A UN inquiry has accused Israel of carrying out a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system in actions that amount to war crimes and “extermination”.
Navi Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for human rights who is chairing the inquiry, said Israel has carried out “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in the past year.
Ms Pillay will present a full report on the matter to the UN General Assembly on 30 October.
In a statement ahead of its release, she said: “Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system.”
The UN inquiry’s statement also accused Israeli forces of targeting medical vehicles, deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel, and restricting permits for patients to leave the Gaza Strip.
As an example, it cited the death of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl who died in February along with six members of her family as they tried to flee fighting in Gaza.
Two medics were also killed as they tried to rescue them.
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Sky News investigates Hind Rajab’s death
Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), told Sky News that in her mind the deaths were not an accident.
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She said: “We do not dispatch our ambulances to areas where it is considered a military area… if we get calls from these areas, we try to coordinate our safe access.”
In a statement to Sky News, the IDF said it has carried out a “preliminary inspection” into the incident and it “appears that IDF forces were not present near the vehicle or within the firing range of the described vehicle in which the girl was found”.
The IDF has repeatedly claimed Hamas militants operate from the cover of built-up areas – including around schools and hospitals – and says it will strike them when they emerge while trying to avoid harming civilians.
Hamas has denied hiding militants and command posts among civilians.
The UN inquiry’s statement comes after 27 people, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, according to Palestinian medics.
Image: The aftermath of the school strike. Pic: Reuters
The strike, which also wounded many more, happened in the city of Deir al Balah, where upwards of a million people have taken shelter.
Israeli military said it carried out a “precise” strike targeting a militant command inside the school, without providing evidence.
More than 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its offensive in the region following Hamas’s attack on October 7 last year, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister’s office and its foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment, when asked by the news agency, Reuters.
‘Deep concern’ over Lebanon attacks
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Smoke rises from UNIFIL headquarters in Lebanon
Israel has also continued its strikes in Lebanon, where it is involved in military operations against the militant group Hezbollah.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, 18 people were killed and 92 wounded after Israeli strikes on the capital Beirut this evening.
Meanwhile, the UN said earlier today that two of its peacekeepers have been injured after an Israeli tank fired at one of its observation towers.
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement that Israeli forces have “repeatedly hit” UN positions in the last 24 hours.
“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” it said.
The French foreign ministry has shared “deep concern” over the incident, while Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetto said: “It could constitute a war crime and represented a very serious violation of international military law.”
The IDF claimed in a statement issued today: “The Hezbollah terrorist organisation operates from within and near civilian areas in southern Lebanon, including areas near UNIFIL posts.”
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.