6 months ago
20
A United Nations commission investigating the Oct 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza has accused both Palestinian armed groups and Israel of committing
war crimes
, and the panel said that Israel's conduct of the war included crimes against humanity.
In a report released on Wednesday, the three-person commission - led by South African of Indian Tamil origin Navi Pillay, a former UN human rights chief - provided the most detailed UN examination yet of events on and since Oct.
7. The report does not itself carry any penalties, but it lays out a legal analysis of actions in the
Gaza conflict
that is likely to be weighed by the International Court of Justice and in other international criminal proceedings. Israel did not cooperate with the probe and protested the panel's assessment, the panel - which also included Miloon Kothari, an Indian expert on human rights - said.
The report said Hamas's military wing and six other Palestinian armed groups - aided in some instances by Palestinian civilians - killed and tortured people during Oct 7 assault on Israel in which over 800 civilians were among the over 1,200 killed. An additional 252 people, including 36 kids, were taken hostage, the report said. "Many abductions were carried out with significant physical, mental and sexual violence and degrading and humiliating treatment, including in some cases parading the abductees," it said.
Hamas
has rejected all accusations.
But Israel, during its campaign in Gaza, has also committed war crimes, the commission said, like the use of starvation as a weapon of war through a total siege of Gaza. It said Israel's use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas amounted to a direct attack on the civilian population and had the essential elements of a crime against humanity, disregarding the necessity of distinguishing between combatants and civilians.
