MONITORING (SW) – The United Nations has condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, slammed by Israel, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) detailed a raft of violations of international law since Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack in Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, reported Al Jazeera.
Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide”, it warned, demanding international efforts to prevent “atrocity crimes” and ensure accountability.
“Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
“Conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
It pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement”.
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonisation of Israel”.
Israel says its operations in Gaza target militants and are in line with international law.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely Gaza’s demographic makeup rather than that of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimise, incidental loss of civilian life”.
UN rights chief Volker Turk called on all countries to work to halt the violations and to ensure accountability, including through universal jurisdiction.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies,” he said.
