DaysofPal- The UN Human Rights Office denounced on Friday the startling number of civilian deaths in Israel’s war in Gaza, pointing out that women and children accounted for almost 70% of the thousands of deaths it was able to confirm.
In a fresh report, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), confirmed that 8,119 of the 34,500 people who were allegedly killed during the first six months of Israel’s war in Gaza were women and children, the youngest of whom was only one day old.
Volker Turk, the head of the UN’s human rights office, denounced Israel’s “reckless disregard” for the “rules of war meant to minimize and prevent human suffering during armed conflict.” He urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law, pointing out its decision to cut ties with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and its continuous siege of northern Gaza.
Attacks on civilians that are “widespread or systematic” may qualify as “crimes against humanity,” the report warned.
“And if committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, they may constitute genocide,” it stated.
80 percent of the deaths, according to the report, took place in residential buildings or homes, and 44 percent of those deaths involved women and children. It also noted that the majority of confirmed deaths involved children aged five to nine.
The UN report 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 went on to say, “This behavior by Israeli forces has resulted in previously unheard-of levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness, and disease.”
Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 43,469 Palestinians and injured 102,561, according to the Ministry of Health in the enclave.
More than 85,000 tons of bombs have been dropped inside the besieged Gaza Strip by the Israeli military since the genocide against Palestinians began in October 2023, the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority said in a statement on November 6.
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