Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa Agence France-Presse Palestinians crowd around a UN-run school that was hit by the Israeli army on Thursday in the Rimal neighborhood.
Posted yesterday at 9:23 AM Updated yesterday at 1:46 PM
A special UN committee ruled on Thursday that Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza have “hallmarks of genocide.” Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, says the repeated forced displacement of Palestinians from the territory constitutes a crime against humanity.
Israel has dismissed HRW’s accusations as “completely false” but has not yet commented on the UN committee’s findings.
The United States “unequivocally” disapproved of the conclusions of the UN report. “We believe that this type of language and these types of accusations are most likely unfounded,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
In a report covering the period from October 7, 2023, the start of the war sparked by the deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, to July 2024, the UN special committee expressed alarm at the “massive civilian casualties” and the use of “starvation as a weapon of war.”
“Through its siege of Gaza, its obstruction of humanitarian assistance, its targeted attacks and the killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated calls by the UN, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and Security Council resolutions, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury,” the committee said. in a press release.
The methods of warfare employed by Israel “correspond to the characteristics of genocide,” according to the UN special committee, created in 1968 and tasked with investigating Israeli practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, conquered the previous year by Israel (West Bank and Gaza Strip).
This is not the first time that Israel has faced such accusations since the start of the war more than a year ago.
The report, which is to be presented on Monday to the UN General Assembly in New York, states that the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza will have long-term consequences.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000“By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a deadly mix of crises that will inflict grave harm on generations to come,” the committee said.
“They want to kill us”
In another report published Thursday, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) states that the repeated evacuation orders of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip lead to forced population displacements constituting “a crime against humanity”.
In October, the UN estimated that 1.9 million Gazans had been displaced by the war, out of a total population estimated at 2.4 million at the start of the conflict.
“Statements by senior officials with command responsibility show that forced displacements are intentional and part of the policy of the Israeli state, and that they therefore constitute a crime against humanity”, the report details, recalling that “forcible transfer” of civilians is a “war crime” under international law.
Israeli authorities say they are calling on residents of large swathes of the Gaza Strip to evacuate due to military imperatives and are thus helping to protect civilians.
“Again and again, Human Rights Watch's rhetoric regarding Israel's behavior in Gaza is completely false and detached from reality,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said on the social network X.
The Israeli army, for its part, has rejected “some flagrant distortions” of reality by HRW, which it accused of “anti-Israeli bias.”
An Israeli offensive that has been underway for more than a month has forced at least 100,000 people from the northernmost towns of the territory to move to Gaza City, according to Louise Wateridge, spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Iman Hamad, a 41-year-old mother from Beit Hanoun (north), says she has been displaced more than ten times. “Before, I thought they wanted to displace us, now I realize they want to kill us and erase us,” she told AFP on Wednesday.
“It’s better to die instantly from a shell than to die 1,000 times from the humiliation of being displaced, from hunger and misery,” Ashraf Abou Habl, a 50-year-old taxi driver, told AFP. “I’m staying in Jabalia (far north of Gaza). I will not flee,” he said.
According to HRW, “Israel’s actions also appear to fit the definition of ethnic cleansing” in areas where the army has ordered Palestinians to leave and where they will not be able to return.
HRW specifically cites two areas commonly referred to as the Neztarim and Philadelphia corridors, which it says have been “razed, expanded and cleared” by the military to create buffer zones.
The UN committee called on the international community to act urgently to end the bloodshed, noting that countries continue to provide “military support” to Israel.
HRW encouraged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to “investigate.”
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