The UN: Israeli air strikes might be war crimes

This is a special program from the ANNA NEWS. I am Constantine Reztsov.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, denounced the recent violence in the Gaza Strip, and on the Israeli-occupied territories.

During the recent special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet stated that if it turns out that the Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip were indiscriminate and disproportionate in terms of the consequences to the civilians and civilian facilities — then those airstrikes might qualify as ’war crimes’.

She called on Israel and the Palestinians to end their aggression in the long run. During the recent 11 days long military conflict between the Hamas and Israel, 260 people — 248 of which were Palestinians, died. About 2,000 were injured.

The UN Human Rights Office has studied the deaths of 242 people in the Gaza Strip and confirmed that they were killed by the Israeli attacks. Among them were 63 minors, Michelle Bachelet added.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that 257 people have died. By 24th of May, 28 Palestinians, including 5 minors, have died in the occupied West Bank — she concluded.

Michelle Bachelet accused the IDF of using disproportionate force in an effort to end the Palestinian protests in East Jerusalem over the threat of the forced evictions of Palestinian families. According to her, it was illegal to use military equipment in densely populated areas.

She noted that the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip resulted in the death and injury of many civilians, and in an extensive damage to the civilian infrastructure, including the residential buildings, international humanitarian organizations, medical facilities, and mass media offices.

Israel insists that their airstrikes in the Gaza Strip were aimed at the military targets.

Michelle Bachelet added that the Palestinian organization Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip also violated the international humanitarian law by firing rockets at Israel blindly, without any distinction between civilian and military facilities, which also counts as a violation of the international humanitarian law.

The Hamas rockets killed 8 adults and 2 minors in Israel. The EU, Israel and the USA classify ’Hamas’ as a terrorist organization.

During a week and a half of the recent conflict, the Palestinian militias fired a total of more than 4,000 rockets at Israel, almost as many as during the war of 2014, in 50 days of fighting.

The Israeli military stated that the recent operation in the Gaza Strip dealt a heavy damage to the Hamas infrastructure, and 90% of all rockets, launched at Israel, were intercepted by the ’Iron Dome’.

The Israeli officials admit that they have failed to intercept all the incoming rockets.

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