The UN has just accused Israel of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. Too little, too late?

Israel is deliberately targeting health facilities and killing and torturing medical personnel in Gaza, UN investigators said on Thursday 10 October, accusing the country of “crimes against humanity” and war crimes.

Israel: guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry said in a statement that:

Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza… committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.

The three-person commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged international law violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories, was publishing its second report since Hamas’s 7 October attack a year ago.

The report also highlighted abuse of Palestinian detainees in Israel and of hostages in Gaza, accusing both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of “torture” and sexual and gender-based violence.

Israel has accused the commission of “systematic anti-Israeli discrimination” and flatly rejected the findings of its June report, which also accused Israel of committing crimes against humanity, including of “extermination” in Gaza.

Commission chair Navi Pillay, a former UN rights chief, said in the statement that:

Israel must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction of healthcare facilities in Gaza… Israel is targeting the right to health itself with significant long-term detrimental effects on the civilian population.

Deliberate actions

The report found that Israeli security forces had “deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles” in Gaza and restricted permits to leave the territory for medical treatment.

Such actions constitute numerous war crimes and “the crime against humanity of extermination”, the commission said.

Israel’s actions had caused “incalculable suffering” among child patients and were “resulting in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group,” it said.

The report highlighted the death of Hind Rajab in January as “one of the most egregious cases”.

The young girl called the Palestinian Red Crescent, pleading to be rescued, after her family’s car came under fire in Gaza City. Her body was eventually recovered along with six relatives and two Red Crescent rescue workers sent to find her.

The commission said it determined that the Israeli army’s 162nd Division was responsible for the deaths, which constitute war crimes.

Israel’s abuse of illegal detainees

The report also examined the treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli military camps and detention facilities. It found that thousands of detainees, including children, have been subjected to:

widespread and systematic abuse, physical and psychological violence, and sexual and gender-based violence.

This amounts:

to the war crime and crime against humanity of torture and the war crime of rape and other forms of sexual violence.

Male detainees were subjected to rape and attacks on their sexual organs, they added.

Detainee deaths as a result of abuse or neglect also amount to the war crimes, the commission said.

The report found the “institutionalised mistreatment of Palestinian detainees” took place “under direct orders” from national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, fuelled by Israeli government statements “inciting violence and retribution”. Pillay said the “appalling acts of abuse” against detainees required accountability and reparations.

The report also accused Hamas of war crimes and crimes against humanity – but on a far lesser scale than that of Israel.

Children bearing the brunt

Turning to the Israeli and other hostages held in Gaza by Palestinian armed groups, the report found that many had been subjected to “physical pain and severe mental suffering”, including violence, abuse, sexual violence, humiliation and limited food and water:

Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed the war crimes of torture, inhuman or cruel treatment, and the crimes against humanity of enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury.

On Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, Pillay said:

Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system.

Israel has killed over 42,000 people in Gaza, including at least 16,500 children.

Featured image via the Canary

Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse