The world’s complete failure to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the past year is doing irreparable damage to international law, with terrifying global consequences, Islamic Relief warns as the wider Middle East region stands on the precipice of disaster.

Over the past year we have seen international law violated every day with total impunity. Israel’s indiscriminate and relentless attacks have killed and wounded civilians at a faster rate than anywhere this century. Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon of war, blocking food from reaching starving children. Families are ordered from one area to another like pawns on a chessboard, then bombed in the schools and tents where they are told to shelter. Entire neighbourhoods are now rubble, and schools, hospitals and religious sites have all come under unprecedented attack. More humanitarian workers, medics, teachers and journalists have been killed in Gaza than anywhere else. Warnings of ethnic cleansing, genocide and war crimes continue to be ignored as each day brings new horror and families are squeezed into ever-shrinking areas. Gaza’s entire society is being destroyed.   

International Humanitarian Law (IHL), or ‘the law of war’, was established to protect civilians all over the world from the impact of conflict. If these laws are not upheld consistently and are allowed to be violated so blatantly, there is even less chance of holding warring parties to account and protecting civilians elsewhere. Millions of lives affected by conflicts all over the world are at stake.  

Now as the crisis spreads, Islamic Relief continues to call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire across the region. International governments must use all their leverage to demand an end to attacks on civilians and violations of international law, including by ending all arms sales that fuel the violence. Ultimately Islamic Relief wants to see a lasting peace where all Palestinians and Israelis can live in safety and dignity, and have their same fundamental human rights upheld. We believe that this will not ultimately be possible until there is an end to the Israeli Occupation.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza is virtually unparalleled. An Islamic Relief aid worker in Gaza, whose name is withheld for his safety, says:  

“This has been a year of torture, famine, loss and annihilation. After one year I still don’t see any ceasefire on the horizon and Israel blocks aid with impunity as the world watches. 

“Almost everyone is displaced. My own house is damaged and uninhabitable, my sisters and brothers have lost their homes, and all my colleagues at Islamic Relief have lost theirs.  

“Our Islamic Relief office is gone, as are my children’s schools, the mosque I used to pray at, the hospital where my kids were born, the restaurants I liked, and my Christian neighbours’ church. Israel is systematically destroying our lives.  

“We search everywhere for medicine for my mum’s diabetes but can’t find it anywhere. My friend is suffering so badly from kidney stones that they can hardly move, but there is no treatment. I can’t even find paracetamol and Israel blocks wounded people from leaving Gaza for treatment.” 

Despite the enormous challenges, Islamic Relief staff and local partners have delivered aid almost every single day over the past year. This includes cooking and distributing more than 40 million hot meals for displaced families who have nothing else to eat, providing water to 110,000 people a day, supplying nutritional supplements to 35,000 pregnant women and young children every 2 weeks, and running psychosocial support sessions for over 94,000 children.  

But the scale of the crisis is almost incomprehensible. One in every 16 people in Gaza are now killed or wounded, with more than 41,000 people killed and 96,000 injured. Around 1.9 million people – 90% of the population – are now displaced from their homes, most of them having to move multiple times as nowhere is safe. 60% of homes and 68% of roads are damaged or destroyed, and more than half of hospitals and health facilities have been forced to shut down. 85% of schools have been bombed, hundreds of teachers killed, and 625,000 children have now been out of school for a whole year, with enormous implications for future generations. The relentless crisis is having a devastating psychological toll.  

Almost all civilians are facing severe shortages of food, with young children at immediate risk of starvation and facing long-term impacts of malnutrition such as stunted growth and impaired cognitive development.   

This year-long massacre must not be allowed to continue for a moment longer.

Islamic Relief strongly condemns today’s deadly attacks on civilians in Lebanon and calls on world leaders to take urgent action to stop further escalation.

Today’s Israeli bombing has caused by far the deadliest day in Lebanon since the crisis began almost a year ago. The death toll is rising rapidly but so far more than 180 people are reported killed and over 700 wounded, including children and many other civilians. Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes have torn through residential areas and families are fleeing the south of the country in terror.

The Israeli military’s announcement for civilians in parts of Beirut and southern Lebanon to leave their homes is a horrifying echo of the orders we have seen issued repeatedly in Gaza before large-scale attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure there. Ordering people to leave their homes does not absolve Israel of its obligation under international law to protect civilians, including people who cannot leave or choose not to leave.  

Akram Sadeq Ali, Islamic Relief’s Country Director in Lebanon, says: “There is mass panic, families here are terrified and they don’t know what to do or where to go. Civilians and civilian infrastructure such as homes, hospitals and schools must never be a target and must be protected at all times. Young children are among those killed by the bombs, and any further escalation will be absolutely disastrous for civilians.”  

This latest escalation is likely to force many more families from their homes. More than 116,000 people in Lebanon have already been displaced over the past year and many are now in desperate need of aid. At least 24,000 residential buildings have been badly damaged or completely destroyed.   

The escalation comes as much of the population in Lebanon struggles to cope with the fallout from a years-long economic crisis, which has forced many families into poverty.  

Since tensions escalated in the region last October, Islamic Relief has helped almost 30,000 people affected by the crisis with food parcels, hygiene kits, blankets and mattresses, and has provided thousands of items of medical supplies for hospitals and primary healthcare clinics. The charity is supporting displaced families and local host communities in Nabatieh, Tyre, Bekaa and Balbek, where most of the recently displaced people have been seeking refuge.   

Islamic Relief has been working in Lebanon since 2006, supporting communities through war, displacement and the current crises.