Israel has called a United Nations investigation that concluded it deliberately sought to destroy the health system in the Gaza Strip “scandalous,” accusing investigators of bias.
The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CoI) released a report on Thursday concluding that Israel “perpetrated a concerted policy aimed at destroying Gaza’s health system.”
He said the country was “committing war crimes and a crime against humanity of extermination with incessant and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”
In a statement from its mission in Geneva, Israel strongly rejected these allegations on Friday.
“This latest report is yet another blatant attempt by the CoI to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel and hinder its right to protect its population, while covering up the crimes of terrorist organizations,” the statement said.
Israel claimed that the Palestinian armed group Hamas was using the hospitals for military purposes. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked medical facilities in Gaza, with the health sector already overwhelmed and infrastructure destroyed.
“This report shamelessly presents Israel’s operations in Gaza’s terror-infested health facilities as a matter of politics against Gaza’s health system,” the Israeli statement said.
Israel also rejected the report’s findings of widespread and systematic abuse of Palestinian prisoners, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Numerous U.N. officials and reports have said Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians during its war on Gaza and is accused of numerous cases of torture, noting allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners held incommunicado in arbitrary and prolonged detentions, as well as sexual abuse. men and women.
However, Israel accused the commission of creating an “alternative reality” and thus contributing to “the exacerbation of this conflict”.
“We call on States to denounce this prejudiced approach, which only further tarnishes the credibility of the Human Rights Council and the UN as a whole,” it reads.
The report is the second released by the three-person commission since the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the current conflict. The commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“The international order is collapsing”
Separately, UN special rapporteurs issued a joint statement on Friday warning that “the international legal order is collapsing in the face of these atrocities” in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“The world is facing the deepest crisis since the end of World War II,” the panel said, adding that “the brutal escalation of violence” has resulted in “genocidal attacks, cleansing ethnic and collective punishments against the Palestinians, which risk breaking”. the international multilateral system.
The legal tools used to remedy the situation have so far not yielded the expected results.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others linked to the Gaza war remains pending, while interim measures ordered by the International Criminal Court Justice (ICJ) to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza are still not applied. .
“In the face of overwhelming public opinion from the international community, Israel continues to act with blatant disregard for international law and order,” the statement said.
Israel’s failure to stop Israel’s actions in Gaza “not only allowed the continuation of unprecedented brutality, but expanded it to the broader region, engulfing Lebanon in violence and destruction “.
The signatory experts, including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, demanded that “everyone, state actors and individuals, give priority to respect for international law and human rights , without discrimination or double standards.”
