KUWAIT/GAZA: A statement issued by 30 civil society entities in Kuwait on Saturday called on the ministry of foreign affairs to join South Africa’s lawsuit against the Zionist entity at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The statement emphasizes the need to hold the Zionist entity accountable for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, according to international law and agreements.

The signatories expressed their concern over the international community’s silence regarding the crimes committed by the Zionist occupation against the people of Gaza, including attacks on medical personnel, children, women, civilians, journalists and the elderly. They also expressed surprise at the silence of Arab and Islamic countries, which could contribute to the blockade and hinder the entry of food and medical aid to Gaza.

The statement urged the Kuwaiti government not to remain passive but to use its relations and capabilities in international forums to stop the aggression and hold the occupying entity accountable. It cited South Africa’s recent move to file a lawsuit against the Zionist entity at the International Court of Justice, with Turkey and Malaysia joining the case.

The signatories include various civil society organizations, political groups, women’s associations, student unions, NGOs and other groups advocating for solidarity with Palestine and condemning the actions of the Zionist entity. In The Hague application, South Africa says the Zionist entity has been acting “with the requisite specific intent... to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”.

Meanwhile, the Zionist entity bombed southern Gaza Saturday as the UN warned the besieged Palestinian territory has been rendered “uninhabitable” by three months of war. The fighting has sent tensions soaring across the region, and shows no signs of abating with the conflict entering its fourth month on Sunday.

Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the violence amid widespread displacement, destruction and a deepening humanitarian crisis. With swathes of the territory already reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable”.

AFP correspondents reported Zionist strikes early Saturday on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting. On the Zionist entity’s northern border, Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it launched on Saturday its “initial response” to the killing of Hamas’ deputy chief in Beirut, which a US defense official has told AFP was carried out by the Zionist entity.

The Iran-backed group said it had targeted the Zionist military’s Meron air control base with 62 missiles, while the Zionist army reported “approximately 40 launches from Lebanon” early Saturday, and said it struck Hezbollah “military sites” in response. By the afternoon, warning sirens had sounded seven times in the Zionist entity, the military said. Contacted by AFP, a military spokesperson confirmed the mountaintop base had been targeted but did not say whether it was damaged.

The Hamas-allied Lebanese movement has been trading near-daily fire with Zionist forces since early October and said the barrage was a response to Tuesday’s killing of Saleh Al-Aruri in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. While the two sides exchanged fire on Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, on a visit to Beirut, warned against a wider war. “It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” Borrell said. Before heading to Saudi Arabia, Borrell called for a redoubling of peace efforts.

In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, men clambered carefully around the concrete ruins and twisted rebar where Mohammad Al-Attar’s house stood before Zionist rockets destroyed it. “There was no prior warning or anything,” Attar said, his hands stained grey from the debris. “There’s still the corpse of a little girl” underneath.

Palestinian man Abu Mohammed, 60, who fled to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, told AFP that as the war nears its fourth month, Gaza’s future appeared “dark and gloomy and very difficult”. The Zionist entity has launched a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza that have killed at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children.

In a statement on Saturday, the Gaza health ministry said it had recorded more than 120 deaths over the past 24 hours. Victims of renewed Zionist bombardment were brought Saturday to the European hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered. One of them, Mohamed Awad, wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy. He counted the deaths in his family. “My brother, his wife, his children, his relatives and the brothers of his wife — there are more than 20 martyrs,” Awad, a journalist, told AFP.

Another Palestinian journalist, Akram El-Shafei, has died at the hospital from wounds sustained in Gaza City in November, making him “the 117th journalist... killed by the (Zionist) occupation during this crazy war”, according to Asser Yassin of the Palestinian Media Forum. Yassin said the Zionist entity “directly targets journalists” but that it “only increases our determination to... convey the suffering and pain” to the world. Shafei’s condition had initially improved, said relative Magda El-Shafei, but he “needed treatment” and there was “nothing” available. “He’s gone,” she told AFP.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the majority of the Palestinian territory’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages. A UN team on Friday delivered medical supplies to Gaza authorities in Khan Yunis, and WHO coordinator Sean Casey said it was “the first time we’ve been able to make this delivery in about 10 days”. – Agencies