UN probe claims Israel seeking to ‘destroy’ Gaza healthcare system

Investigators assert Israel has carried out ‘relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities,’ conflate Palestinian security detainees with Gaza hostages

This handout photograph taken on February 18, 2024 by the World Health Organization (WHO), shows a convoy of ambulances during a WHO, UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian Red Crescent mission to evacuate patients from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Christopher Black/World Health Organization (WHO)/AFP)
This handout photograph taken on February 18, 2024 by the World Health Organization (WHO), shows a convoy of ambulances during a WHO, UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian Red Crescent mission to evacuate patients from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Christopher Black/World Health Organization (WHO)/AFP)

GENEVA – A United Nations inquiry claimed Israel has carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system in the ongoing war with Hamas, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.

A statement issued Thursday by the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of its Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory accused Israel of “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in the war, triggered by the Hamas terror group’s massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

“Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 30.

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva rejected the report’s findings, calling them outrageous.

“(The report) is another blatant attempt by the CoI to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel and obstruct its right to protect its population,” it said, referring to the commission of inquiry.

The commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 and has been strongly criticized for anti-Israel bias due to its unprecedented open-ended mandate to examine any alleged violations of human rights committed at any time – unlike all other such commissions which have been time-limited and subject-specific – and the record of antagonistic comments and activities against Israel of its members.

In the face of the allegations made by the commission’s new report, Israel has said that while it seeks to avoid civilian fatalities in its fight against Hamas, the Gaza terror group is deeply embedded within the civilian population, and operates from the cover of built-up populated areas including private homes, schools, mosques, UN facilities, and hospitals.

Captured terrorists have confirmed the claims, explaining that Hamas believes Israel will not target them if they hide inside medical facilities.

Palestinians inspect the damage at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital after the Israeli military withdrew from the complex housing the hospital after two weeks fighting terror groups there, on April 1, 2024. (AFP)

The UN inquiry’s statement also accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel and targeting medical vehicles — something which Israel has consistently denied doing.

As an example, it cited the death of a Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, in February along with family members and two medics who came to rescue her, which was blamed on Israel by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

The IDF said that an initial investigation into the death of the six-year-old suggested that no troops had been in the area at the time. The case was then handed off to the General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war.

The UN inquiry further accused Israel of restricting permits for patients to leave the war-torn Gaza Strip.

Following the October 7 terror onslaught, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were seized as hostages, Israel closed the heavily damaged Erez Crossing, which prior to the war had served as a medical corridor for sick Gazans in need of treatment. While it has since reopened for the delivery of aid to the enclave, along with the Kerem Shalom border crossing, it has not reopened for individual use.

Throughout the first months of the war, close to 5,000 sick and injured Gazans were able to evacuate via the Rafah Crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. But the crossing was shuttered in May after the IDF launched an offensive in the southernmost Gaza city, as Egypt said it refused to reopen its side of the crossing until the Gaza side is returned to Palestinian control.

The World Health Organization has said that over 10,000 patients requiring urgent medical evacuation have been prevented from leaving Gaza since then.

Medical evacuations have nevertheless continued to take place — albeit in a limited and irregular fashion — and in September, the WHO evacuated nearly 100 people, including dozens of children, from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates for treatment.

Palestinians wait to board a bus at Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis on August 15, 2024, after permission from the Israeli authorities was given for 11 children suffering from cancer to leave Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in order to receive treatment in Jordan. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)

Conflating the treatment of Palestinian security detainees in Israel and the 101 hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, the UN statement said that its investigation found both sides to have been involved in carrying out torture and sexual violence.

Hamas has prevented the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting the hostages in Gaza since their abduction, and the Red Cross has in turn said that unless the terror group changes its stance, it cannot access them independently.

In the wake of October 7, Israel banned the Red Cross from visiting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli facilities without offering an explanation as to why, or an alternative option. In addition, numerous reports have emerged of abuse by Israeli officials against Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman detention facility close to Beersheba.

However, dozens of investigations are being conducted into the allegations. So far, one soldier has been indicted for abusing detainees at the facility, while another five are under investigation for the alleged violent sexual abuse of a detainee. In addition, the High Court of Justice ordered the government in August to explain why it shouldn’t declare the ban on Red Cross visits to be illegal.

The Commission of Inquiry has a broad mandate to collect evidence and identify suspected perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It bases its findings on a range of sources including interviews with victims and witnesses, submissions and satellite imagery.

Israel and organizations like UN Watch have criticized the commission for anti-Israel bias, pointing out that its three members, Navi Pillay, Miloon Kothari, and Chris Sidoti, all have a record of troubling remarks and activities against Israel.

Pillay, who served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014, signed a petition in 2020 to impose sanctions on Israel, and has accused Israel of racially motivated discrimination against Palestinians.

Kothari alleged in 2022 that social media was controlled by “the Jewish lobby,” while Sidoti has been described by the Palestinian Authority’s Independent Commission for Human Rights as “a close friend and ally.”

Illustrative: IDF soldiers inside a Hamas data center in a tunnel under a compound of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) in Gaza City, February 8, 2024. (Jack Guez/AFP)

The COI has previously alleged that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war and that Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses cited by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. The term is reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry has said that since the outbreak of war, more than 42,000 people have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has not cooperated with the inquiry,  and the COI has accused Israel of obstructing its work and preventing investigators from accessing both Israel and the Palestinian territories.

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

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.

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