Israel is ‘starving, killing and displacing’ Gaza civilians, Palestinian envoy tells UN court
A Palestinian diplomat has told the United Nations’ top court that Israel is “starving, killing and displacing” civilians and targeting aid workers in Gaza.
Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians and aid staff and did not attend the hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday.
At The Hague, Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, Ammar Hijazi, accused Israel of breaching international law in the occupied territories.
He said: “Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organisations trying to save their lives.”
Ammar Hijazi, right. Pic: AP
A protester outside the International Court of Justice on Monday. Pic: AP
The hearings are focused on a request last year from the UN General Assembly, which asked the court to weigh in on Israel’s legal responsibilities after the country blocked the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees from operating on its territory.
In a resolution sponsored by Norway, the General Assembly requested an advisory opinion, a non-binding but legally important decision from the court, on Israel’s obligations in the occupied territories to “ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population”.
Pic: AP
While Israel was not in court, foreign minister Gideon Saar told a news conference in Jerusalem: “I accuse UNRWA, I accuse the UN, I accuse the secretary-general and I accuse all those that weaponised international law and its institutions in order to deprive the most attacked country in the world, Israel, of its most basic right to defend itself.”
Forty states and four international organisations are scheduled to participate in the ICJ hearings, with it likely taking months for the court to rule.
Pic: AP
The hearings come amid the near collapse of the humanitarian aid system in Gaza.
Israel has blocked the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other humanitarian supplies since 2 March.
The World Food Programme said last week its food stocks in the Gaza Strip had run out.
Palestinians wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, in Beit Lahiya. Pic: Reuters
Israel also renewed its bombardment on 18 March, breaking a ceasefire, and seized large parts of the territory, claiming it aims to push Hamas to release more hostages.
Overnight into Monday, at least 27 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes, according to local health officials.
An air strike hit a home in Beit Lahia, killing 10 people, including a Palestinian prisoner, Abdel-Fattah Abu Mahadi, who had been released as part of the ceasefire.
His wife, two of their children and a grandchild were also killed, according to Indonesia Hospital which received the bodies.
An Israeli air strike hit a home in Beit Lahia, killing 10 people. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Another strike hit a home in Gaza City, killing seven people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service.
And late on Sunday, a strike hit a home in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing at least 10 people, including five siblings as young as four-years-old, according to the health ministry.
Two other children were killed along with their parents, according to Nasser Hospital which received the bodies.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel claims it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
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World Food Programme stocks in Gaza have run out
Read more:
Israeli troops shot at Gaza aid workers from ‘point-blank range’
Israeli official says claims IDF targets aid workers are ‘blood libel’
Israel’s ban on UNRWA came into effect in January.
The organisation has faced increased criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who claim the group is deeply infiltrated by Hamas, which UNRWA refutes.
Amir Weissbrod, a foreign ministry official, presented Israel’s case against UNRWA on Monday.
He accused it of failing to act before the war against evidence that Hamas had used its facilities, including by digging tunnels underneath them.
The official said UNRWA employed 1,400 Palestinians with militant ties.
Israel claims some of those employees also took part in Hamas’ attacks on 7 October 2023, with at least three of those employees still allegedly working for the UN.
The presentation included videos, documents and pictures of the alleged employees.
The 7 October 2023 attack in southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and prompted the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza – which the territory’s health ministry says has killed more than 52,000 people.
UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal UN investigation concluded that they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated and corroborated.
The ban does not apply directly to Gaza, but UNRWA is prohibited from operating inside Israel which affects the agency’s ability to function.
Israeli officials claim they are looking for alternative ways to deliver aid to Gaza that would cut out the UN.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Read more:
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal?
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
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The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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