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Israeli attacks in Gaza likely repeatedly violated laws of war: UN rights office
A new report by the UN’s human rights office has looked into six Israeli attacks in Gaza with high casualty tolls and determined that its forces “may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack”.
“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 have wrecked much of the enclave and killed at least 37,372 people, with 40 percent of these victims being children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Israeli authorities responsible for war crimes, UN inquiry finds
A UN Human Rights Council session is under way to discuss a report into the actions in Gaza since October 7. An inquiry has concluded that Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has released a report on war crimes in Gaza.
Israel’s actions are ‘intentional and direct attack on civilian population’: UN
Speaking in Geneva, Navi Pillay, chairwoman of the UN-backed commission, said Israel “forcibly transferred almost the entire population into small enclosure that is unsafe and uninhabitable”. “The deliberate use of heavy weapons with large destructive capacity in densely populated areas constitutes an intentional and direct attack on the civilian population.”
Sexual, gender-based violence part of Israeli forces’ operating procedures: UN
Pillay says the commission concluded that specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence constitute part of the Israeli security forces’ operating procedures.
“Although Israeli officials have repeatedly stated their operations in Gaza are intended to destroy Hamas and release hostages, yet neither of these aims has been largely achieved at the expense of thousands of lives,” she said.
“We found that Israeli forces committed sexual and gender-based violence with the intent to humiliate and further subordinate the Palestinian community. Palestinian women were targeted and subjected to sexual violence and harassment online and in person.
“Men and boys experienced specific persecutory acts, including sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture and inhuman and cruel treatment.”
UN commission addresses Israeli violence in West Bank
The daily onslaught in Gaza has largely overshadowed a parallel wave of violence in the occupied West Bank, Pillay says.
Since the Gaza war began in October, she noted, more Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers there than in any other recorded period. The violence is due to both Israel’s increasingly militarised operations and a “surge in settler violence” often ignored by Israeli forces, she said.
UN commission condemns alleged war crimes by Palestinian groups
UN commission of inquiry head Navi Pillay says Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also committed extensive war crimes, including sexual violence, during the war. She listed the crimes as:
- Intentionally directing attacks against civilians
- Murder or wilful killing
- Torture
- Sexual violence
- Inhuman or cruel treatment
- Taking hostages
The UN commission, she said, “identified patterns indicative of sexual violence and concluded that these were not isolated but perpetrated in similar ways in similar locations, primarily against Israeli women”.
However, she warned the “exploitation of sexual violence in conflict by all parties for political propaganda risks diverting attention from the experience and from the needs of the survivor, as well as fueling longstanding hostilities”.
UN reiterates call for ceasefire, ‘full end of siege’, release of all detainees
Pillay says the UN reiterates its call for a ceasefire and for the “complete cessation of hostilities”.
“We call for the immediate and for the full end of the siege, the release of all detainees, including all of the Israeli hostages, and for Palestinian armed groups to stop the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel,” she said. Pillay added that all parties must protect civilians and civilian objects and “attacks against UN agencies and humanitarian actors must stop”.
The UN calls on Israel to ensure the commission’s “immediate access to the Gaza Strip in order to investigate and preserve evidence in compliance with the order issued by the ICJ [International Court of Justice]”.
“Israel has ignored the request we have submitted to them,” she said.
