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international court of justice
Probe Reveals Nearly 3,000 Gaza Aid-Seekers Killed by Israeli Forces
"These repeated attacks are grave violations of international humanitarian law that likely amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide."
Sep 17, 2025
An investigation published Wednesday revealed that Israeli forces have killed nearly 3,000 Palestinian aid-seekers and wounded almost 20,000 others over 23 months of Israel's US-backed genocidal annihilation of Gaza.
The New Humanitarian's open-source investigation chronologically documents the killing of 2,957 Palestinian aid-seekers and the wounding of 19,866 others.
These figures include nearly 1,000 Palestinians who United Nations human rights officials say have been killed at or near aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israeli soldiers have admitted to receiving orders to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of civilians at GHF distribution points.
The New Humanitarian noted that these numbers represent approximately 4.6% of the more than 65,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures are likely a vast undercount.
“These are not isolated incidents. They're not just similar incidents. They are a pattern, and reflect policy and an acceptance on the part of the state that this should continue indefinitely,” Adil Haque, an international law professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told The New Humanitarian.
Haque and other experts interviewed for the investigation called Israeli attacks on Gaza aid-seekers "grave violations of international humanitarian law that likely amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide."
Israel is the subject of an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The International Criminal Court (ICC), also located in the Dutch city, last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
The New Humanitarian's investigation identified "clearly discernible patterns... showing how Israel has used attacks on people seeking aid as a tool for different purposes at different points in the war: deadly crowd control, forced displacement, and the destruction of the collective ability of Palestinians in Gaza to survive."
Haque said that "if Israeli leaders were simply indifferent to the killing of so many Palestinian aid-seekers, not caring one way or the other, then international condemnation and potential liability for war crimes should be enough to lead them to change their policies to prevent or repress such killings."
"Their willingness to bear such costs is some evidence that they intend for these killings to continue,” he added.
The New Humanitarian's investigation comes as Israeli forces ramp up their assault on Gaza City during Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian exclave. Israeli leaders have publicly backed a proposal by US President Donald Trump to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform the coastal strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
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'We Took the Gloves Off': Former Israeli Military Chief Admits 220,000 Gaza Casualties
"Looking forward to the contortions of people whose paychecks are dependent on denying that any of this is the case," said one observer.
Sep 12, 2025
Belying persistent efforts by Israel and its defenders to deny the staggering number of Palestinians killed during the 23-month Gaza genocide, the general who led the Israel Defense Forces during most of the war acknowledged this week that around 220,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who stepped down in March after leading the IDF since January 2023—told residents of Ein Habor in southern Israel earlier this week that "over 10%" of Gaza's population of approximately 2.2 million "were killed or injured" since October 2023.
"This is not a gentle war, we took the gloves off from the first minute" Halevi said, adding that "not once" has any legal authority "limited" his wartime conduct.
Following the October 7 attack, the IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of leveling entire city blocks, and utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets has resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.
Halevi insisted that "we are doing everything in accordance with international law."
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague disagrees, having issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including forced starvation and murder. Israel's conduct in the war is also the subject of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations.
Halevi's admission tracks with official Gaza Health Ministry figures showing at least 228,815 people killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza. GHM also says that around 9,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Experts—including the authors of multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—assert that the actual death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported.
The remarks by Halevi come less than a month after a joint investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that, as of May, 5 in 6 Palestinians—or 83%—killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the war were civilians. The report, which drew from classified IDF intelligence data, blew the lid off of Israeli government claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio.
Responding to Halevi's admission, Drop Site News national security and foreign affairs reporter Murtaza Hussain said on social media that he is "looking forward to the contortions of people whose paychecks are dependent on denying that any of this is the case."
Israeli officials and media, along with their supportive US counterparts during both the Biden and Trump administrations, have generally cast doubt or outright denied GHM figures—which have been found to be reliable by the IDF, US officials, and researchers—by linking them to Hamas. This comes in addition to widespread Israeli and US denials of Israel's forced famine and starvation deaths and IDF war crimes in Gaza.
However, there have been rare instances of frankness, including when Barbara Leaf, a senior State Department official during the Biden administration, said that Gaza casualties could be "even higher than are being cited." Biden-era State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller also admitted that the Gaza death toll "could very well be more" than GHM reported, even as he lied to the public about who was thwarting ceasefire efforts.
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Spain Announces Arms Embargo on Israel and Other Steps 'to Stop the Genocide in Gaza'
"This is not self-defense," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez asserted, "it is the extermination of a defenseless people and a violation of every international law."
Sep 08, 2025
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday announced a series of nine new measures—including a total arms embargo—aimed at pressuring the government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to stop the genocide in Gaza."
Sánchez, who leads the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), announced the steps during a speech in which he first acknowledged the historical suffering of the Jewish people, which includes the 1492 ethnic cleansing of Jews from Spain.
"The Jewish people have suffered countless persecutions, deserve to have their own state, and to feel secure," Sánchez said. "That is why the Spanish government has condemned Hamas' attacks from day one."
However, "there is a difference between defending your country and bombing hospitals or starving innocent children," the prime minister continued. "This is an unjustifiable attack on the civilian population, which the [United Nations] rapporteur has described as genocide."
"Sixty thousand dead, two million displaced, half of them children," Sánchez said. "This is not self-defense, it is not even an attack—it is the extermination of a defenseless people and a violation of every international law."
The nine measures—which must be approved by lawmakers and the Cabinet—include:
- A "legal and permanent prohibition" on the purchase and sale of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment;
- A ban on transit through Spanish ports for all ships carrying fuels destined for Israel's military;
- Denial of entry into Spanish airspace for all state aircraft carrying military equipment to Israel;
- A ban on entry to Spain for "all persons directly involved in genocide, human rights violations, and war crimes" in Gaza;
- Prohibition of imported products from illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories;
- Limitation of consular services for Spanish citizens residing in illegal Israeli settlements;
- Strengthened support for the Palestinian Authority;
- An additional €10 million in support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA); and
- An increase in overall humanitarian spending for Gaza, to reach €150 million by 2026.
"Spain does not have nuclear bombs. We cannot stop the Israeli offensive alone, but we will not stop trying," Sánchez said, recognizing the limitations of Monday's action.
Spain's new measures come in addition to its earlier steps toward an arms embargo, promotion of several UN ceasefire resolutions, support for the International Criminal Court's (ICC) effort to bring Netanyahu to justice and the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) ongoing South Africa-led genocide case against Israel, and formal recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Individual Spanish politicians have also taken action for Palestine, including former Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra, an early proponent for ICC prosecution of Netanyahu and others; former leftist lawmaker and Palma City Councilmember Lucia Muñoz, a participant in the Global Sumud Flotilla; and former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, another flotilla member whose city cut ties with Israel prior to the Gaza genocide over "the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people."
The Global Sumud Flotilla—whose other members include Mandla Mandela, Susan Sarandon, and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg—set sail from Barcelona last month and was warmly welcomed Sunday upon a stopover in Tunis, Tunisia en route to the coast of Gaza, where activists will attempt to break an Israeli blockade and deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid.
The Israeli government responded to Sánchez's announcement with its customary allegation of antisemitism and an entry ban on Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz and Youth Minister Sira Rego.
"It is a point of pride that a genocidal state is banning me," said Díaz, a member of the Communist Party of Spain and Sumar movement.
Spain subsequently recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv. The Spanish Foreign Ministry said the government "would not be intimidated in its defense of peace, international law, and human rights."
According to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry—which experts contend are likely a vast undercount—at least 64,522 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children. More than 163,000 others have been wounded, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble.
Hundreds of thousands of Gazans are starving to death in a famine largely caused by Israel's "complete siege" of the coastal exclave. At least hundreds of Palestinians have starved to death in what hunger experts and every United Nations Security Council member except the United States have called a man-made catastrophe caused by Israeli policies and practices.
The ICC warrants issued last year for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accuse the pair of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including forced starvation and murder.
On Monday, Spain also condemned what it called a "terrorist attack" that left six people, including Spanish citizen Yakov Pinto, dead in a mass shooting north of occupied Jerusalem.
Sánchez's announcement followed pro-Palestine and anti-genocide protests in cities including the capital Madrid, where demonstrators rallied outside the Israeli Embassy on Saturday and shouted messages including, "It's Not a War, It's a Genocide!" and "Israel Kills, Europe Sponsors!"
GENOCIDIO EN GAZA
Concentración, hoy 06/09, delante de la embajada de Israel (Madrid)...
"No es una guerra, es un genocidio"
"Israel asesina, y Europa patrocina"
"Israel bombardea con bombas europeas"
"Esta embajada está ensangrentada" pic.twitter.com/rRH4T6zS7f
— Christophe Deschamps (@ChristopheDes16) September 6, 2025
On Sunday, demonstrators gathered in Madrid's Callao Square, where participants read aloud the names of many of the more than 18,500 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, followed by the word "murdered."
According to a June Pew Research Center survey, 75% of Spanish respondents have a negative view of Israel, with 46%—the highest percentage of any non-Muslim nation in the 24 nations polled—having a "very unfavorable" view of the country.
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