– Hamas of war crimes
Both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, a UN inquiry alleged on Wednesday, saying that Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses and included acts of “extermination.”
The findings were from two parallel reports by “independent experts,” one focusing on the Oct. 7 Hamas assault and another on Israel’s military response, published by the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI), which has an unusually broad and open-ended mandate to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of alleged international crimes committed in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Regarding Israel’s actions, the report noted “a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Gaza.”
“The commission found that the crimes against humanity of extermination; murder; gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys; forcible transfer; and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment were committed,” it added.
Sexual violence
The reports also said that both Israeli forces and Palestinian terrorists engaged in sexual and gender-based violence during the first months of the Israel-Hamas war.
The alleged sexual violence carried out by Israeli forces apparently referred to incidents where dozens of terror suspects detained in Gaza were publicly stripped. Israel said the acts were necessary to search the suspects for weapons and suicide vests, but acknowledged that the pictures should not have been published.
The report said Palestinian men and boys were forced to strip naked in public in moves “intended to inflict severe humiliation.”
The report also said it identified “a pattern of sexual violence” by Palestinian terror groups but could not independently verify reports of rape.
This comes despite the fact that UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten in a report after her visit to Israel found that rape likely occurred during the Hamas attacks, and said there was convincing evidence hostages were facing sexual abuse in Gaza.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva responded that the report “outrageously and repugnantly attempts to draw a false equivalence between IDF soldiers and Hamas terrorists with regards to acts of sexual violence” and reiterated longstanding claims of anti-Israel discrimination.
The statement also noted that the commission decided to release its report on the Jewish festival of Shavuot.
“Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7 during a Jewish High Holiday. Today, on the Jewish High Holiday of Shavuot, the Pillay Commission of Inquiry chooses to publish its latest biased reports, attacking Israel,” the embassy said. “This decision is reflective of the systematic anti-Israeli discrimination of this Commission of Inquiry, which was born in sin, in 2021, while Hamas was raining down rockets on Israeli civilians,” it said.
