GENEVA – The United Nations on Friday condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70% of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a scathing new report, the UN human rights office detailed a raft of violations of international law since Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack in Israel that sparked the war in the Gaza Strip. Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide,” the report warned, demanding international efforts to prevent “atrocity crimes” and ensure accountability.
“Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said. “Conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
The report pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonisation of Israel.”
But Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office’s activities in the Palestinian territories, painted a bleak picture of the situation on the ground. “Gaza is now a rubble-strewn landscape,” he said via video-link from Amman. “Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”
The report also found that Hamas and other armed groups had committed widespread violations that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including seizing hostages, killings, torture and sexual violence.
UN rights chief Volker Turk called on all countries to work to halt the violations and to ensure accountability, including through universal jurisdiction. “It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies,” he said. “The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”
