Families Have Their Homes Destroyed For The Second Time; The IOF Target Water Resources In Rafah

The Israeli Occupation Forces targeted civilian homes and water resources in the town of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
Three apartment buildings, which were especially built for those whose homes had been demolished in Rafah were ruined and twenty people were injured in the Israeli attack.
Al Mezan’s fieldworkers reported that the IOF, who are stationed a few hundred meters from Tel As-Sultan neighborhood in eastern Rafah, shelled the area with heavy machineguns destroying the apartments on Wednesday, 29 January during afternoon hours.
The construction company who built the apartments said they were due to be given to homeless families on Saturday, 1 February 2003.
Additionally, at around 4 am, Thursday, Israeli tanks and army bulldozers invaded the same area and bulldozed the town's two main water-wells.
The Head of the Water Department in Rafah Municipality said that water-wells No.
144 and 103T, the latter established by Canadian funds in 1999, were completely destroyed.
The two wells produced an amount of 260 cubic meters of water every hour, accounting for 50% of the water resources in the town.
Moreover, these wells produced the best water in the town.
It is worth mentioning that Rafah suffers from a serious lack of water.
Al Mezan Center fore Human Rights is gravely concerned by Israel’s targeting of water resources and homes, which breach Israel’s obligations under Articles 53 of the 4th Geneva Convention and Article 54 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Conflicts (Protocol I), which prohibits targeting ‘the objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population’.
The Center believes that Israel is employing such crimes as tools of collective punishment of the civilian population of the OPTs.
In the light of Israel’s continued escalation of aggression against civilians, Al Mezan calls upon the international community, especially the High Contracting Parties to the 4th Geneva Convention, to immediately intervene and protect Palestinian civilians and their property in the OPTs.
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