GENEVA: The United Nations on Friday condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 per cent of the thousands of deaths it verified.

In a fresh report, slammed by Israel, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) detailed a raft of violations of international law since October 2023. Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly “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”.

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Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonisation of Israel”.

“Gaza is now a rubble-strewn landscape,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office’s activities in the Palestinian territories, said via video link from Amman.

“Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”

‘Systematic’ cleansing

The report also tackled the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians among the nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza so far, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

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The UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable despite harsh criticism by Israel. During the first six months of the attacks, the rights office said, it had managed to verify around 10,000 of the over 34,500 people reportedly killed. “We have so far found close to 70 per cent to be children and women,” Sunghay said, highlighting the stringent verification methodology that requires at least three separate sources.

He said the findings showed “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law”. At least 4,700 of the verified fatalities were children and 2,461 were women, he added.

Residential buildings attacked

The report found that about 80pc of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing. Children aged between five and nine made up the largest group of victims, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman, it said.

However, Israel claimed its operations in Gaza only targeted combatants and were in line with international law.

Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely Gaza’s demographic makeup rather than that of combatants.

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.

“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”

Arms supply to Israel

The head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that states supplying weapons to Israel as it pursues conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon despite evidence of violations of international law are empowering belligerents elsewhere.

HRW’s executive director Tirana Hassan said that countries like the United States, Germany and Britain could influence Israel’s actions and should do so by ending arms sales.

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“If there continues to be military support to the Israeli Defense Force and they (Western governments) know that these weapons are being used in the commission of war crimes, then that should be enough for weapons sales and transfers to stop,” she told Reuters in an interview.

“At this stage, the parties that could have some sort of influence and curb the behaviour of the warring parties, when it comes to Israel, it’s the US, the UK, and Germany, and it’s through weapons sales and transfers.”

She said that when states which abused rights saw there were ‘no consequences’, they felt emboldened to continue.

Credibility at stake

The HRW chief said governments supplying them with weapons were undermining their credibility as defenders of international law and human rights as well as the credibility of the international system.

“It sends a message that these rules apply differently to us and our allies as they do to others, and that has really serious consequences,” she said.

“There is really no justification for the killing of children,” she added.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2024