Israeli attacks on Gaza health sector amount to war crimes: UN report
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A UN commission accuses "Israel" of crimes against humanity, highlighting deliberate attacks against health facilities, wounded civilians, the abuse of Palestinian detainees, and the story of Hind Rajab.
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Palestinians walk through the destruction left by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Monday, April 1, 2024. (AP)
"Israel" has been committing "relentless and deliberate attacks" against Gaza's healthcare facilities, medical personnel, and injured civilians, United Nations investigators found, emphasizing that the occupation's actions are tantamount to war crimes and extermination, a crime against humanity.
According to a UN report, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip included the "collective punishment" of Palestinians, majorly marked by the Israeli siege on the healthcare system through the continued blockade on all necessities for survival such as fuel, food, water, and medical supplies, as well as the extremely limited permission critical Palestinian patients are given to seek treatment outside the Strip.
Navi Pillay, the head of the commission that conducted the report, urged the Israeli occupation to immediately end its deliberate destruction of Gaza's healthcare system, further slamming its perpetration of "a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s health care system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
'Baseless, detached from reality'....
"Israel's" ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, rejected the accusations, claiming they were baseless and "detached from reality". He was also deflecting them and calling for focus on the widely debunked rape accusations of October 7.
It is worth noting that "Israel" imposed full sieges on three major hospitals in northern Gaza. Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda, and the Indonesian Hospitals, which shelter and treat almost 700,000 Palestinians, which were all given direct orders and threats to evacuate or risk being the IOF's direct targets.
Gaza's Government Media Office issued a statement revealing that the Israeli occupation has begun besieging Kamal Adwan Hospital, targeting its administration with direct fire. It blocked all fuel from arriving at its premises, jeopardizing its operations.
Expressing its utmost rejection of the systematic Israeli destruction of the healthcare sector in Gaza, the Media Office urged the international community to immediately mobilize and protect the northern district's main hospitals, before the scenario of Al-Shifa Medical Complex is repeated, and everyone inside, be it medical personnel, civilians, or patients, are executed.
Israeli crimes against Palestinian detainees
The commission's findings, which are not binding by law, also saw that occupation forces "deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles, constituting the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and the crime against humanity of extermination."
In this context, the report additionally highlighted the torture and abuse Palestinian detainees, including children, suffer in Israeli prisons. The crimes range from rape and sexual abuse to widespread abuse, which also amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In August, a leaked video from the Sde Teiman concentration camp showed a squad of IOF selecting a detainee from among more than 30 others who are all blindfolded and lying on the ground. The Palestinian is then led to a corner, where he was sodomized.
The inmate then bled and was transferred to the hospital some hours later, with his condition described as "complex."
Hind Rajab
The murder of six-year-old Hind Rajab was also singled out in the report. A global movement emerged when a voice recording of Hind Rajab begging the Red Crescent Society to come to her rescue as she was trapped in a car under Israeli fire, surrounded by her murdered family members, gained wide traction.
A few days after the call, the PRCS and international organizations involved in the case of Hind had not heard word from the two medics dispatched to find and rescue her.
12 days later, the Palestine Red Crescent confirmed that Hind was found dead along with the bodies of five of her family members, in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, in a vehicle that was surrounded by Israeli tanks.
The ambulance that was dispatched to rescue Hind and her sister who contacted the PRCS for help was found bombed in the area, leading to the killing of crew members Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, 12 days after losing contact with them.
Other reports reveal that Hind was shot with at least 360 bullets.
