UN: Israel commits war crimes in targeting Gaza health facilities

Days of Palestine Editorial
Days of Palestine

Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza.

[This] is committing war crimes. [It is committing] the crime of extermination, with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said in a new report on Friday.

💬 “Israel must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction of healthcare facilities in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “By targeting healthcare facilities, Israel is targeting the right to health itself with significant long-term detrimental effects on the civilian population. Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system.”

The report found that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained, and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment.

These actions constitute the war crimes of wilful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination.

Attacks on medical facilities in Gaza, particularly those devoted to pediatric and neonatal care, have led to incalculable suffering of child patients, including newborns, the report said. In continuing these attacks, Israel has violated children’s right to life, denied children access to basic healthcare, and deliberately inflicted conditions of life destroying generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group.

In one of the most egregious cases, the Commission investigated the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab, along with her extended family, and the shelling of a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance and the killing of two paramedics sent to rescue her.

The Commission determined on reasonable grounds that the Israeli Army’s 162nd Division operated in the area and was responsible for killing the family of seven, shelling the ambulance, and killing the two paramedics inside. This constitutes the war crimes of willful killing and an attack against civilian objects.

The deliberate destruction of health infrastructure providing sexual and reproductive healthcare, combined with the lack of access and availability to healthcare, is also 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.

Regarding the detention of Palestinians in Israeli military camps and detention facilities, the report found that thousands of child and adult detainees, many of whom were arbitrarily detained, have 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.

Male detainees were subjected to rape, as well as attacks on their sexual and reproductive organs, and forced to perform humiliating and strenuous acts while naked or stripped as a form of punishment or intimidation to extract information. The deaths of detainees as a result of abuse or neglect amount to the war crimes of wilful killing or murder and violations of the right to life.

Child detainees released by Israeli authorities have returned to Gaza severely traumatized, unaccompanied, with limited ability to locate or communicate with their families.

The report found that the institutionalized mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, a longstanding characteristic of the occupation, took place under direct orders from the Israeli Minister in charge of the prison system, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and was fuelled by Israeli government statements inciting violence and retribution.

💬 “The appalling acts of abuse committed against Palestinian detainees require accountability and reparations for the victims,” said Pillay. “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.”

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Image: © Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP; Israeli occupation forces "inspect" a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance at a checkpoint following a reported attack in the town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank. "Two israelis were killed today in a suspected shooting attack, the army said." AWIP: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/aS99