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AN INDEPENDENT UNITED Nations commission has said that Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of seeking to exterminate Palestinians.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was set up to investigate violations of humanitarian and human rights law in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
In its latest report, it said that Israel has “obliterated” Gaza’s education system and “destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip”.
It accused Israeli forces of committing “war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities that caused civilian casualties”.
“In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” the report said.
It noted: “While the destruction of cultural property, including educational facilities, was not in itself a genocidal act, evidence of such conduct may nevertheless infer genocidal intent to destroy a protected group.”
In a statement accompanying the report, commission chair Navi Pillay said: “We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza.”
“Children in Gaza have lost their childhood,” the senior South African judge said.
They are forced to worry about survival amid attacks, uncertainty, starvation and subhuman living conditions.
The three-member commission said Israeli attacks “targeted religious sites that served as places of refuge, killing hundreds of people, including women and children”.
In May, UN humanitarian relief chief Tom Fletcher urged the countries of the UN Security Council to take action “to prevent genocide” in Gaza.
Israel has denied committing genocide.
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs demanded that Israel lift its aid blockade on Gaza, where the UN says the entire population of more than two million people is at risk of famine.
“For those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now?” Fletcher said on 14 May. “Will you act – decisively – to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?”
The UN commission’s report paid special attention to Gaza, but also focused on Israeli attacks on civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories as a whole, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel itself.
It said Israel had “done little” to prevent or prosecute Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank who “intentionally targeted educational facilities and students to terrorise (Palestinian) communities and force them to leave their homes”.
The report said Israeli authorities had intimidated and, in some cases, detained Israeli and Palestinian teachers and students who “expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza”.
In May last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his then defence minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders who have since been killed.
Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of a number of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and creating conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza.
The State of Israel also stands accused of genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza in a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa.
While the ICC deals with individuals, the ICJ – the top UN court – deals with disputes between states. Both are based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The UN panel urged the Israeli government to stop attacking cultural, religious and education institutions, “immediately end its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory” and cease all settlement activity.
It said that Netanyahu’s government should comply fully with provisional measures ordered by the ICJ.
The court has ordered Israel “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide against people in Gaza” and allow humanitarian aid to get through.
It also urged Hamas “to cease using civilian objects for military purposes”.
Hamas launched an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 54,800 people, the majority of them civilians. The UN considers these figures reliable.
The commission is to present its findings to the UN Commission on Human Rights on 17 June.
With reporting from © AFP 2025
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