A United Nations fee on Thursday accused Israel of concentrating on hospitals and different well being services in Gaza that present reproductive providers, together with an I.V.F. clinic the place 1000’s of embryos had been destroyed, in what it known as an effort to forestall Palestinian births.
The report by the U.N. Fee of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, known as that and different actions that trigger hurt to girls and ladies “genocidal acts” and accused Israel of punishing Palestinians collectively for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, assault that killed 1,200 folks.
Israel’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva instantly rejected the report, saying in an announcement that the fee was engaged in “a shameless try and incriminate” the Israeli navy “to advance its predetermined and biased political agenda.” Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the United Nations Human Rights Council of attacking the nation with “false accusations.”
The fee, arrange by the Human Rights Council in 2021 and made up of three attorneys with experience in human rights, mentioned its report drew on earlier investigations it had carried out for the reason that Hamas assault on southern Israel and on some 25 interviews performed over current months with medical specialists, in addition to victims and witnesses of the violence in Gaza. A number of the testimony was aired over two days of hearings in Geneva this week.
The report marked the primary time a United Nations committee has discovered that Israel has dedicated genocidal acts underneath the Rome Statute, which created the Worldwide Felony Court docket, and underneath the worldwide treaty that criminalizes genocide.
“Israeli authorities have destroyed partly the reproductive capability of the Palestinians in Gaza as a bunch, together with by imposing measures supposed to forestall births, one of many classes of genocidal acts within the Rome Statute and the Genocide Conference,” the fee mentioned.
Israeli officers have lengthy accused the rights council of singling Israel out, arguing that U.N. officers and committees condemn the nation with far larger frequency than it does dictatorships like North Korea. In February, Gideon Saar, the Israeli international minister, said Israel would cease taking part within the council, accusing it of demonizing Israel.
The Israeli navy’s bombardment and invasion decimated Gaza’s well being care system in a means that help teams and worldwide our bodies have called “systematic.” The report mentioned this included harm to clinics and different services that present maternity providers affecting greater than half one million girls and ladies of reproductive age in Gaza.
Israel has mentioned that Hamas fighters have embedded themselves in hospitals and different buildings. Underneath international law, if there may be doubt about whether or not a hospital is getting used for navy functions, it ought to be presumed to not be, in response to the Crimson Cross, and civilians shouldn’t be focused.
The report cited particularly the destruction of Al Basma I.V.F. clinic, Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, which was destroyed in December 2023 by artillery fireplace, which is often much less correct than missiles. The fee heard from professional witnesses that the clinic’s destruction prompted the lack of some 4,000 embryos and different reproductive materials from Palestinian sufferers for whom it usually represented a final probability to have youngsters.
