The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported on Thursday “extremely serious allegations” of violations of international law in the war between Israel and Hamas and called for an international investigation.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations responded by saying that international law is not a “suicide pact” that allows “terrorist organizations” to “benefit from constant international support” and that Palestine called on the international community to “wake up” and to be aware of what he called “a massacre” and “a genocide”.
“Extremely serious allegations of multiple and serious violations of international humanitarian law, regardless of the perpetrators, require rigorous investigation and accountability,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk during a briefing to member countries on his recent trip to the Middle East, and added that “an international investigation is necessary.”
AFP
During his trip to the region, the senior UN official visited the Rafah border post, the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
According to Israeli authorities, Hamas carried out a bloody attack in Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Around 240 people were also taken hostage in the attack. Since then, Israel, bent on “destroying” Hamas, has relentlessly bombed Gaza in retaliation, killing 11,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the Islamist movement’s government.
In his speech on Thursday, Türk said the crisis goes far beyond the Gaza Strip and expressed deep concern about “the worsening violence and severe discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“In my view, this creates a potentially explosive situation and I want to be clear: we are well above the early warning threshold. “I propose the utmost concern over the occupied West Bank,” he said, calling on parties to recognize that all human lives have equal value.
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“It is clear that some on both sides view the killing of civilians as acceptable collateral damage or as a deliberate and useful weapon of war. “This is a humanitarian catastrophe and an attack on human rights,” he said.
“We must not allow anger to overwhelm our moral conscience,” he added, before emphasizing that “the freedom of Israelis is inextricably linked to that of Palestinians, Palestinians and Israelis are each other’s freedom. only hope for peace.”
During the meeting, Israel’s UN ambassador in Geneva, Meirav Eilon Shahar, strongly condemned the UN’s criticism of alleged violations during the war against Hamas and stressed that international law is not a “suicide pact.”
When a state cannot defend itself, “or when it is criticized for doing so in accordance with international law, terrorist organizations will inevitably become more emboldened and continue to use their methods, sure that they benefit from constant international support,” said she.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi called on countries to “wake up” to the Israeli army’s operations in the Gaza Strip, saying: “It is a massacre, it is a genocide.”