16 minutes agoUN: Israel, Palestinians may have violated laws in recent attacks
Periskopi(5 years ago)
(5 years ago)The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Israel's army may have committed war crimes in Gaza and that Palestinian Hamas militants have also violated international humanitarian law, while throwing rockets towards Israel. Michelle Bachelet made these comments on May 27, [...]
Michelle Bachelet made these comments on May 27th, as she addressed a special session of the UN Human Rights Council, which was called at the request of Muslim states, which want to launch an investigation into the recent conflict in Gaza, but also about the human rights situation in the West Coast and Eastern Jerusalem.
Before the ceasefire agreement was reached last week, Bachelet said her office verified the deaths of 270 Palestinians in Gaza, the West Coast and East Jerusalem, including 68 children who died of violence this month. Ten Israelis have been killed by the missiles released by Hamas.
During the 11-day war, Israeli air strikes in areas inhabited at the Gaza Strip “resulted in high numbers of civilian deaths and injuries, and with destruction of civilian infrastructure”, Bachelet said.
Despite Israel's claims that in most of those buildings there were armed groups or that they were used for military purposes, we have no evidence for these” claims, Bachelet said.
If it proves that these attacks have been indiscriminately and disproportionate, such attacks could constitute war crimes”, she added.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Meirav Eilon Shahar said Hamas is “a terrorist organisation, jihadist and genocide” and accused this group of committing war crimes, using civilians as human shields.
Hamas has denied using civilians as human shields and justified throwing missiles into Israel, saying he has done so to protect Palestinians against oppression.
