New York - Gaza: Europe and the Arabs - Agencies
A UN investigation has concluded that Israel committed war crimes in the first months of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations Commission of Inquiry said - as reported by the British Sky News network in its English-language bulletin on Wednesday - that these findings were reached based on two reports, one of which focused on the Hamas attacks on the seventh of last October, and the other on Israel’s response to these attacks. .
The committee added - in a statement issued by it - that the huge numbers of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip and the widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a strategy that was followed with the intention of causing the greatest amount of damage, ignoring the principles of discrimination and taking adequate precautions.
The committee noted that Israel committed an additional war crime by using the weapon of starvation against civilians, as it prevented the entry of basic aid such as food, water, and medicine into the Gaza Strip.
In the same context, UNICEF reported that nearly three thousand malnourished children were at risk of “dying in front of their families,” as the Rafah attack led to them being separated from treatment, while horrific violence and displacement continue to affect desperate families’ access to care facilities and services. Health. According to what was stated in the daily news bulletin of the United Nations, a copy of which we received this morning
In a statement issued yesterday, Tuesday, UNICEF noted a slight improvement in the delivery of food aid to the northern Gaza Strip, while humanitarian access to the south has decreased significantly, putting more children at risk of malnutrition.
In this context, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khader, said: “Horrific images continue to emerge from Gaza of children dying in front of their families due to continued shortages of food and nutrition supplies and the destruction of health care services. Unless treatment is quickly resumed for these 100 children.” "3,000 children are at immediate and grave risk of serious illness, life-threatening complications, and joining the growing list of boys and girls killed by this senseless, man-made deprivation."
Ms. Khader said the organization's warnings of escalating child deaths due to a preventable combination of malnutrition, dehydration and disease "should have mobilized immediate action to save children's lives. However, this devastation continues." She added: “With hospitals destroyed, treatment halted, and supplies scarce, we are preparing for more children’s suffering and deaths.”
The Regional Director noted that UNICEF has more food supplies already prepared to enter the Gaza Strip if access permits, and stressed the need for better operating conditions on the ground through which safety is increased and restrictions are reduced. However, she stressed that "in the end, what the children need most is a ceasefire."