About 70% of the persons who died in the first six months of Israel’s war on Gaza were women and children, said the United Nations Human Rights Office on Friday.
This indicated a “systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law” on the part of the Israeli military, the agency said in an update report on the human rights situation in the besieged Palestinian enclave between November 1, 2023, and April 30, 2024.
Israel’s military offensive against Gaza began on October 7, 2023, after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an incursion into southern Israel, killing 1,200 persons and taking over 200 hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, killing more than 44,000 persons including, nearly 16,700 children.
The report verified 8,119 of the over 34,500 persons killed in Gaza, as per data from the Palestinian health ministry, during the first six months of the war.
Of the confirmed deaths, 44% were of children and 26% were women, the report said. Nearly 80% of those dead were killed in residential buildings or similar housing, it added.
The data showed that a “high number of babies and young children, women, older persons, and families killed together in residential buildings”, said the report.
The continuation of the attacks demonstrated “an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare selected” and a “widespread or systematic” attacks on civilians could amount to “crimes against humanity”, said the report.
It added: “And if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, they may also constitute genocide.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office also highlighted “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement”.
It said: “This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
Following its publication, United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Türk criticised Israel’s “apparent indifference” to the killings of civilians in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The report showed that the civilian casualties were “a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law – namely the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack,” Türk was quoted as saying by CNN.
The pattern continued “unabated, over one year after the start of the war”, he added.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report and accused the United Nations of relying on “unverified information”, according to Al Jazeera.
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