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12-06-2024
GENEVA: The UN human rights office said on Tuesday the killings of civilians in Gaza during the Israeli operation to free four hostages, as well as Palestinian armed groups’ holding of captives in densely populated areas, could amount to war crimes.
Israel said the operation, accompanied by an air assault, took place on Saturday in the heart of a residential neighborhood in central Gaza’s Nuseirat area where Hamas had kept the hostages in two separate apartment blocks
The operation killed more than 270 Palestinians, according to Gazan health officials.
“The manner in which the raid was conducted in such a densely populated area seriously calls into question whether the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution as set out under the laws of war were respected by the Israeli forces,” Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said.
Laurence added that the holding of hostages in such densely populated areas by Palestinian armed groups was “putting the lives of Palestinian civilians, as well as the hostages themselves, at added risk from the hostilities.”
“It was catastrophic, the way that this was carried out in that civilians again were caught smack bang in the middle of this,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN, told media.
Laurence said Palestinian armed groups who are holding hostages in densely populated areas are putting the lives of nearby civilians and the hostages at “added risks” from the hostilities.
“All these actions, by both parties, may amount to war crimes,” he said.
In response to the statement, Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva accused of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights of “slandering Israel”.
“The toll of this war on civilians is first and foremost the product of Hamas’s deliberate strategy to maximize civilian harm,” the mission said.
The conflict in Gaza was triggered when Hamas fighters charged into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.
Gunmen took around 250 hostages back to Gaza on Oct. 7, more than 100 of whom were released in exchange for about 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails during a week-long truce in November.
There are 116 hostages left in the coastal enclave, according to Israeli tallies, including at least 40 whom Israeli authorities have declared dead in absentia.
“All these actions by both parties may amount to war crimes,” he told a regular UN briefing in Geneva on Monday.
“It was catastrophic, the way that this was carried out in that civilians again were caught smack bang in the middle of this,” Laurence added.
Speaking about the Israeli hostages and their families, he said: “The fact that four hostages are now free is clearly very good news. These hostages should never have been taken in the first place. That’s a breach of international humanitarian law. They must be freed. All of them. Promptly.”
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the group’s 7 October attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people mostly civilians and abducted about 250.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 36,730 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Palestinians are facing widespread hunger because the war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies. Over 1 million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July, according to UN agencies. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
