'Immense' scale of Gaza killings amount to crime against humanity, UN inquiry

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 12 June 2024

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By Emma Farge

GENEVA - Both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, a U.N. inquiry found on Wednesday, saying that Israel's actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses.

The findings were from two parallel reports, one focusing on the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and another on Israel's military response, published by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI), which has an unusually broad mandate to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel does not cooperate with the commission, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The COI says Israel obstructs its work and prevented investigators from accessing both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel's diplomatic mission to the U.N. in Geneva rejected the findings. "The COI has once again proven that its actions are all in the service of a narrow-led political agenda against Israel," said Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva.

Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

By Israel's count more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage in the Oct. 7 cross-border attacks that sparked a military retaliation in Gaza that has since killed over 37,000 people, by Palestinian tallies.

The reports, which cover the conflict through to end-December, found that both sides committed war crimes including torture; murder or willful killing; outrages upon personal dignity; and inhuman or cruel treatment.

Israel also committed additional war crimes including starvation as a method of warfare, it said, saying Israel not only failed to provide essential supplies like food, water, shelter and medicine to Gazans but "acted to prevent the supply of those necessities by anyone else".

Some of the war crimes such as murder also constituted crimes against humanity by Israel, the COI statement said, using a term reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians.

"The immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a strategy undertaken with intent to cause maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality and adequate precautions," the COI statement said.

Sometimes, the evidence gathered by such U.N.-mandated bodies has formed the basis for war crimes prosecutions and could be drawn on by the International Criminal Court.

MASS KILLINGS, SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND HUMILIATION

The COI's findings are based on interviews with victims and witnesses, hundreds of submissions, satellite imagery, medical reports and verified open-source information.
Among the findings in the 59-page report on the Oct. 7 attacks, the commission verified four incidents of mass killings in public shelters which it said suggests militants had "standing operational instructions". It also identified "a pattern of sexual violence" by Palestinian armed groups but could not independently verify reports of rape.

The longer 126-page Gaza report said Israel's use of weapons such as MK84 guided bombs with a large destructive capacity in urban areas were incompatible with international humanitarian law "as they cannot adequately or accurately discriminate between the intended military targets and civilian objects".

It also said Palestinian men and boys were subject to the crime against humanity of gender persecution, citing cases where victims were forced to strip naked in public in moves "intended to inflict severe humiliation".

The findings will be discussed by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.
The COI composed of three independent experts including its chair South African former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay was set up in 2021 by the Geneva council. Unusually, it has an open-ended mandate -- a fact criticised by both Israel and some of its allies.

Hamas accepts UN-backed Gaza truce plan, US cites 'hopeful sign'

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 11 June 2024

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By Daphne Psaledakis and Nidal Al-Mughrabi

TEL AVIV/CAIRO - Hamas accepts a U.N. resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian militant group said on Tuesday in what the U.S. Secretary of State called "a hopeful sign".

Conversations on plans for Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war ends will continue on Tuesday afternoon and in the next couple of days, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv after talks with Israeli leaders. "It's imperative that we have these plans."

Blinken met Israeli officials on Tuesday in a push to end the eight-month-old Israeli air and ground war against Hamas that has devastated Gaza, a day after President Joe Biden's proposal for a truce was approved by the U.N. Security Council.

Ahead of Blinken's trip, Israel and Hamas both repeated hardline positions that have undermined previous mediation to end the fighting, while Israel has pressed on with assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the war.

On Tuesday, however, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who is based outside Gaza, said it accepted the ceasefire resolution and was ready to negotiate over the details. It was up to Washington to ensure that Israel abides by it, he added.

He said Hamas accepted the formula stipulating the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a swap of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.
"The U.S. administration is facing a real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to immediately end the war in an implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution," Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Blinken said the Hamas statement was "a hopeful sign" but definitive word was still needed from the Hamas leadership inside Israeli-besieged Gaza. "That's what counts, and that's what we don't have yet."

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory air and ground blitz in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, the Gaza health ministry has said, and reduced most of the narrow, coastal enclave to wasteland, with malnutrition widespread.

Biden's proposal envisages a ceasefire and release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel in stages, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war.

Israel has said it will agree only to temporary pauses in the war until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas has countered it will not accept a deal that does not guarantee the war will end.

Blinken, speaking to reporters before departing for neighbouring Jordan, also said his talks were also addressing day-after plans for Gaza, including security, governance, and rebuilding the densely populated enclave.

"We've been doing that in consultation with many partners throughout the region. Those conversations will continue...it's imperative that we have these plans," he said.

In the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinians reacted cautiously to the Security Council vote, fearing it could prove yet another ceasefire initiative that would prove fruitless.

"We will believe it only when we see it," said Shaban Abdel-Raouf, 47, a displaced family of five sheltering in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, a frequent target of Israeli firepower.

"When they tell us to pack our belongings and prepare to go back to Gaza City, we will know it is true," he told Reuters via a chat app.

FEARS OF MAJOR ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH WAR

In his visit, his eighth to the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last October, Blinken also hoped to counter rising violence between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah after both signalled readiness for a major spillover conflict.

