A U.N. report released Thursday accused Israel of carrying out “systematic” gender-based violence during its 17-month war in the Gaza Strip, including by shelling fertility clinics and hospital maternity wards, causing maternal deaths by blocking aid deliveries, and subjecting male and female detainees to sexual humiliation or abuse.
The 49-page report, by a U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry, said that “Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.”
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quickly condemned the report’s findings as baseless….
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Earlier this month, during a tenuous ceasefire in Gaza, Israel halted aid deliveries and cut electricity to a desalination plant in the enclave, saying the move was intended to pressure Hamas into accepting an extension of the recent ceasefire and to release the dozens of hostages the militant group still holds. Aid agencies have called for an immediate resumption of relief supplies, warning of further hardship for Palestinian civilians after nearly a year and a half of war.
“Israel’s decision to suspend all aid and goods from entering Gaza is already depriving families of food and medicine. Over the last week the costs of essential goods in the market, including produce, flour, and oil, has more than doubled,” Kate Phillips-Barrasso of the humanitarian aid group Mercy Corps said in a statement Thursday.
“Gaza cannot afford a return to war,” she said. “Millions of lives are at stake.”…
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