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A UN commission of inquiry found on Wednesday (June 12) that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, and said Israel’s actions also amounted to crimes against humanity because of the large number of civilian casualties.
The conclusions came in two parallel reports released by a U.N. commission of inquiry, one focusing on the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the other on Israel’s military response. The commission has an unusually broad mandate to gather evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel does not cooperate with the commission, saying it has an anti-Israel bias. The commission says Israel is obstructing its work and preventing investigators from entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva rejected the findings. “The commission of inquiry has once again demonstrated that its actions are solely driven by a narrow political agenda against Israel,” said Merav Elon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to Israeli statistics, the cross-border attack on October 7 killed more than 1,200 people and took 250 people hostage, triggering military retaliation from Gaza, while according to Palestinian statistics, the attack has killed more than 37,000 people.
The report, which covers the conflict up to the end of December, found that both sides had committed war crimes, including torture, murder or wilful killing, outrages on personal dignity and inhuman or cruel treatment.
The statement said Israel had committed other war crimes, including using starvation as a method of warfare. Not only had Israel failed to provide Gazans with basic supplies such as food, water, shelter and medicine, but it had also “prevented anyone else from providing these necessities.”
The committee’s statement noted that some of the war crimes, including murder, also constitute Israel’s crimes against humanity, a term used to describe the most serious international crimes committed knowingly in a widespread or systematic attack on civilians.
“The high number of civilian casualties and extensive destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure in Gaza are the inevitable result of an Israeli strategy aimed at causing maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality and adequate precaution,” the commission’s statement said.
Sometimes, evidence gathered by such UN-mandated bodies forms the basis for war crimes prosecutions and can be considered by the International Criminal Court.
Mass killings, sexual violence and humiliation
The Commission of Inquiry based its findings on interviews with victims and witnesses, hundreds of submissions, satellite imagery, medical reports and verified open-source information.
In its 59-page report on the October 7 attacks, the commission confirmed four mass killings at public shelters and said they indicated a “long-standing operational directive” by the militants. The commission also found a “pattern of sexual violence” by Palestinian armed groups, but was unable to independently verify the reports of rape.
The 126-page Gaza report said Israel violated international humanitarian law by using weapons with great destructive power such as the MK84 guided bomb in urban areas “because they are unable to adequately or accurately distinguish between intended military targets and civilian objects”.
The report also said Palestinian men and boys were subjected to gender-based persecution as a crime against humanity, citing cases where victims were forced to strip naked in public “with the intention of causing severe humiliation”.
The findings will be discussed at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.
The commission of inquiry, made up of three independent experts including its chair, South Africa’s former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, was established by the Geneva Council in 2021. Unusually, its mandate is indefinite — a fact criticised by Israel and some of its allies.
Read more by Euractiv
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