unlawful attacks, unlawfully imposing a total siege on the already impoverished civilian population, and forcibly displacing nearly 1.9 million Palestinians from their homes. Over the following 12 weeks, Israeli forces’ relentless bombardment and ground offensive killed 21,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, a third of whom were children, injured many others, and flattened much of Gaza’s built-up areas. Mounting evidence, supported by multiple testimonies, satellite imagery and verified photos and videos gathered by Amnesty International and others, showed how Israeli forces bombed crowded refugee camps and residential buildings, repeatedly wiping out entire families and destroying hospitals, churches, mosques, UN-run schools, bakeries, roads and other crucial infrastructure. Israel’s vague warnings to “evacuate” northern Gaza, even as they continued to bombard supposedly safe areas in the south, amounted to forced displacement of the civilian population, in violation of international humanitarian law. Thousands of other Palestinians died needlessly as a consequence of Israel’s blockade and attacks on hospitals, which left 2.2 million Gazans without access to adequate drinking water, food, medical supplies and fuel, and the virtual collapse of the health system. As international attention focused on Gaza, violent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by Israeli armed forces and state-backed armed Jewish settlers intensified, killing 511 and forcing thousands to flee their homes. Such attacks were carried out with impunity. Israeli authorities also demolished hundreds of Palestinian buildings without military justification, displacing 2,249 people, and significantly increased their use of administrative detention. INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE Despite the staggering levels of civilian bloodshed, destruction and suffering in Gaza and Israel, the international community failed to act meaningfully with some states, particularly the USA, continuing to arm parties to the conflict with weapons used in flagrant violations of human rights. The USA used its veto power to block the UN Security Council from taking effective action or for calling for a ceasefire. Powerful nations, including the USA and many western European states, publicly backed Israel’s actions, undermining respect for international humanitarian law and protection of civilians. The international community’s unwillingness to uphold human rights and international humanitarian law emboldened Israel to continue carrying out its military offensive without regard for its devastating toll on civilians in Gaza. On 16 November, a group of UN experts publicly warned that the world was witnessing “a genocide in the making” in Gaza. In contrast to the international community’s lack of meaningful response, hundreds of millions of people worldwide staged mass weekly demonstrations in solidarity with Gazans and to demand a ceasefire and an end to the blockade. Such demonstrations also swept the region, including in countries that had normalized relations with Israel and where public protests were forbidden or dangerous. In Egypt, tens of thousands took to the streets nationwide with the authorities arbitrarily arresting dozens. In Bahrain, around 1,000 people demonstrated. Large demonstrations were also held in Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen as well as in the West Bank. On 11 November, at an unprecedented joint summit of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, leaders condemned Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the war crimes and the “barbaric ... and inhuman massacres” perpetrated by the government of occupation. In December, South Africa applied to the International Court of Justice for proceedings to be initiated against Israel regarding its breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in Gaza. 60 The State of the World’s Human Rights