Tel Aviv [Israel], November 9 (ANI): Both Hamas and Israel have committed “war crimes” in the past month, the United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Turk said, CNN reported on Thursday.
This comes as thousands of Palestinians fled south of Gaza amid Israel’s intensifying offensive against Hamas after the October 7 attacks.
“The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on October 7 were heinous, brutal and shocking. They were war crimes – as is the continued holding of hostages,” said Volker Turk.
He added, “The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts also to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians”.
Turk also urged both sides to agree to a ceasefire to allow the delivery of aid to Gaza, the release of hostages by Hamas, and “the political space to implement a durable end to the occupation.”
Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7 after over 1,400 people were killed and around 240 others were held hostages by Hamas, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The ensuing Israeli assault on Gaza has plunged the strip into crisis, with mass displacement and severe shortages of food, water, fuel and medical supplies, CNN reported.
The IDF has repeatedly called on civilians to move to the southern half of the strip to avoid the fighting, and has opened daily evacuation corridors to allow them to do so, as it intensifies attacks on Hamas in Gaza City and northern Gaza, saying it would strike the militants “wherever necessary”.
That has caused a growing exodus in the past week of Palestinians fleeing south.
Turk delivered his comments after visiting the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border – the only border crossing not controlled by Israel. In recent weeks, it has been opened to allow the limited entry of aid, and the exit of foreign nationals and severely injured Palestinians from Gaza, CNN reported.
He said the Rafah crossing is a symbolic lifeline for the more than 2 million people in Gaza and called for more aid to be delivered, saying: “The lifeline has been unjustly, outrageously thin”.
“In Rafah, I have witnessed the gates to a living nightmare,” he said in a statement. “A nightmare where people have been suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for food, for electricity and fuel,” CNN quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, the main UN agency operating in Gaza said on Thursday that it was able to deliver medical supplies to Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, “despite huge risks to our staff and health partners due to relentless bombardments,” CNN reported.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) described the conditions in the hospital as “disastrous,” saying there were almost two patients for every bed.
Hospital wards are overflowing, with patients being treated on the floor, and tens of thousands of displaced Gazans seeking shelter in the facility’s parking lots and yards, it said.
The UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths warned on Thursday that the war between Israel and Hamas could spread to the wider region, CNN reported.
“War, indeed, is a virus that always wants to expand, and the current conflict is a wildfire that could consume the region,” said the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the United Nations Martin Griffiths.
“It could spread, and that we will think these would be the good days when we see what may happen tomorrow,” he said in his remarks at the International Humanitarian Conference for Gaza hosted by France in Paris.
Griffiths added, “The UN cannot be part of a unilateral decision to expulse thousands of people in Gaza into so-called safe zones.”
“Civilians must be protected. Their needs must be met anywhere they are,” he said.
Reiterating the UN’s call for a ceasefire, Griffiths said, “There’s been a lot of discussion about the value of pauses, and I’m not one to deny the value of pauses. But that is not the same as a ceasefire”.
Aid organizations have also highlighted the dangers of delivering supplies within Gaza. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday said its convoy had come under fire but did not apportion blame. Two trucks were damaged in the attack and a driver sustained minor injuries, the ICRC said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) later said Israel was responsible for firing on the convoy.
Earlier in the day, the Israel Air Force guided by the intelligence of the Shin Bet and Amman, eliminated the terrorist Ibrahim Abu Ma’zib, the head of the anti-tank missile system of the Central Camps Brigade of the Hamas terrorist organization.
As part of his role, Ma’zib directed and carried out many anti-tank attacks against Israeli citizens and IDF forces, the Israel Air Force said on Thursday. (ANI)
