Israel is committing genocide in Gaza U.N. inquiry finds, joining rising chorus : NPR

The Palestinians hide during an Israeli air strike on September 5 on a high -rise building in Gaza City after the Israeli army issued a warning.

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Youf al Zanoun / AP

Geneva – A team of independent experts commanded by the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded that Israel commits a genocide in Gaza, publishing a report on Tuesday that calls on the international community to end the genocide and take action to punish those responsible.

The deeply documented conclusions of the team of three members are the last accusations of genocide against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by defenders of rights, because Israeli continues with his war against Hamas in Gaza who killed tens of thousands of people. Israel rejected what he called a “distorted and false” report.

The commission of inquiry into the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, which was created four years ago, has repeatedly documented alleged violations of human rights and violations in Gaza since the mortal on October 7, 2023, attacking in Israel led by Hamas and other Palestinian regions.

Although neither the Commission nor the Council of 47 members of the country for which he works in the United Nations system can take measures against a country, the conclusions could be used by prosecutors of the International Criminal Court or the United Nations International Court of Justice.

The report is also equivalent to a final message from the team led by the former UN Rights Chief Navi Pillay, who was a judge at the International Criminal Court for Rwanda. His three members announced in July that they would resign, citing personal reasons and a need for change.

The team was commissioned by the Human Rights Council, the best UN human rights organization, but it does not speak for the United Nations.

Israel refused to cooperate with the Commission and accused it and the HRC of anti-Israeli prejudices. Earlier this year, the Trump administration, a key Israeli ally, has withdrawn the United States from the Council.

The Commission claims that Israel has committed “genocidal acts”

After a meticulous legal analysis, examining both actions and intention, the Commission declared that Israel had committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined by an international convention adopted in 1948 known by the name of “Convention on Genocide”, three years after the end of the Second World War and the Holocauste.

“The Commission concludes that Israel is responsible for the Gaza Genocide Commission,” said Pillay, president of the committee. “It is clear that there is the intention of destroying the Palestinians in Gaza through acts which meet the criteria exposed in the genocide agreement.”

The team based its results on the five criteria of the agreement to assess whether the genocide occurred: kill members of a group; cause its members seriously bodily or mental damage; imposing measures aimed at preventing births in the group; deliberately inflict the calculated conditions to cause the group’s “physical destruction”; And forcibly transfer his children to another group.

Under the Convention, a determination of the genocide could be made even if only one of these five criteria was fulfilled – and the Commission said that four were. Only the criteria on forced transfer have not been met, he said.

Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, said that “the responsibility of atrocity crimes lies in the Israeli authorities in the highest levels” during the almost two years war.

His commission concluded that Netanyahu, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, had prompted the genocide commission. He has not evaluated if other Israeli leaders had done so too.

Chris Sidoti, one of the three members of the commission, said that he hoped that the report would reach people in Israel, insisting that they had been “betrayed” by the government in its “abject refusal” to take measures to save Israeli hostages after 1,200 people was killed on October 7, two years ago, and its “genocidal war”.

“We cannot understand how much October 7 was traumatic for the people of Israel,” he told journalists. “The trauma and their suffering have been ruthlessly manipulated by Netanyahu and his friends for two years – and it is time for it to stop. And it is time for those responsible for it to be responsible.”

Israel refutes the results

Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the holocaust, categorically rejected the allegations of genocide against it as an anti -Semitic “blood defamation”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel published an angry response on Tuesday, claiming that it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report”.

“Three individuals serving as proxies of Hamas, notorious for their openly anti -Semitic positions – and whose horrible declarations on the Jews have been condemned worldwide – published today another false ‘` `report on Gaza,” he said.

The accusations of genocide are particularly sensitive in Israel, which was founded as a paradise for the Jews following the Holocaust and where the memories of the Holocaust still play an important role in the national identity of the country.

Arriving at its conclusion of the genocide, the commission said it had been extended to the conduct of Israeli security forces and “explicit statements” by Israeli civil and military authorities, among other criteria.

In particular, experts cited as factors the number of deaths, the “total seat” of Israel of Gaza and the blocking of humanitarian aid which led to famine, a policy of “systematically destroy” the health care system and the direct targeting of children.

The Commission calls for countries to act

The Commission has urged other countries to stop weapons transfers in Israel and block individuals or businesses that could contribute to the genocide in Gaza.

“The international community cannot remain silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Pillay, who is South African lawyer. “When clear signs and evidence of emerging genocide, the lack of action to stop it is equivalent to a complicity.”

The current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has decried the conduct of Israel of the war in Gaza and voted with the alleged crimes, but did not accuse Israel of having carried out a genocide.

His office, referring to international law, argued that only an international court can take an official and official determination of the genocide. Critics have thwarted who could take years and insist that thousands of people, including many civilians, were systematically killed in Gaza in the meantime.

The International Court of Justice hears a case of genocide deposited by South Africa against Israel. Other countries, including Spain, Mexico and Libya, have asked the United Nations court to join the case.