A UNITED Nations investigation has found that Israel committed acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip, systematically targeting reproductive healthcare facilities as part of its brutal assault on the besieged territory.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East al-Quds and Israel, released its findings on Thursday, detailing a wide array of crimes committed against Palestinian men, women, and children since 7 October 2023.
‘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 report stated.
The commission determined that Israel carried out at least two of the five acts constituting genocide under the UN Convention.
Alongside the destruction of healthcare services, the sharp rise in maternal deaths due to restrictions on medical supplies was also a crime against humanity.
The inquiry further concluded that Israel was ‘deliberately inflicting conditions of life on the group (Palestinians) calculated to bring about its physical destruction and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group’.
Navi Pillay, chair of the commission, warned that these crimes had ‘not only caused severe direct physical and psychological harm to women and girls but also had long-term, irreversible consequences for the psychological and reproductive health and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a whole’.
The report highlighted that Israeli forces deliberately targeted Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure, with hospitals and clinics offering reproductive health services among the primary targets.
This led to the near-total collapse of the healthcare system’s ability to provide maternal and neonatal care.
The commission stressed that ‘severe restrictions on essential medical supplies and medicines exacerbated the deteriorating reproductive health of women and girls in Gaza, directly contributing to high maternal and newborn mortality rates’.
The report also condemned Israeli forces for systematically using forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operations to collectively punish Palestinians after the 7 October 2023.
The Hamas resistance movement welcomed the UN findings, stating that the confirmation of Israel’s ‘genocidal acts’ proved that the occupying Tel Aviv regime had engaged in ‘genocide and humanitarian’ violations in Gaza.
‘The UN’s investigation report on Israel’s genocidal acts against the Palestinian people confirms what has happened on the ground: genocide and violations of all humanitarian and legal standards,’ Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Israel’s genocidal campaign has so far resulted in the deaths of at least 48,524 Palestinians, most of them women and children, with a further 111,955 wounded since early October 2023.
The first stage of a ceasefire agreement took effect on 19 January, halting Israel’s military aggression on Gaza in exchange for the release of 30 hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
