A newly published United Nations investigative report has found that Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system, deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel – which are considered war crimes.
The report also found that Palestinians detained in Israel, including minors, had been subjected to widespread and systematic abuse, physical and psychological violence, and sexual and gender-based violence, amounting to the war crime and crime against humanity of torture and the war crime of rape and other forms of sexual violence.
Navanethem Pillay, chairperson of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, presented the commission’s latest investigative report to the UN General Assembly and press briefing on Oct 30.
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Pillay said this report to the General Assembly “examines attacks on medical facilities and personnel and the treatment of detainees and hostages” from Oct 7, 2023, to Aug 24, “and we conclude that Israeli authorities have implemented a concerted policy to destroy (the) Gaza healthcare system”.
In what it called “one of the most egregious cases”, the commission investigated the killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab in January, along with her extended family, and the shelling of a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance and killing of two paramedics sent to rescue her.
The commission determined that the Israeli Army’s 162nd Division operated in the area (where Hind last was in the Gaza Strip) and was responsible for killing the family of seven, shelling the ambulance and killing the two paramedics inside. This “constitutes the war crimes of wilful killing and an attack against civilian objects”.
According to Gaza’s health ministry in September, at least 1,000 people working in the Palestinian health sector have been killed.
Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, had introduced “medicide” as a term to describe the widespread targeted attacks by Israel on healthcare workers and facilities.
The report said attacks on medical facilities in Gaza, particularly those devoted to pediatric and neonatal care, have “led to incalculable suffering of child patients, including newborns”.
Further, by continuing these attacks, Israel has violated children’s right to life, denied children access to basic healthcare, and deliberately inflicted conditions resulting in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group.
“Of all the killing, the killing that gets me most is the killing of kids,” said Chris Sidoti, member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, who was also at the press briefing on Oct 30.
Sidoti said that as of last week, 13,319 children had been killed in Gaza, of whom 786 were under the age of 1. In addition, 165 children had been killed in the West Bank.
“It’s a statistic that, to me, says everything. Kids aren’t terrorists. Kids aren’t terrorists,” Sidoti reiterated.
In a press release on Oct 10, humanitarian organization Save the Children said at least 3,100 children aged under 5 had been killed in Gaza, with other under-5s at risk from severe malnutrition.
About 30 percent of the 11,300 identified children killed in Gaza between last October and Aug 31 were younger than 5, according to a newly published breakdown of the ages of about 34,000 people whose deaths have been verified by Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
The occupied Palestinian territory is now ranked as “the deadliest place in the world for children” who face “constant exposure to violence”, according to Save the Children.
The UN investigative report also noted that deliberate destruction of health infrastructure providing sexual and reproductive healthcare, combined with the lack of access and availability to healthcare, is “a violation of women’s and girls’ reproductive rights and their right to life, health, human dignity and non-discrimination, as well as the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts”.
“Our report also concludes that Palestinian detainees were subjected to persistent mistreatment by Israeli authorities amounting to torture as a war crime and crime against humanity,” said Pillay.
Also, “the report finds that Israeli and foreign hostages have been intentionally mistreated by Palestinian armed groups in captivity, whose actions amount to torture as a war crime and crime against humanity”, she said.
On the “institutionalized mistreatment of Palestinian detainees”, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli minister in charge of the prison system, was the person named for giving out the orders, which the Commissioner report said were “fueled by Israeli government statements inciting violence and retribution”.
Pillay said the lack of accountability for actions ordered by senior Israeli authorities and carried out by individual members of Israeli security forces and the increasing acceptance of violence against Palestinians “have allowed such conduct to continue uninterrupted, becoming systematic and institutionalized”.
READ MORE: WHO: Hospital destruction rips heart out of Gaza health system
Regarding the Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, the report found that many were mistreated to inflict physical pain and severe mental suffering, including physical violence, abuse, sexual violence, forced isolation, and limited access to hygiene facilities, water and food.
Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have also been accused of war crimes. They were accused of inflicting psychological torture for forcing hostages to participate in videos “to achieve political aims”, with several hostages also killed in captivity.
Pillay called for the immediate release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza, while also urging the Israeli government to cease targeting medical staff and facilities and halt the unlawful detention of Palestinians, including children who have been arrested or detained.
Contac the writer at jan@chinadailyapac.com
