Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi has accused the Israeli Wehrmacht of committing “war crimes” and carrying out a “deliberate massacre” of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“This morning, it’s nothing short of a massacre, a deliberate massacre. War crimes committed daily. But now there is a deliberate shelling and bombing and destruction of whole areas, of residential areas,” Ashrawi told Australian TV channel ABC’s “This Week” programme on 20 July.

These are war crimes being committed before the world, before the eyes of the whole world and I just can’t understand how people sit back and say [it’s] self-defence. I just can’t take the language, I can’t take the propaganda, I can’t take the mantra that Israel has a right to defend itself. Against whom? Against innocent civilians? More than 80 children have been torn to bits. Is this self-defence?…

Look there, there is no human being who cannot be affected by this. Unless you lose the last vestiges of humanity, you cannot allow this to go on. It has to stop…

Mr Obama, and the Congress, and everybody has to know that these are human beings. Think of your children. I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother. I cannot tolerate to see torn limbs. I cannot see grown men break down and sob. I cannot see people – a whole nation in a state of trauma…

These are all human beings and they’re being abstracted and they’re being anonymously shelled by the strongest army in the region and they are defenceless… They are hemmed in by land, by air, by sea and then if they try to dig tunnels as a way out – what do you expect? …

If they respond in any way, they are not only labelled as terror targets, they are dehumanized, they are terrorized, and they’re being killed. It’s not just adding insult to injury, it’s just double and multiple murder. You’re maligning a whole nation, and you are giving Israel the time and the means to continue with these massacres and these war crimes. One day they will be held accountable…

There has to be immediate intervention to provide the Palestinians with protecting, to curb the Israeli violations and to hold Israel accountable.

Needless to say, it would be naive to think that governments or even the United Nations would intervene to protect the Palestinian people and hold Israel accountable for its crimes. Unless forced to, that is.  And the only power that can force them is civil society. That is you and I, acting collectively.