Israel carrying out ‘extermination’ campaign in Gaza: UN
Israel’s use of heavy weapons ‘intentional’ attack on civilians
A new independent report presented to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council on Wednesday concluded that Israeli forces have been carrying out several crimes against humanity on the civilian population in Gaza, including a campaign of “extermination” that has ramped up since the current military offensive began more than eight months ago.
The Israeli military’s “deliberate” use of heavy weapons in the Gaza Strip has been an “intentional and direct attack on the civilian population”, the new report by a United Nations-backed independent commission has found.
Navi Pillay, chairperson of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said on Wednesday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity, forced starvation, extermination, murder, and inhuman and cruel treatment of Palestinians. She also accused Palestinian groups of war crimes.
As she presented the report to the UN Human Rights Council, Pillay said the Israeli military operating in Gaza “forcibly transferred almost the entire population into a small enclosure that is unsafe and uninhabitable” and used heavy weapons in densely populated areas in “an intentional and direct attack on the civilian
population”.
Pillay said the commission concluded that specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence constituted part of the Israeli 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.
Sexual violence
“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.”
Pillay also noted that the daily onslaught in Gaza must not sideline attention to a parallel wave of violence in the occupied West Bank, where UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday the situation is “dramatically
deteriorating”.
More Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers there since the start of the current war in October than in any other recorded period, Pillay told the council.
Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 have killed more than 37,000 people, 40 percent of them children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The October 7 attacks in Israel killed 1,139 people.
‘Overwhelming
enormity of tragedy’
The report was the UN’s first in-depth investigation of the events since October 7 until the end of 2023. The commission was set up by the Human Rights Council in 2021. Pillay said it was “tragic” that Israel has prevented the commission from visiting victims inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Ibrahim Khraishi, Palestinian ambassador to the UN, thanked the commission for its report and condemned abuses committed by Israel during the “genocidal war”.
Israel gave its seat at the council meeting to the mother of one of the dozens of captives held in Gaza, who delivered an emotional speech.
“Mr President, we should be on the same side – the side fighting hostage-taking, never accepting the use of young women as tools for trade. Please help me hug my daughter again,” said Meirav Leshem Gonen, the mother of a 23-year-old captive.