On Monday, Blinken had talks in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, an important mediator in the Gaza war, in Cairo before proceeding to Israel, where he met with Primem Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Blinken had consultations on Tuesday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, centrist ex-military chief Benny Gantz - who quit Israel's war cabinet on Sunday over what he said was Netanyahu's failure to outline a plan for the war's end - as well as opposition leader Yair Lapid.

The U.S. State Department said Blinken discussed Biden's truce proposal with Gantz and reiterated that it would advance Israel's security interests, bring hostages home and raise the chances of restoring calm along Israel's border with Lebanon.

The U.S. is Israel's closest ally and biggest arms supplier, though it has become sharply critical of the high civilian death toll, vast destruction and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the Israeli military campaign.

The war raged on in Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli forces stepped up strikes on its southern city of Rafah a day after four soldiers were killed in an ambush claimed by Hamas.

Israeli Army Radio said the soldiers died in an explosion in a building in Rafah's Shaboura district. Hamas said it had ambushed troops by detonating explosives planted in the building.

HOPES FOR CEASEFIRE REPEATEDLY DASHED

Biden has repeatedly declared that ceasefires were close over the past several months, but there has been only one, week-long truce, in November, when over 100 hostages were freed in exchange for about 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas in a commando raid into a crowded urban refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday during which 274 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza's health authorities.

There are over 100 hostages left in the coastal enclave, according to Israeli tallies, including at least 40 whom Israeli authorities have declared dead in absentia.

UN Security Council adopts a cease-fire resolution to end Gaza war

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 10 June 2024

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THE UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved its first resolution endorsing a cease-fire plan aimed at ending the eight-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The U.S.-sponsored resolution welcomes a cease-fire proposal announced by President Joe Biden that the United States says Israel has accepted. It calls on the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which initially said it viewed the proposal “positively,” to accept the three-phase plan.

It urges Israel and Hamas “to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.”

The resolution — which was approved overwhelmingly with 14 of the 15 Security Council members voting in favor and Russia abstaining — also calls on Israel and Hamas “to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.”

U.S. Ambassdador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that the council “sent a clear message to Hamas to accept the cease-fire deal on the table,” reiterating that Israel has accepted the deal which is supported by countries across the world.

“The fighting could stop today, if Hamas would do the same,” she told the council. “I repeat, this fighting could stop today.”

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told reporters earlier on Monday that the United States wanted all 15 Security Council members to support what he described as “the best, most realistic opportunity to bring at least a temporary halt to this war.”

Whether Israel and Hamas agree to the three-phase cease-fire plan remains in question, but the resolution’s strong support in the U.N.’s most powerful body puts added pressure on both parties to approve the proposal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Biden presented only parts of the proposal and insisted that any talk of a permanent cease-fire before dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities is a nonstarter.

The leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad met in Qatar on Monday to discuss the proposed cease-fire deal and said in a statement afterward that any deal must lead to a permanent cease-fire, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza, reconstruction and “a serious exchange deal” between hostages in Gaza and Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council, told members after the vote that the resolution “can represent a step forward toward an immediate and lasting cease-fire.” While the text isn’t perfect, he said, “it offers a glimmer of hope to the Palestinians, as the alternative is (the) continuing killing and suffering of the Palestinian people.”

“We voted for this text to give diplomacy a chance to reach an agreement that will end the aggression against the Palestinian people that has lasted far too long,” Bendjama said.

The war was sparked by Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mainly Israeli civilians, and saw about 250 others taken hostage. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 36,700 Palestinians and wounded in excess of 83,000 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It has also destroyed about 80% of Gaza’s buildings, according to the U.N.

The Security Council adopted a resolution on March 25 demanding a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which ended April 9, with the U.S. abstaining. But there was no halt to the war.

The resolution adopted on Monday underscores “the importance of the ongoing diplomatic efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United States aimed at reaching a comprehensive cease-fire deal, consisting of three phases.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his eighth trip to the Middle East since Oct. 7 pursuing that goal.

Biden’s May 31 announcement of the new cease-fire proposal said it would begin with an initial six-month cease-fire with the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza and the return of Palestinian civilians to all areas in the territory.

Phase one also requires the safe distribution of humanitarian assistance “at scale throughout the Gaza Strip,” which Biden said would lead to 600 trucks with aid entering Gaza every day.

In phase two, the resolution says that with the agreement of Israel and Hamas, “a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza” will take place.

Phase three would launch “a major multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of any deceased hostages still in Gaza to their families.”

The final draft of the resolution “underlines” that the proposal says if negotiations take longer than six weeks for the first phase, “the cease-fire will still continue as long as negotiations continue.” It welcomes “the readiness of the United States, Egypt and Qatar to work to ensure negotiations keep going until all the agreements are reached and phase two is able to begin.”

The resolution rejects any attempt to change Gaza’s territory or demography, or reduce its size, but drops wording that specifically mentioned the reduction by officially or unofficially establishing “so-called buffer zones.”

It reiterates the Security Council’s “unwavering commitment to achieving the vision of a negotiated two-state solution where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.”

And it stresses “the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.” This is something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has not agreed to.