Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says Israel is coercing Gaza families to collaborate or face death, displacement and starvation, warning the practice amounts to war crimes.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has accused Israel of adopting a systematic policy of extortion against families in the Gaza Strip, presenting them with what the group called a “catastrophic, no-win choice”: collaborate with Israeli forces or face mass killing, starvation, and forcible displacement.
In its latest field report, released on Sunday, the Geneva-based rights organization said that what began as individual coercion has now “escalated into a systematic, collective practice aimed at dismantling Palestinian social fabric by forcing people to betray their communities and subordinating survivors to survival conditions that destroy communal identity and resilience.”
According to the group, its field team documented “an unprecedented intensification of Israel’s coercive tactics,” with pressure shifting from individuals to entire families and communities.
Families were reportedly given two choices: “join militias created by Israel or face persecution, mass killing, starvation and forced expulsion — a coordinated attempt to eliminate Palestinian society or reduce it to submission under occupation control.”
The report cited shocking testimonies from families forced to choose between remaining under siege and bombardment without shelter, food or medicine, or being displaced into “unknown conditions lacking basic life necessities — all under explicit threats of death if they refused Israeli orders.”
The Israeli occupation is coercing Gaza families: “Cooperate or be killed” https://t.co/i4GtxehIrI
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) September 27, 2025
One testimony, from Motasem Bakr of the Al-Shati refugee camp, described how his family’s mukhtar was offered safety on the condition that his sons serve in a militia created by Israeli forces.
“He refused and instructed his family to leave; they preferred sleeping in the streets rather than have their name recorded in family history as one that joined the road of betrayal,” Euro-Med reported.
According to the group, the Bakr family was subsequently targeted in a massacre at dawn on Sunday, in which nine family members — including women and children — were killed.
Euro-Med linked this attack to the family’s refusal to collaborate with the Israeli army. Similar accounts were reported by the Dairi and Daghmash families, with the latter losing more than 60 members in bombardments following their rejection of Israeli demands.
Euro-Med also warned that Israel has begun forming militias in multiple parts of Gaza, “including south Khan Younis, east Shuja’iyya and Beit Lahia in the north,” citing the precedent of the so-called “Abu Shabab” gang created in Rafah.
“These practices clearly fall within the Rome Statute’s prohibitions — in particular, Article 8(2)(a)(5), which prohibits compelling civilians or prisoners to serve in hostile forces or to take part in operations for that force,” the group said.
“Attempts to form local militias through threats of killing, displacement or denial of essential aid constitute a clear breach of this provision and amount to a war crime.”
The organization stressed that “protection is unconditional and cannot be contingent on cooperation. Families’ refusal to submit to coercive bargains does not forfeit their right to protection nor justify any attack, displacement or starvation.
Forcing civilians into the ‘cooperate or be killed’ choice is an extortion mechanism aimed at subjugation and systematic destruction of the Palestinian community’s ability to survive.”
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Euro-Med called on the UN General Assembly to urgently deploy a protection force in Gaza to halt crimes against civilians, secure unobstructed humanitarian aid, and begin reconstruction.
It further urged states to act collectively to stop “the ongoing genocide in Gaza by all available means” — including arms embargoes, targeted sanctions, travel bans, and suspension of preferential trade agreements with Israel.
Finally, the group stressed that international measures must address “the root causes of Palestinian suffering accumulated over 77 years,” including ending Israeli occupation and settler colonialism, dismantling apartheid structures, lifting the siege on Gaza, and ensuring accountability for war crimes.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
Shylock has a rifle at their heads…
all the stories were true. The bloodthirsty shady, scummy Jews, taking everything by force; murdering children…
all of it is true after all.
It’s not, Hamas. It’s the Jews doing this.
Wake up!
It’s the radical xionists that are the perpetrators, not the Jewish faithful. The xionist criminals hijacked the Jewish religion, but their theft of land and murder of innocent Muslims (and anyone else who has gotten in their way) proves that they do not follow God, but instead are committed to the force of violence and depravity, i.e. Satan. Pray for the peace workers, Jews and non-Jews alike because theirs is the only path toward healing. Let the Satanic forces rot and wither away, choking on their own venom. Don’t let them impair your own ability to act with love.
To: Becky…
Most Israeli Jews (65%) are secular, Atheist…
and most Israeli citizens are ok with what’s been happening: children being murdered, innocent civilians, non-combatants being shot, struck by missles, bombed at 4AM while they’re sleeping in a tent in a displacement camp…so, no…the Jewish faithful are not separate from it, most of them have encouraged it. They sat on the hills, sipping wine, celebrating each bombing…But yes, the Zionists have exploited them from day one. Religion did this, no matter how you slice it. No offense to you personally though.