The Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling expresses outrage at the horrific attacks by Israel on Gaza and calls upon the United Nations, international community and all human rights organizations and civil society to take immediate action to condemn Israel’s actions and to call on Israel to cease all attacks on Gaza. As the situation reaches critical proportions we urge all UN agencies and international governments to take concrete action to bring an end to the grossly disproportionate Israeli attacks and protect the Palestinian people.

More than 430 Palestinians have now been killed and 2,240 have been injured since Israel's aerial bombardment began on Saturday 27th December 2008, many of them are women and children. These massive airstrikes on an impoverished and largely defenceless civilian population must be condemned as unlawful and representing massive violations of international humanitarian law. These acts must be condemned not only by the Palestinian human rights community, but by the leaders of those countries party to the Geneva Conventions who have a responsibility to ensure respect for the Conventions. The situation is a catastrophe for the Palestinian people living in Gaza and action must be taken by the international community, failure to do so may lead to complicity in Israel’s war crimes by those countries that remain silent or tacitly agree to Israel’s aggression.

Many of those killed have been civilians. Just one example is that of five sisters from the Ba’lousha family aged between four and seventeen years, who were killed by an Israeli airstrike on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on 28th December. Such civilian deaths, caused by Israeli airstrikes on a residential area, constitute willful killing and are thus a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime. The attacks have caused extensive damage to thousands of residential homes all over the Gaza Strip, as well as to the civilian infrastructure, to hospitals, mosques and universities and the water and sanitation system. Since Tuesday 30 December 2008, sewage water has pouring into the streets in Beit Hanoun in Gaza, following damage to the main pipeline between Beit Hanoun and the Beit Lahiya wastewater treatment plant.

WCLAC repeats its position that such targeting of civilians, the extensive and unjustified destruction of property and attacks on civilian objects are unlawful and constitute war crimes. WCLAC also reiterates its deep concern about the short and long term psychological impact on the Palestinian people living in Gaza.

The attacks have a profound psychological impact on the people of Gaza, deeply affecting women who take on the caring responsibilities for their families and maintaining the homes. This is now impossible as most families are holed up in one to two rooms that are considered the safest in the home, without electricity for 16 hours a day and barely running water. Children have nowhere safe to go and cannot attend school. Families are having to constantly move from one place to another: moving to shelters or safer places at night to sleep yet there is nowhere safe for them to go. They cannot leave and the attacks keep coming.

We further refer to the earlier collective punishment of the people of Gaza by Israel. Entry and exit to the Gaza Strip was completely sealed off and lead to massive shortages of food, medicines and fuel and also the ordinary things that are necessary for the living of a normal life such as parts for water and sanitation systems, fertiliser, plastic sheeting, phones, paper, glue, shoes. There has also been disruption to electricity supplies and to clean water supplies. The siege left Gaza with a health system in a state of near collapse, and hospitals lacking medicines and essential equipment. With the onset of the brutal attacks on Gaza, hospitals and emergency services have been left struggling to treat the large numbers of victims and greatly exacerbating the already catastrophic situation for the people of Gaza.

We therefore call on all United Nations agencies, international governments and all human rights organizations and civil society to:
(1) Call, in the strongest possible terms, for Israel to immediately cease all attacks on Gaza;
(2) Condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza as massive violations of international humanitarian law and as such war crimes and crimes against humanity;
(3) Call upon the international community to support the call for an immediate ceasefire and end to the violence;
(4) Call for and lobby members of the United Nations Security Council to bring about a resolution under Chapter VII, the attacks on Gaza by Israel, being a threat to the peace and security in the region;
(5) Support and actively work towards a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, as called for by the Palestinian human rights community. Support the holding of such meeting with a view to holding Israel to account for the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza and to enforce the obligations of the High Contracting parties to ensure respect for the Geneva Convention by Israel in circumstances where grave breaches are being committed ;
(6) Call for an end to the collective punishment of the people of Gaza through the siege which has been largely maintained during the brutal airstrikes with catastrophic humanitarian consequences;
(7) Take immediate measures to provide protection for the Palestinian people;