Latest news with #IndependentInternationalCommissionofInquiry
Arab News
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Evidence of Israeli genocide keeps stacking up
The reports keep rolling in. The leaders of the world's most powerful states just roll their eyes. Those who dare to speak out get hammered. The stack of evidence of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and, yes, genocide against Palestinians grows thicker by the day. UN agencies, human rights groups, doctors, aid agencies and other professional outfits have overloaded our inboxes with heavily footnoted, weighty reports. Last week, the UN Human Rights Council's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the conflict contributed a 49-page report into the mix. It covered sexual and gender-based violence carried out by Israeli forces and settlers. It shakes up the narrative of the Western establishment. Anti-Palestinian groups want the focus to be solely on Israeli victims of sexual crimes — those carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. This has to change. The huge number of Palestinian women killed undermines Israeli claims that their operations were targeted. October 2023 may have been the deadliest month for Palestinian women ever recorded, with 1,213 killed. Children make up a third of all casualties, women another third. These percentages are much higher than in the 2008-09 conflict, the report argues, because of Israel's far greater use of heavy air bombardment. Prominent Israeli figures are not ashamed of sharing genocidal views, including against Palestinian women. Take Eliyahu Yosian, a commentator from the Misgav Institute for National Security, who told Israeli TV that, in Gaza, 'the woman is an enemy, the baby is an enemy and the pregnant woman is an enemy.' This alone should be punishable as incitement under the Genocide Convention. Prominent Israeli figures are not ashamed of sharing genocidal views, including against Palestinian women Chris Doyle The report also covers another aspect of genocide, namely the intent to impose measures intended to prevent births within the group. To back this up, the report covers the shelling of an in vitro fertilization clinic in December 2023. Israeli commanders knew the purpose of the clinic. The report also details the remarkable number of Israeli strikes on maternity wards —part of the broader Israeli decimation of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza. As one Palestinian doctor told me: 'Not only do you not want to get sick in Gaza, you do not want to get pregnant.' Giving birth without proper medical facilities has become so dangerous that many women opt to risk giving birth at home. Because of Israel's policy of starvation as a weapon of war, women and newborns are typically malnourished and many women say they cannot produce milk to breastfeed. Nobody needed Nostradamus-like powers to predict the Israeli leadership's reaction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired off his usual fusillade of condemnation so fast that it is doubtful he got past the first page of the report, if he looked at it at all. This was 'an anti-Israel circus.' As for the UN Human Rights Council, Netanyahu fumed that it 'has long been exposed as an antisemitic, corrupt and pro-terror body that has no legitimacy.' He was not so critical last June, when the same UN body produced an excoriating report on the Oct. 7 attacks, including Hamas' use of sexual violence. Netanyahu rejects the UN report as blood libel. Listen to him and practically the whole world is antisemitic. The Israeli PM has called the UN a 'house of darkness' and a 'swamp of antisemitic bile.' US student protests are antisemitic. The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan was described as one of 'the great antisemites in modern times.' Netanyahu said: 'The antisemitic decision of the international court in The Hague is a modern Dreyfus trial, and it will end the same way.' In fact, he also accused the ICC of antisemitism back in 2019. One group Netanyahu is quiet about is what can be called the antisemites for Israel — those who indulge in anti-Jewish hatred and conspiracies but support Israel. The grotesque way unevidenced smears of antisemitism are hurled at entire institutions to intimidate and distract from the reality of Israel's war crimes and genocide has to be challenged. Genuine antisemitism is rising but what Netanyahu et al are doing undermines that cause. Netanyahu rejects the UN report as blood libel. Listen to him and practically the whole world is antisemitic Chris Doyle The challenge is to ensure the overwhelming deluge of evidence of genocide counts — a tough ask given the tidal wave of career-ending pile-ons against those in power who dare to utter the 'G' word. The eminent genocide scholar William Schabas, who lost family in the Nazi Holocaust, summed it up perfectly: 'One day, Western countries will all recognize what happened in Gaza as a genocide. It will be like apartheid South Africa, when the West stayed silent for decades and then suddenly grew conscious when they think it is safe to.' Those who are prepared to stand up and be counted should be honored. The legions of politicians, advisers and officials who know the truth but cower in fear must step forward. A day of reckoning will come when those who have been complicit in Israel's crimes will be held to account. It is time to be on the right side of history.
