Despite the announcement of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip since the morning of Sunday, January 19, 2025, the Israeli war machine continued to reap more Palestinian lives, while the features of the tragedy began to become more and more apparent, as what was documented and published over the course of about fifteen months of the crime of genocide is only the tip of the iceberg.

It is clear from the number of shooting crimes documented by our researchers over the past few days that the occupation forces deliberately opened fire on and killed citizens while they were inspecting their destroyed homes near the locations where these forces are stationed, which range between 400 and 1000 meters along the southern, eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip, without any threat or danger to the lives of the soldiers. These attacks resulted in the killing of 43 citizens, including 7 children, 2 women and an elderly man, and injuring others.

Here are the most prominent crimes that our researchers have monitored since last Sunday:

On Sunday 19/1/2025, the Israeli occupation forces stationed at distances ranging from 400 to 1000 meters deep inside the city of Rafah, opposite the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip south of the city, opened fire with machine guns at citizens who returned by the thousands to the city on the first day of the ceasefire to check on their homes after being displaced since May 2024. The shooting resulted in the killing of 10 citizens, one of whom was a child.

On the same morning, 15 citizens, including two women and a child, were killed when the occupation forces fired shells and live bullets at citizens who arrived to check on their homes in the town of Khuza’a, east of Khan Yunis.

The occupation aircraft also bombed 3 vehicles in the center of Khan Yunis, which led to the killing of 11 citizens, including 3 children, who were passengers in the vehicles and passersby in the area, and others were injured, including a paramedic from the Red Crescent who was in an ambulance that happened to be passing by the area.

It is noteworthy that during this day, there were conflicting reports about the date of the ceasefire implementation, as the media announced that the date was 08:30 in the morning, and since before this date, citizens began to return to their areas of residence, while the occupation announced that it began its commitment to the ceasefire from 11:15 in the morning. Most of the killing incidents committed by the occupation during this day occurred between the two dates.

On Monday 20/1/2025, the occupation forces stationed deep inside the city of Rafah, opposite the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, south of the city, opened fire with machine guns at the residents who returned to the city by the thousands on the second day of the ceasefire. The shooting resulted in the killing of two citizens, one of whom was a child who was injured near the Al-Najma roundabout in Rafah, about 900 meters from the occupation forces’ position, and the other near the municipality building, 500 meters from the position of those forces.

On Tuesday 1/21/2025, the occupation forces stationed on the Egyptian-Palestinian border, opposite the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, southwest of Rafah city, at approximately 02:00 PM, opened fire with their machine guns at residents who had returned to check on their homes, resulting in the death of a 73-year-old man.

On Wednesday 22/1/2025, the occupation forces stationed on the Egyptian-Palestinian border south of Rafah city, at approximately 01:00 PM, opened fire with machine guns from a crane and from quadcopter aircraft flying over the area towards what remained of the residents’ homes in Al-Shabura camp, located approximately 1000 meters north of the Egyptian border. This resulted in the death of a citizen and the injury of 4 others while they were cleaning a house from the rubble resulting from the destruction of some of the surrounding houses. Eyewitnesses reported that the citizen was killed when he went up to the house to help the four injured, and when he tried to move one of them, the occupation forces opened fire at him and shot him in the head. The next morning, medical sources at the Gaza European Hospital announced the death of one of the injured as a result of being shot in the chest.

On Thursday 25/1/2025, the occupation forces stationed outside the Salah al-Din axis on the Egyptian-Palestinian border south of Rafah city, at approximately 11:00 AM, opened fire with machine guns and shells at what remained of the residents’ homes in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood southwest of the city. This resulted in the killing of a 10-year-old child and his 20-year-old brother, and the burning of their bodies as a result of the shelling of their family’s rented apartment in a building approximately 900 meters from the Egyptian-Palestinian border.

During the past five days, civil defense crews have recovered the bodies of 166 Palestinian dead, most of them from Rafah, and most of them were decomposed bodies, while search operations continue with simple and primitive capabilities for thousands of missing persons, most of whom are bodies under the rubble, which requires the introduction of specialized equipment and crews to help recover and identify them.

The Palestinian International Organization for Peace and Human Rights, while condemning these ongoing crimes, stresses the need to oblige the occupation to stop its crimes, including killing without any justification, and to facilitate the entry of equipment and specialized crews to recover the bodies of the dead.

The organization stresses that the atmosphere of immunity and impunity, and the Western military and political support for the Israeli occupation state, are all elements that support and encourage Israel to continue committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people, stressing the need to activate accountability procedures for the occupation for its ongoing crimes.