“Depriving the population in occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war,” HRW's Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir said in a statement on Monday.

“The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime.”

Israel has stepped up its ferocious pounding of the besieged Gaza Strip as its troops struggled to clear out Hamas fighters more than two days after they burst across the fence from Gaza and overran Israeli bases.

Israeli warplanes bombed a densely populated neighborhood at the Jabalia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll from the Israeli attacks had reached 510, including 91 children and 61 women, with 2,751 others injured.

In a statement, the Israeli air force said it had dropped some 2,000 munitions and more than 1,000 ton bombs on Gaza in the last 20 hours.

Source: Agencies