UN women and children make up 70 of Gaza death toll

UN: women and children make up 70% of Gaza death toll

TEHRAN- The United Nations has confirmed the “horrific reality that has unfolded” for the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 2023.

400 days after the U.S.-backed Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has published a report detailing the devastating impact on the 2.3 million Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip. 
The report’s analysis covers a six-month- period from November 2023 to April 2024, highlighting that justice must be served in respect to the grave violations of international law.

The UN agency backs up the Gaza health ministry's statements which have repeatedly announced the majority of victims have been women and children. The UN report has documented that children and women have been brutalized mostly by American and German-made munitions dropped by Israel on the besieged enclave. 

OHCHR now says, “The UN Human Rights Office has been verifying the personal details of those killed in Gaza by strikes, shelling and other conduct of hostilities. Of those fatalities, it has so far found close to 70 percent to be children and women, indicating a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.”

The ongoing Israeli attacks and its killing campaign across the enclave that has targeted the entire Gaza population “demonstrates an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare selected,” the report states.

The report says in too many instances the killing of these civilians could amount to war crimes. 

More shockingly, the highest number of verified fatalities, according to the OHCHR, was among children aged between five and nine.

The three categories of age most represented were children between five and nine years old, children from ten to 14, and babies and children from zero to four.

Of the verified fatalities, about 80 percent were killed in residential buildings or similar housing, out of which 44 percent were children and 26 percent were women.

“The International Court of Justice, in its series of orders on provisional measures, underscored the international obligations of Israel to prevent, protect against and punish acts of genocide and associated prohibited conduct,” it says.

UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk stressed that the Israeli regime must fully and immediately comply with the top UN court’s regulations. 

This is even more critical and urgent, given the totality of conduct set out in the report and taking into account most recent events, including the Israeli military operations in North Gaza and its adoption of legislation affecting UNRWA’s activities, he said.

“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” he pointed out.

“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing, and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law – namely the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack,” Turk said. “Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”

“The trends and patterns of violations, and of applicable international law as clarified by the International Court of Justice, must inform the steps to be taken to end the current crisis,” said the High Commissioner. “The violence must stop immediately.” He added that the international community “must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”

The report also points to repeated statements from Israeli officials setting strategies to end the war on Gaza as based on the enclave’s entire destruction and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. 

Furthermore, it documents Israeli efforts to rationalize discrimination, hostility and violence against civilians, and even the elimination of the Palestinians from the Strip, something that legal experts have long stated amounts to genocide.
 

 

source: tehrantimes.com