UN Human Rights Office Accuses IDF Forces Of Summarily Executing Civilians In Gaza
Following the killing of 3 Israeli civilians released as hostages by IDF forces despite the fact they were carrying a white flag of surrender adorned with an SOS message, calls to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes have reached a fever pitch. In an attempt to save face following the execution of its own citizens as the result of its unquenchable blood thirst, Mossad officials resumed ceasefire talks with Hamas leadership. Though the resumed diplomatic engagement aimed at saving the hostages still in Hamas' hands is intended to quell concerns that Israel is not genuinely attempting to minimize civilian casualties, a new report from the UN Human Rights Office removes any plausibility from the claim that it is not guilty of war crimes in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch reported already as far back as two decades ago (2002) that tanks in The Most Moral Army in the World ran down a wheelchair-bound Palestinian hoisting a white flag:
— Norman Finkelstein (@normfinkelstein) December 17, 2023
"Fifty-seven-year-old Kamal Zghair, a wheelchair-bound man who was shot and then run over by…
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN has received reports that IDF soldiers summarily executed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their families. The alleged executions took place in the Al Remal neighborhood of Gaza City. On the night of December 19th, IDF forces conducted a raid of a residential building sheltering Palestinian civilians before separating the men from the women and children of their respective families. Following their separation, at least 11 of those male civilizations were shot to death in front of the women and children who were then ordered into a separate room. Once sequestered within that room, IDF forces reportedly shot at the women and children and threw a grenade into the room which seriously injured more civilians, including an infant and child.
The IDF has not yet released any information or statement concerning the allegations made in the report. Although these apparent war crimes have yet to be confirmed through any independent analysis, the UN Human Rights Office has confirmed the killings in building. What remains is a determination of veracity of the reports of the intentional execution of those male civilians and the nature of the force that went on to injure the remaining women and children. To reach a conclusion on the matter, the UN has called on Israeli authorities to implement an independent investigation into the killings. Ominously, the lack of any objective third-party oversight of that impending investigation forecasts a continuation of the international community being unable to hold Israel accountable for acts like those reported to the UN Human Rights Office.
Nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since the onset of Israel's onslaught on the Gaza Strip. Despite assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the IDF would minimize civilian casualties, an unfathomable 70% of those deaths have been women and children. The carnage has seen upwards of 2.2 million Gazans displaced from their homes. That chaos has left Gaza fraught with famine and pestilence as UN officials have struggled to effectively transport aid into the Palestinian territory at a rate that can keep up with that which the crisis is worsening.
As dire as those circumstances are, the conduct of the IDF during this campaign showcases the barbarity of the manner in which Israel has waged this war. Residential buildings, hospitals, and even churches have not been off-limits from behind the purview of the IDF's crosshairs. Time after time, calls to hold Israel accountable for its alleged war crimes have been met by little more than inept waves of increased diplomatic demands for Israel to scale back its campaign that have ultimately fallen upon deaf ears in Jerusalem. Ironically, it is the latest high profile instance of Israel being exposed for its hubris in defiance of demands it upholds greater respect for international law that has ushered in a new looming tentative peace.
At this juncture, more than half of the approximately 240 hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October still remain in Gaza. Any forthcoming ceasefire in the hopes of releasing the remaining 150 hostages from Hamas' captivity in Gaza would surely only be in the interest of preserving the lives of Israeli civilians. Although a ceasefire of any duration would provide a much needed window of time to accelerate the disbursement of humanitarian aid into Gaza, doing so would be done under the crucible of a clock frantically counting down toward the hour where Israel's indiscriminate attacks of Palestinian civilians will inevitably resume. That doomed fate sheds light on not just the depravity of Israel's war effort but the ineptitude of a feeble international community incapable of doing anything to apply international law to a country that has become an exception to the rules it has set forth.
