VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOInews, Jakarta: Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said Thursday, as a Human Rights Watch report said Israel's displacement of Gazans amounts to a "crime against humanity".

Israel said HRW's claims were "completely false", insisting its "efforts are directed solely at dismantling Hamas's terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza", though it had not yet responded to the UN report.

The UN Special Committee pointed to "mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians", covering the period from Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attack in Israel to July.

The committee said Israel's siege, blocking of aid, and targeted attacks and killing of civilians, despite UN and International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders, was "intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury".

Israel's warfare practices in Gaza "are consistent with the characteristics of genocide", the committee said in the first use of the word by the UN in the context of the current war in Gaza.

Israel, it said, was "using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population".

It's not the first time Israel has faced such accusations.

South Africa brought a case before the ICJ last year, arguing the Gaza war breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, an accusation Israel has denied.

A UN-backed assessment at the weekend warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, the site of an intense Israeli offensive since early October.

The operation had forced at least 100,000 people to flee northern Gaza for Gaza City and nearby areas, UN Palestinian refugee agency spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told AFP.

Source : AFP