DaysofPal – The Government Media Office in Gaza announced on Saturday that Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, now in its 700th day, has devastated nearly all aspects of life, destroying 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure and causing losses exceeding $68 billion.
In a statement published on its Telegram channel, the office declared, “The Israeli occupation continues its 700th day of its genocidal war, forced displacement, and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, amidst shameful international complicity and silence.”
The statement detailed the staggering human toll, reporting that “during this period, the occupation committed horrific massacres, resulting in the death and disappearance of 73,731 people, including more than 20,000 children and 12,500 women, in addition to the annihilation of 2,700 entire families, as recorded in the civil registry.”
Health and professional sectors have also been decimated. The office reported that “during this period, the occupation killed 1,670 medical personnel, 248 journalists, 139 civil defense workers, and 173 municipal employees, and injured more than 162,000 others, including thousands who suffered amputations, paralysis, and blindness.”
The destruction of civilian infrastructure has been catastrophic. According to the Media Office, Israel has “completely destroyed 38 hospitals, 833 mosques, and 163 educational institutions, in addition to inflicting significant damage to thousands of other facilities.”
It accused Israel of pursuing a systematic campaign of forced displacement: “The occupation forces are committing a systematic crime of forced displacement against our Palestinian people, especially in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, by preventing them from returning to their homes and destroying their neighborhoods and vital facilities, in blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute, thus constituting a war crime and a crime against humanity that warrants international prosecution.”
The office further charged Israel with using starvation as a weapon of war: “The occupation has imposed a systematic policy of starvation through a comprehensive siege of the civilian population, preventing hundreds of thousands of trucks carrying food and aid from entering, thus causing a humanitarian catastrophe that threatens the lives of more than 2.4 million people, including more than one million children who are on the brink of death from hunger.”
Holding Israel and its backers responsible, the office condemned “in the strongest terms the continuation of this criminal war,” and held “the Israeli occupation and the countries supporting it, most notably the United States, fully responsible for these crimes.” It called on Arab and Islamic states, the UN, and the broader international community to “take immediate, serious, and effective action to stop the aggression against our Palestinian people, lift the siege, guarantee the return of the displaced, and hold the occupation leaders accountable before international courts as war criminals.”
In a separate statement, the Media Office denounced Israel’s targeting of Gaza City’s residential towers, over 51,000 in total, rejecting claims that the buildings serve as Hamas military sites. “We refute, in detail, the lies and claims propagated by the Israeli occupation to justify its barbaric aggression,” it said. “We categorically affirm, and residents of these towers can attest, that these buildings are under civilian control… completely free of any equipment, weapons, or fortifications; all floors are open and visible to the public.”
The office accused Israel of running a campaign of disinformation to legitimize its attacks: “The false claims being propagated by the occupying forces are merely part of their systematic policy of disinformation, which they use to justify targeting civilians and infrastructure, and to terrorize the population and forcibly displace them. This constitutes a systematic crime of forced displacement, which amounts to a crime against humanity under international humanitarian law.”
Finally, the statement rejected Israel’s claims of minimizing harm: “The occupying forces claim to have taken ‘measures to minimize civilian harm,’ but the facts on the ground demonstrate that the aerial bombardment of the towers was directed specifically at civilian buildings and the thousands of tents sheltering displaced people, without any legitimate military justification. This constitutes a flagrant violation of the principles of distinction and proportionality enshrined in international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime.”
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