See - Sada Elbalad
14-03-2025
- Politics
- See - Sada Elbalad
UN Report Sparks Global Outrage Over Alleged Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
A newly released United Nations report has ignited international condemnation after concluding that Israel's attacks on reproductive health facilities in Gaza amount to acts of genocide. The report, issued by the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, details systematic targeting of maternity wards, reproductive health centers, and an in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic, significantly impairing Palestinians' ability to reproduce. The report also alleges widespread sexual Violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinian detainees, including forced stripping, sexual harassment, rape, and sexualized torture. Investigators assert that these actions, carried out with tacit or explicit approval from Israeli leadership, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The findings have triggered global calls for accountability, with human rights organizations and foreign governments urging action. Several nations have weighed in, with the European Union expressing deep concern and urging an independent review of the allegations. Meanwhile, South Africa and Malaysia have called for economic sanctions and legal action against Israeli officials implicated in the abuses. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the report, calling it 'a politically motivated attack' and accusing the UN of bias and antisemitism. The Israeli army have also denied the accusations, maintaining that 'Israeli forces' operations adhere to international law and any misconduct is strictly prohibited'. The United States and the United Kingdom, key Israeli allies, have not yet issued formal statements but are reportedly reviewing the findings. Some lawmakers in Washington have criticized the report, calling it 'one-sided', while others have pushed for a congressional inquiry into the allegations. The UN commission has urged immediate international intervention, warning that failure to act could lead to further atrocities. The report emphasizes the need for criminal prosecutions and reparations for victims, as well as the protection of Palestinian civilians from ongoing attacks. As tensions mount, the findings have intensified debates over Israel's military conduct in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, increasing pressure on the International Criminal Court to take legal action.
Saba Yemen
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
Palestinian Foreign Ministry Welcomes UN Report on Zionist Enemy Crimes
Ramallah - Saba: The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, entitled "More Than Human Endure," which documents in detail the gross and systematic crimes and violations committed by the Zionist enemy, the illegal occupying force. In a statement, the ministry emphasized the findings of the report and the truth about the Zionist enemy's perpetration of genocide and other crimes and violations that the Palestinian people have suffered and continue to suffer from since the Nakba. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (International)
Al Jazeera
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
What were Israel's ‘genocidal acts' against reproductive health in Gaza?
The UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry has accused Israel of committing 'genocidal acts' against Palestinians by using sexual violence and targeting women's health facilities in Gaza. Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh details the allegations. Published On 13 Mar 2025
The National
13-03-2025
- Health
- The National
Israeli attacks on Gaza reproductive health centres 'genocidal'
Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza Israel carried out 'genocidal' acts in Gaza with the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare centres, a UN investigation concluded on Thursday. Forces 'simultaneously imposed a siege and prevented humanitarian assistance, including the provision of necessary medication and equipment to ensure safe pregnancies, deliveries and post-partum and neonatal care', the UN Commission of Inquiry said in a report. 'Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities,' it said. The commission said such acts violate women's and girls' reproductive rights, as well as their right to life, health, human dignity, physical and mental integrity, freedom from torture and degrading treatment. The report came after the commission conducted public hearings in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday, hearing from victims and witnesses of sexual violence. The commission said it found that Israeli authorities have partly destroyed the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza by attacking sexual and reproductive health care. It said that this amounts to 'two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births'. 'The targeting of reproductive healthcare facilities, including through direct attacks on maternity wards and Gaza's main in-vitro fertility clinic, combined with the use of starvation as a method of war, has impacted all aspects of reproduction,' said the commission's chair Navi Pillay. 'These violations have not only caused severe immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls, but irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group.' The three-person Independent International Commission of Inquiry was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged international law violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel's mission in Geneva said it 'categorically rejects the unfounded allegations'. It accused the commission of advancing a 'predetermined and biased political agenda … in a shameless attempt to incriminate the Israel Defence Forces'. The UN Population Fund estimates that at least 50,000 pregnant women were caught up in the Gaza conflict, cut off from maternity care and delivery services. In September, it reported that more than 17,000 pregnant women were on the brink of famine, with nearly 11,000 experiencing severe food shortages. In February, doctors told the fund's representative Nestor Owomuhangi of the harrowing details of women facing miscarriages as a result of the long and arduous journeys on foot, travelling on broken roads in the wind and rain. About 500,000 returned to Gaza's north after a ceasefire deal took effect in January, many to homes that had been destroyed.
