UN mission accuses Israel of 'genocide' in Gaza Strip

A UN fact-finding mission has accused Israel of deliberately targeting and destroying sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities in Gaza since Oct 7, 2023. While analysts said there is ample evidence to the findings, Israel swiftly rejected the report's conclusions and dismissed the allegations as "unfounded".

"More than a human can bear: Israel's systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since Oct 7, 2023", read the report of the Geneva-based UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.

Published on Thursday, its findings concluded that the Israeli military operations in Gaza have had a disproportionate impact on Palestinian women and girls. The report reminds of other reports of Israeli "genocidal" attacks on Palestine health staff and facilities in Gaza and the West Bank.

By targeting noncombatant civilian women and girls directly, these acts "constitute crimes against humanity of murder and the war crime of wilful killing", the report stated.

Hadi Rahmat Purnama, an assistant professor of international law and chair of the Centre for International Law Studies at the Faculty of Law at Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta, told China Daily that the UN report on Gaza is "harrowing", as the evidence documented violates the Geneva Convention.

"The sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by Israeli forces can be considered to be war crimes and at the same time by destroying health facilities," said Purnama.

The UN experts also found that women and girls have died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.

The report said this is due to the conditions imposed by the Israeli authorities impacting access to reproductive healthcare, acts that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination.

It said Israel's use of starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian assistance, and the concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system have caused severe reproductive harm to women and girls.

This has been compounded by the lack of water and access to sanitation facilities, the report noted.

The investigation was done by senior human rights investigators reporting to the UN Human Rights Council. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the Human Rights Council as an "anti-Israel circus".

Hospitals destroyed

In January, the World Health Organization said only half of Gaza's 36 hospitals remained partially operational. Nearly all hospitals were "damaged or partly destroyed".

Ahmed Ayesh Alnajjar, director-general of international relations at the Education Ministry in Gaza, told China Daily that despite a cease-fire being negotiated, the killings "have not stopped at all", particularly in Rafah, which "seems to be not included in the truce".

UN official Stephane Dujarric said the organization has documented at least 54 attacks on healthcare facilities in the occupied West Bank since January.

Last November, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report that found that nearly 70 percent of fatalities it had verified in the Gaza conflict were women and children.

Agencies contributed to this story.

jan@chinadailyapac.com