Palestine NHRI calls for war crimes investigation

Palestine’s Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) has described Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip as showing “blatant disregard of the basic laws stipulated in the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the protection of civilians during times of war.”

In a special report released on 11 January 2009, the ICHR said “the Israeli aggression was accompanied by grave and unprecedented violations of Palestinian human rights, as civilians and properties, protected in accordance with international humanitarian law, were targeted.”

“These attacks, constituting heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity, took place under the cover of a blatant Arab and international silence and inaction.”

Monitoring the conflict

ICHR researchers in the Gaza Strip have been documenting human rights violations in the region since the conflict began on 27 December 2008, including attacks on civilians, destruction of civilian property and infrastructure and the rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation.

“The siege is a permanent hurdle confronting the distribution of basic humanitarian and medical supplies needed for the relief of civilian victims and to transfer the wounded to hospitals to receive treatment,” the ICHR said its report.

According to the ICHR, a lack of medicine, medical supplies and electricity had seriously compromised the ability of hospitals to care for the sick and wounded and Gaza’s population faced worseining shortages of potable water, cooking gas and basic food supplies, particularly bread.

“There is no legal basis to justify Israel's strangulation of more than 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip inside a large prison, prohibiting the entry of medical, food, and humanitarian supplies as a collective punishment,” the ICHR said.

Call for action

The ICHR report concludes with a call for:

• the international community and international organisations to immediately intervene to stop the deteriorating human rights in the Gaza Strip, and to put pressure on Israel to end military operations
• an immediate opening of all crossing points into the Gaza Strip, allowing the flow of medical and humanitarian supplies and the entry of voluntary medical personnel and donated field hospitals
• the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to abide by their obligations to guarantee its respect at all times and legally pursue parties accused of committing grave breaches against it
• consolidated national and international efforts to monitor, document and collect well-verified evidence of war crimes, and bring to justice those who committed or ordered the commission of war crimes
• national human rights organisations to exert pressure on their governments to end the conflict and protect the civilian population in the Gaza Strip

ICHR statements on the Gaza conflict

• ICHR’s Special Report on Gaza (11 January 2009)
• ICHR Urgent Appeal 1  about the situation in the Gaza Strip (5 January 2009)
• ICHR Urgent Appeal 2 about the use of weapons in Gaza containing white phosphorus (13 January 2009)
• ICHR press release commending the UN Human Rights Council for condemning Israeli Aggression on the Gaza Strip (13 January 2009)

UN response

On 9 January, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, proposed a mission to assess violations and possible war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas in the Gaza conflict, and called for immediate implementation of a ceasefire called for by the UN Security Council.

Ms. Pillay stressed that international human rights law must apply in all circumstances and at all times and strongly urged parties to the conflict “to fulfil their obligations under international humanitarian law to collect, care for and evacuate the wounded and to protect and respect health workers, hospitals, and medical units and ambulances.”

A joint statement by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Children's Fund said that nothing less than ending the violence would be effective to improve the situation, they said.

UNRWA said that over 21,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

• Read more on the UN response to the Gaza conflict (9 January 2009)