A UNITED NATIONS inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza through a ‘systematic campaign to destroy Palestinian life’, including attacks on civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites.
In a report released on Tuesday, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel concluded that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have committed crimes against humanity, including extermination, by deliberately killing civilians in supposed safe zones.
The commission documented the destruction of over 90% of Gaza’s schools and universities, and more than half of its religious and cultural sites.
Navi Pillay, chair of the commission and former UN human rights chief, said the IOF is targeting Palestinian educational and cultural life ‘in a systematic effort to erase Palestinian existence’.
The report also highlighted IOF and settler attacks on students and educators in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and within the Green Line, where expressions of solidarity with Gaza have led to harassment, suspension, and arrests — particularly targeting women.
The commission is set to formally present its findings to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 17.
At the same time the UK has been joined by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in placing sanctions on two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinians in their campaign to gain control of new settlements in the West Bank.
This move was quickly condemned by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who called for the sanctions to be lifted and said that the US stood shoulder to shoulder to Israel.
Rubio added: ‘We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.’
Meanwhile, the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a joint statement with the Foreign Ministers of the other four countries: ‘We are steadfastly committed to the two state solution and will continue to work with our partners for its implementation.
‘It’s the only way to guarantee security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians and ensure long term stability in the region, but it is imperilled by extremist settlements and settlement expansion.’
‘Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. ’These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now – to hold the responsible to account.
‘We will strive to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of the remaining hostages by Hamas.’
‘A surge in aid and a path to a two state solution.’ Today’s measures focus on the West Bank but of course, this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza.’
However, there is no doubt that the massive crisis in Palestine must be resolved.
The Hamas Movement has denounced the assassination of Palestinian resistance figure Rayiq Bisharat as further proof of the Israeli occupation’s ‘criminal mentality’ and its nonstop war on the Palestinian people.
In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas said that the killing of Bisharat — along with the rising death toll and violence in the occupied West Bank — reveals the bloody nature of the occupation government, which ‘targets everything Palestinian’ in its quest to erase the Palestinian identity and presence.
Hamas mourned martyr Bisharat, who was assassinated Tuesday night in Tamun town, in Tubas, affirming that ‘the Palestinian people and their resistance will not rest until they expel the occupation from their land and holy sites.’
Hamas called on the West Bank youth and resistance to strongly confront the wide-scale Israeli aggression and crimes against their people, their prisoners and holy sites, and to close ranks against the Israeli genocidal war that targets the Palestinian existence everywhere.
The way forward is for the Palestinian masses to take the power and for the US, UK and EU trade unions to call general strikes for the immediate establishment of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and with the oil wealth of the region securely in the hands of its people!
Forward to the victory of the Palestinian revolution! Forward to the victory of the world socialist revolution!
