UN inquiry finds high Israeli officers incited genocide in Gaza

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -A United Nations Fee of Inquiry concluded on Tuesday that Israel has dedicated genocide in Gaza and that high Israeli officers together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had incited these acts.

It cites examples of the size of the killings, assist blockages, pressured displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to again up its genocide discovering, including its voice to rights teams and others which have reached the identical conclusion.

“Genocide is going on in Gaza,” mentioned Navi Pillay, head of the Fee of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and a former Worldwide Felony Courtroom choose.

“The accountability for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities on the highest echelons who’ve orchestrated a genocidal marketing campaign for nearly two years now with the precise intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.”

Israel has declined to cooperate with the fee. Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva accuses the fee of getting a political agenda towards Israel.

The fee’s 72-page authorized evaluation is the strongest U.N. discovering so far however the physique is impartial and doesn’t formally communicate for the United Nations. The U.N. has not but used the time period genocide however is beneath mounting stress to take action.

Israel is combating a genocide case on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice in The Hague. It rejects such accusations, citing its proper to self-defence following the lethal October 7, 2023, Hamas assault that killed 1,200 individuals and resulted in 251 hostages, in accordance with Israeli figures.

The following struggle in Gaza has killed greater than 64,000 individuals, in accordance with the Gaza Well being Ministry, whereas a world starvation monitor says a part of it’s affected by famine.

The 1948 U.N. Genocide Conference, adopted within the wake of the mass homicide of Jews by Nazi Germany, defines genocide as crimes dedicated “with intent to destroy, in entire or partially, a nationwide, ethnic, racial or non secular group, as such”. To rely as genocide, no less than one among 5 acts will need to have occurred.

The U.N. fee discovered that Israel had dedicated 4 of them: killing; inflicting critical bodily or psychological hurt; intentionally inflicting situations of life calculated to deliver concerning the destruction of the Palestinians in entire or partially; and imposing measures meant to stop births.

It cited as proof interviews with victims, witnesses, docs, verified open-source paperwork and satellite tv for pc imagery evaluation compiled for the reason that struggle started.

DEHUMANISING VICTIMS

The fee additionally concluded that statements by Netanyahu and different officers are “direct proof of genocidal intent.” It cites a letter he wrote to Israeli troopers in November 2023 evaluating the Gaza operation to what the fee describes as a “holy struggle of whole annihilation” within the Hebrew Bible.

The report additionally names Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

South Africa’s Pillay, who headed a U.N. tribunal for Rwanda the place greater than 1 million individuals had been killed in 1994, mentioned the conditions had been comparable. “After I take a look at the information within the Rwandan genocide, it is very, similar to this. You dehumanise your victims. They’re animals, and so subsequently, with out conscience, you may kill them,” she mentioned.

Whereas the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice referred to different Israeli statements in regard to Gaza and Palestinians in its 2024 emergency measures order, it didn’t title Netanyahu.

“I hope, because of our report, that the minds of states will even be opened,” mentioned Pillay, who retires in November.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Further reporting by Stephanie van den Berg in The Hague; Enhancing by Lisa Shumaker)