The United Nations Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70 per cent of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
The UN tally since the start of the war, in which Israel’s military is fighting Hamas militants, includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues.
The 8,119 victims verified is a much lower number than the toll of over 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month-old war. But the UN breakdown of the victims’ age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.
This finding indicates “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality,” the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.
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“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 and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva said it categorically rejected the report. “Once again, OHCHR fails to accurately reflect the realities on the ground, and disregards the extensive role of Hamas and other terrorist organisations in deliberately causing civilian harm in Gaza,” it said, referring to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
Israel’s military, which began its offensive in response to the October 7th, 2023 attack in which Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and seized more than 250 hostages, says it takes care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza.
It has said approximately one civilian has been killed for every fighter, a ratio it blames on Hamas, saying the Palestinian militant group uses civilian facilities. Hamas has denied using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as human shields.
Ajith Sunghay, Head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters at a briefing in Geneva that the fatalities included in the report were verified by three sources such as neighbours, family members, local NGOs, hospital records or UN staff on the ground.
“The numbers are, of course, massive compared to previous years, so we do need time to catch up and verify”, he said, adding that he thought the final UN tally was likely to be similar to the Palestinian toll.
The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman, the report said.
The United Nations’ peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said on Friday that the Israeli military’s “deliberate and direct destruction” of its property was a “flagrant violation” of international law.
The 10,000-strong UN mission, known as Unifil, is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the “blue line” separating Lebanon from Israel.
Since Israel launched a ground campaign across the border against Hizbullah fighters at the end of September, Unifil has accused the Israeli military (IDF) on several occasions of deliberately attacking its bases, including by shooting at peacekeepers and destroying watchtowers.
In its latest accusation, Unifil said the IDF used excavators and a bulldozer to destroy part of a fence and concrete structure at a UN peacekeeping position in southern Lebanon on Thursday.
“The IDF’s deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable Unifil property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701,” Unifil said, referring to a UN resolution that mandates a cessation of hostilities in southern Lebanon after a previous war.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The statement came a day after six Malaysian peacekeepers on a UN bus that was crossing through a checkpoint were wounded by an Israeli drone strike that killed three Lebanese people in a nearby car in the city of Sidon.
The Defence Forces confirmed in a statement on X that no Irish troops were involved in the incident and that all “personnel deployed in Lebanon are well and accounted”.
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbullah have exchanged fire for more than a year, in parallel with the Gaza war, but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing of Lebanon’s south and east and making ground incursions into border villages.
Israel says it is targeting Hizbullah infrastructure and military assets, while avoiding civilians. Hizbullah and Lebanese officials point to the rising death toll, with more than 3,000 killed since October 2023, and widespread destruction in the country as evidence Israel’s fire is indiscriminate. – Reuters
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