US Support Enables Netanyahu's Gaza 'War Crimes Strategy': Rights Expert
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The US government's ongoing military support for Israel is enabling the regime’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's “war crimes strategy” in Gaza, said Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Roth emphasized that international pressure on Netanyahu to end the genocidal war in Gaza is insufficient.
"If you look at President Joe Biden, he says the right things. He says take more care to spare Palestinian civilian life. Let in more food and humanitarian aid. But he doesn’t back that up with action," Roth stated.
"He continues supplying the arms and the military aid that is used to bomb and starve Palestinian civilians," he added.
"When the International Criminal Court prosecutor sought an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Biden said it was, basically, an outrage," Roth noted.
Roth criticized Biden for not providing tangible support to his verbal cautions, pointing out that Biden is Netanyahu's most significant backer.
"Until that changes, I fear that Netanyahu is going to feel that he still has a green light to keep going with the war crimes strategy that he has been pursuing," Roth stated.
Just after midday local time (09:15 GMT), Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee announced that Israeli forces had launched an attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
Adraee later stated that Israel attacked two separate buildings "in the depths of Nuseirat" in "broad daylight," rescuing four captives.
"The one problem with operating during the day is that civilians are all about. And some of the bombs clearly fell either on, or right adjacent to, a market in al-Nuseirat which was filled with people," Roth told Al Jazeera.
Zaid, a paramedic from the Nuseirat area, told Reuters that "Israeli drones and warplanes fired all night randomly at people’s houses and at people who tried to flee the area" before the attack on Saturday.
The attack followed days of intensified Israeli raids on Nuseirat and other neighboring refugee camps in central Gaza.
Earlier in the week, Israeli strikes on Nuseirat intensified, with local officials reporting at least 40 people killed in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced Palestinians had been sleeping, in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The Government Media Office in Gaza reported that the "Israeli massacre" in Nuseirat on Saturday killed 210 Palestinians and injured more than 400.
Two witnesses told Al Jazeera about a unit of Israeli soldiers arriving in a truck carrying furniture to apparently appear as if they were displaced Palestinians moving into a residential building in Nuseirat.
"They arrived in an undercover truck, pretending to be moving furniture as if they were displaced individuals," one witness said. "They bombed my house, as well as my brother’s and the neighbors’."
Another witness described how Israeli soldiers used a ladder to climb into his home as he was preparing breakfast for his wife and baby.
"I caught sight of a specialized forces unit. It had furniture in the vehicle to make it look like it belonged to displaced people. Suddenly the operative got out two ladders and came into our home fully armed. Chaos erupted with gunfire and explosions," he said.
"My 18-month baby boy cried out in fear," he said. "My wife was screaming."
A paramedic who witnessed the Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp said it was “like a horror movie, but this was a real massacre”, Reuters reported.
Ziad, a 45-year-old paramedic from Nuseirat who gave only his first name, told Reuters the attack hit near a marketplace and al-Awda Mosque.
“Israeli drones and warplanes fired all night randomly at people’s houses and at people who tried to flee the area,” said Ziad.
“To free four people, Israel killed dozens of innocent civilians,” he said.
Many bodies were still lying in the streets, including around the market district, after the attack, Ziad and other residents said.
