Ongoing Genocide: Our Colleague Lawyer Dana Yaghi and Her Family Killed in an Israeli Airstrike on House Sheltering IDPs in Deir al-Balah

24 February 2024

Palestinian human rights organizations condemn vehemently the Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip that killed our dearest colleague Dana Yaghi, who was a lawyer at Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), along with her members of her family in an Israeli airstrike on a house they were seeking shelter in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza Strip. This atrocity is part of Israel’s continued bombing of residential houses in areas designated as “safe zones”.

Dana, who used to live in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, had sought refuge at her aunt’s house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza Strip upon the Israeli evacuation orders several months ago. Tragically, she and her family, along with other IDPs, became direct targets. This brutal attack further proves the Israeli war machine’s flagrant disregard for civilian lives and persistence to commit genocidal massacres against hundreds of families across the Gaza Strip, including areas designated by Israel, the occupying power, as safe zones, where hundreds of thousands have sought refuge. The indiscriminate targeting did not spare anyone, including human rights defenders and their families, who have become actual victims of this aggression by being subjected to targeting, destruction and forced displacement as part of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians in the Strip.

In this context, we express our sincere sympathy and condolences to ourselves and the rest of the staff for the killing of our dearest colleagues at PCHR, Dana and Noor, who was killed last week in an airstrike on her family home.

26 residents were killed, mostly women and children, all of whom were IDPs, and 20 more were injured.

According to an update from the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza in the afternoon of Saturday, 24 February 2024, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) committed 8 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, resulting in the killing of 92 Palestinians and injury of 123 others. The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that the death toll during the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since 07 October 2023 has risen to 29,606 while 69,737 have been injured, with 70% of the casualties are children and women.

Our organization reiterate their call to the international community, especially the permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the Secretary-General of the UN, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to take immediate measures to protect hundreds of civilians, avert the continuing Nakba and halt the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.