Beyza Binnur Dönmez
May 23, 2025•Update: May 23, 2025
GENEVA
The ongoing humanitarian crisis and aid blockade in Gaza may amount to "ethnic cleansing and genocide," a leading rapporteur from the Council of Europe warned on Friday.
Saskia Kluit of the Netherlands, who serves as the Parliamentary Assembly's rapporteur on "the absolute and urgent need to end the humanitarian crisis for women, children and the hostages in Gaza," issued a strongly worded statement, condemning Israel's actions in the Palestinian enclave.
"The massacre underway in Gaza is manmade and an enormous tragedy for our shared humanity as we allow it to unfold unhindered before our eyes," Kluit said.
Since March 2, Gaza has faced a full blockade of essential humanitarian supplies, compounded by the resumption of large-scale military attacks by Israeli forces.
Kluit warned that the situation on the ground has "deteriorated beyond imagination," with children bearing the brunt of what she described as "systematic violence."
"Without food, clean water, medical care and safe shelter, their right to life is being denied," she said. "The very few goods being allowed in by the Israeli government are not sufficient to feed the population and they are not reaching the most vulnerable. Children are dying of starvation."
She accused the Israeli government of violating international humanitarian law, which mandates the delivery of aid "unconditionally, unhindered and in sufficient quantities to sustain the health of a population."
The rapporteur also highlighted the deteriorating living conditions in Gaza, where the civilian population is confined to an "ever-shrinking space, with no escape and no respite from bombings and attacks."
The so-called safety zones, she said, "offer no safety at all."
"All this – combined with the declarations on the Gazans by members of the Israeli government – makes it very hard to ignore that these acts point in the direction of ethnic cleansing and genocide," she said.
Kluit urged Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Gaza and comply fully with international law. She also called for unrestricted access for humanitarian organizations, including UNRWA, and demanded that the supply of essential goods be urgently restored.
"Plans to remove the population of Gaza from the territory, which would deny the right of Gazan children to a future life in their homeland, must immediately be denounced and withdrawn," she said.
In her closing remarks, Kluit called on the international community, and particularly the member states of the Council of Europe, to act.
"The international community must now fulfil its duty in speaking the truth and follow its legal obligations under the conventions of Geneva, including the genocide convention. I urge the member states of the Council of Europe to do everything in their power to ensure the ceasefire is restored and international law is respected," she said. "The people of Gaza are human beings and must be protected as such. The collective punishment and the dehumanization of Palestinians must stop now."
Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing nearly 53,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
