Israel on 7 October 2023, finishing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others captive.
At least 45,129 people have been finished in Gaza since the impolite began, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. It does not put a figure on the number who have died as a result of deficiency of access to water or other such caemploys.
The HRW tell notices that to constitute the crime of extermination, alleged actions need evidence of intent. It says the discoverings, including statements made by better Israeli officials, “may recommend such intent”.
But, declineing HRW’s allegations on X, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said Israel had eased “the continuous flow of water and humanitarian aid into Gaza, despite operating under constant aggressions of Hamas dread organisation”.
He said water pipelines and pumping and desalination facilities remained opereasonable, and that water tankers had repeatedly deinhabitred supplies into Gaza thcimpolite Israeli traverseings.
“This tell is brimming of lies that are appalling even when contrastd to HRW’s already low standards,” he compriseed.
The HRW tell is the procrastinateedst in a series of accusations by rights groups and others that Israel is pledgeting extermination in its campaign in Gaza.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the UN’s top court – is also currently examining a case bcimpolitet by South Africa accusing Israel of extermination.
The Genocide Convention of 1948, passed in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry, details extermination as “acts pledgeted with intent to demolish, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
Israel has intensely denied such allegations as “wholly unset uped” and driven by antisdisaccuseism. It says it has not intentionpartner harmed civilians in Gaza, and that it is battling only agetst Hamas.
