Israel commits ‘extermination' in Gaza by killing in schools, say UN experts
Israel has ruined over 90% of the school and university buildings in Gaza. (AP pic)
VIENNA : UN experts said in a report on today that Israel committed the crime against humanity of 'extermination' by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a 'concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life'.
The United Nations independent international commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.
'We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,' former UN high commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.
'Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination,' she added.
The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached.
Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased.
When the commission's last report in March found Israel carried out 'genocidal acts' against Palestinians by systematically destroying women's healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic.
In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90% of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza.
'Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities … In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,' it said.
The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there.
'Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention,' it said.
'Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places,' the commission added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
10 hours ago
- The Sun
122 million forcibly displaced worldwide ‘untenably high': UN
GENEVA: The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide has dropped slightly from a record high but remains 'untenably high', the United Nations said Thursday. A record 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2024, said UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. But that figure dropped to 122.1 million by the end of April this year, as Syrians began returning home after years of turmoil. Nearly two million Syrians have been able to return home from abroad or from displacement within the war-ravaged country. But the UNHCR warned that how major conflicts worldwide played out would determine whether the figure would rise once again. The agency said the number of people displaced by war, violence and persecution worldwide was 'untenably high', particularly in a period when humanitarian funding is evaporating. 'We are living in a time of intense volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,' said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 'We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.' Sudan overtakes Syria The main drivers of displacement remain sprawling conflicts like those in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, UNHCR said in its flagship annual Global Trends Report. Syria's brutal civil war erupted in 2011 but president Bashar al-Assad was finally overthrown in December 2024. The report said the first months of this year saw rising numbers of Syrians returning home. As of mid-May, more than 500,000 Syrians are estimated to have crossed back into the country since the fall of Assad, while an estimated 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their areas of origin since the end of November. UNHCR estimates that up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and two million IDPs may return by the end of 2025. Sudan is now the world's largest forced displacement situation with 14.3 million refugees and IDPs, overtaking Syria (13.5 million), which is followed by Afghanistan (10.3 million) and Ukraine (8.8 million). 'During the remainder of 2025, much will depend on the dynamics in key situations,' the annual report said. 'This includes whether peace, or at least a cessation in fighting, is possible to achieve, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Ukraine.' It also depends on whether conditions for returns improve in Afghanistan and Syria. Another factor was 'how dire the impact of the current funding cuts will be' on responding to displacement and creating conditions for safe and dignified returns. One in 67 The number of people forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order has almost doubled in the last decade. The figure of 123.2 million worldwide at the end of last year was up seven million compared to the end of 2023. 'One in 67 people globally were forcibly displaced at the end of 2024,' UNHCR said. In total, 9.8 million forcibly displaced people returned home in 2024, including 1.6 million refugees -- the most for more than two decades -- and 8.2 million IDPs -- the second highest ever. 'We have seen some rays of hope over the last six months,' said Grandi. But countries such as the DR Congo, Myanmar and South Sudan saw significant new forced displacements as well as returns. Two-thirds of refugees stay in neighbouring countries. Iran (3.5 million), Turkey (2.9 million), Colombia (2.8 million), Germany (2.7 million) and Uganda (1.8 million) host the largest refugee populations.
New Straits Times
11 hours ago
- New Straits Times
A people's movement rises against Gaza's siege
IN February this year, an international solidarity conference in Istanbul witnessed a remarkable convergence of global conscience. Delegates from over 40 nations — including legal scholars, civil society leaders, human rights defenders, and parliamentarians — gathered not to discuss but to act. This convergence birthed the Global Coalition Against the Occupation of Palestine, a civil alliance opposing Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism. One of coalition's first mandates addressed Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe — a besieged population facing what experts call genocide. Since October 2023, more than 54,800 Palestinians have been killed, more than 130,000 wounded, and upwards of 90 per cent of Gaza's 2.3 million residents displaced. The UN describes this as an "unfolding mass death event". Malaysian solidarity with Palestine stems from national conscience, constitutional values, and international positioning. What makes this moment especially chilling is the ideological clarity with which violence is being pursued. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government has repeatedly dehumanised Palestinians as "human animals". In any civilised society, such rhetoric would be denounced as incitement to genocide. Yet here, it is policy. In response to this moral abyss, the March to Gaza of June 15 has emerged — a citizen-led, transnational initiative reminiscent of the great global anti-apartheid and anti-colonial movements of the 20th century. From Tunisia to Turkiye, Jakarta to Johannesburg, and Canada to Kuala Lumpur, thousands are converging on Egypt's Rafah border: doctors, students, trade unionists, faith leaders and ordinary people. Just days ago, more than 1,500 North African activists launched the Convoy of Steadfastness. More are on the move from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Malaysia too is represented. CENTHRA, alongside Malaysian civil society organisations, has pledged its support to the march, amplifying our national voice in this historic moment of conscience. Israel's seizure of the "Madleen" aid ship in international waters backfired, igniting more momentum. More than Palestine is at stake — this concerns our shared humanity's soul. The right to life. The right to dignity. The right of nations, including our own, to believe in a world governed by justice and not brute power. To believers in human sanctity: Speak. March. Act. History remembers responders. AZRIL MOHD AMIN Founding member, Global Coalition Against the Occupation of Palestine
New Straits Times
12 hours ago
- New Straits Times
US slams UN conference on Israel-Palestinian issue, warns of consequences
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump's administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters. The diplomatic demarche, sent on Tuesday, says countries that take "anti-Israel actions" following the conference will be viewed as acting in opposition to US foreign policy interests and could face diplomatic consequences from Washington. The demarche, which was not previously reported, runs squarely against the diplomacy of two close allies France and Saudi Arabia, who are co-hosting the gathering next week in New York that aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel's security. "We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages," read the cable. President Emmanuel Macron has suggested France could recognise a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territories at the conference. French officials say they have been working to avoid a clash with the US, Israel's staunchest major ally. "The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies," the cable read. The United States for decades backed a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel. Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy. The Republican president has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. But on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a long-time vocal supporter of Israel, said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal. "Unilaterally recognising a Palestinian state would effectively render Oct. 7 Palestinian Independence Day," the cable read, referring to when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack from Gaza on Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Hamas' attack triggered Israel's air and ground war in Gaza, in which almost 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of the 2.3 million population displaced and the enclave widely reduced to rubble. If Macron went ahead, France, home to Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognise a Palestinian state. This could lend greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations generally more critical of Israel. Macron's stance has shifted amid Israel's intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and there is a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever. The US cable said Washington had worked tirelessly with Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, free the hostages and end the conflict. This week Britain and Canada, also G7 allies of the United States, were joined by other countries in placing sanctions on two Israeli far-right government ministers to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring the Gaza war to an end. "The United States opposes the implied support of the conference for potential actions including boycotts and sanctions on Israel as well as other punitive measures," the cable read. Israel has repeatedly criticised the conference, saying it rewards Hamas for the attack on Israel, and it has lobbied France against recognising a Palestinian state. "Nothing surprises me anymore, but I don't see how many countries could step back on their participation," said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity due to the subject's sensitivity. "This is bullying, and of a stupid type."
