Breaking: UN experts accuse Israel of genocide, sexual violence and extermination

A new UN report has concluded today that Israel carried out further genocidal acts against the Palestinian people through the ‘systematic’ destruction of women’s healthcare facilities during its genocide in Gaza and weaponised sexual violence against Palestinian women.

Israel, which has lied repeatedly about its war crimes throughout the Gaza genocide, unsurprisingly denied the report’s accusations, with wanted war criminal Netanyahu accusing the UN of being antisemitic and ‘attacking the state of Israel with false accusations’.

The United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said that Israel’s crimes included deliberate destruction of reproductive health facilities, including a fertility clinic containing thousands of embryos, eggs and frozen sperm, to prevent Palestinian couples fighting infertility from having children:

Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.

The Commission concluded that Israel’s actions, along with the surge in maternity deaths because of Israel’s destruction of medical supplies and facilities, amounted to extermination – a crime against humanity – and accused Israel of forcing men and women to strip and undergo public sexual assault and humiliation as ‘standard operating procedures’.

Israel is a party to the Genocide Convention and has been repeatedly ordered by the World Court (ICJ) to prevent acts of genocide and other war crimes in Gaza, but has disregarded these orders. Netanyahu, along with former defence minister Yoav Gallant, are now wanted by the International Criminal Court for trial on charges of:

intentionally & knowingly depriv[ing] the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, & medicine & medical supplies, as well as fuel & electricity..

Israel has tried to argue it is not subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction because it is not a signatory to the court, but the Palestinians are – making crimes committed on their soil within the Court’s powers, including Israel’s mass and deliberate slaughter of babies, children and women. The Starmer government has so far fudged on the issue and refused to say explicitly that it will arrest Netanyahu if he comes within UK jurisdiction – and the UK has arranged special immunity for other Israeli figures visiting the UK.

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