The United Nations Office for Human Rights yesterday called for an independent and effective investigation into the deaths in two Gaza hospitals – now destroyed – that were besieged by the Israeli army and where they were found mass graves
“Given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the hospital complexes Al-Nasser (south of Gaza) and Al-Xifa (north).
“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. The intentional killing of civilians, detainees and other people who are not in combat is a war crime”, he remarked.
According to information from the Gaza authorities transmitted to the Human Rights Office, 283 bodies were recovered from the first hospital, of which 42 have been identified. The victims would have been buried at a certain depth in an area that was covered with debris.
“Among the dead are elderly people, women and children, and some were found with their hands tied,” said the spokeswoman for the UN human rights body, Ravina Shamdasani.
At Al-Xifa hospital, reports indicate that they found thirty Palestinian corpses buried in two pits dug in courtyards adjacent to the emergency building and the dialysis building, respectively.
“The Israeli Defense Forces have said they killed 200 Palestinians during the operation at Al-Xifa hospital, but there are reports that this number may be an underestimate,” the spokeswoman said.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights also denounced that the violence against the Palestinian population in the West Bank does not decrease, despite the general condemnation of the mass attacks perpetrated by the settlers, with the help and protection of the Israeli security forces. “Settler violence has continued with the support, protection and participation of Israel’s security forces,” said Türk. The latest series of attacks was in the refugee camp of Nur Shams and the city of Tulkarem, on April 18, according to information corroborated by the UN Human Rights Office.
For his part, the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, assured – without specifying anything else – that during the more than six months of war “the cities of Gaza have been destroyed more than the Germans during the Second World War”.
“Imagine the comparison”, said Borrell, in a debate in the European Parliament on the situation in the Gaza Strip. The head of European diplomacy, who insisted on the condemnation of the terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7 and called for the release of all Israeli hostages in the hands of the Palestinian organization, again claimed an “immediate ceasefire”. In this sense, he told Israel that “an offensive in the Gazan city of Rafah, where there are more than 1.3 million people on the streets with no more protection than a piece of plastic on their heads, must be avoided” because to whom “the humanitarian consequences would be catastrophic”.
Borrell stated that the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is “irreplaceable”, after the report published on Sunday by the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, whom the UN asked to analyze the body’s neutrality, following Israel’s accusations that twelve of its members collaborated with Hamas.
“Yes, there are problems of neutrality, but that is one thing, and participating in the terrorist attacks of October 7 is another,” Borrell pointed out.
