Israeli and Palestinian representatives exchanged accusations of “genocide” related to the war in Gaza at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
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“Hamas’ attacks on October 7 were motivated by a genocidal ideology,” Yeela Cytrin, legal adviser to the Israeli mission in Geneva, told diplomats gathered at the United Nations’ European headquarters.
Palestinian representative Dima Asfour estimated that “the man-made catastrophe” resulting from the Israeli army’s massive bombings and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip represents “a model case of genocide.”
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948, was the first human rights treaty in the history of the United Nations, predating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Passed after World War II, it emphasized the horror of the Holocaust and stressed the obligation to prevent and punish such acts of genocide.
But “75 years later, Jews are still targeted and still feel the violence of anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews,” Ms. Cytrin said. “Hamas and its supporters have been promoting the extermination of the Jewish people on social media for years,” she added.
“Even before the bodies of the October 7 victims had cooled, anti-Semitism exploded both offline and online,” she continued.
The Iranian representative claimed that Israel was the perpetrator of a “horrible genocide” against the Palestinians, while representatives of other Muslim countries accused Israeli leaders of “incitement to genocide.”
“Warning signs of genocide must prompt us to act,” Ms. Asour said, referring to the Genocide Convention.
However, “in the last eight weeks, after publicly making calls for genocide, Israel has begun dropping tons of explosives of enormous destructive power on Gaza,” the Palestinian spokesman said.
Ms. Asour condemned “an extensive campaign of digital repression, including disinformation, censorship, online harassment and blocking” of social networks, which she said was aimed at silencing Palestinian voices.
She called on “tech companies and social networks to take immediate action to protect their users from online harm in light of the genocide in Palestine.”