“We have faced not merely a lack of cooperation but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims”.
Members of a United Nations commission said on Tuesday that Israel was impeding their investigation into potential human rights violations on October 7 and during the subsequent Israeli war on Gaza, Reuters news agency reported.
However, despite facing obstacles, the commission has still shared substantial evidence with the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“We have faced not merely a lack of cooperation but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims,” Chris Sidoti, one of the commission’s three members, stated at a briefing in Geneva.
Established in 2021 to probe human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the commission has been accused of bias by Israel, which has refused to cooperate with what it deems an “anti-Israeli, antisemitic body.”
Israel has prevented the commission from visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories, and in January, it instructed Israeli medical personnel who treated victims of the October 7 attack not to engage with the panel, led by Navi Pillay, the former United Nations human rights chief.
To fulfill its mandate from the UN Human Rights Council to pursue accountability for such crimes, the commission reportedly shared over 5,000 documents, including video evidence, with the ICC, which prosecutes individuals for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, according to The New York Times.
The commission plans to present its findings on the Gaza conflict to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June and to the UN General Assembly in October.
UN officials and international law experts have repeatedly criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its slow handling of prosecuting those responsible for Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
‘Horrors of War’ – UNICEF Says 70 Children Injured Every Day in Gaza
Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 33,843 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,575 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
ICC ‘Too Slow’ in Prosecuting Israel for Gaza War Crimes – UN Officials
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
If this was a case of domestic law in the Common Law countries, Israel would be up for contempt of court as well as the other accusations.