<\/p>\n
19 July 2024<\/p>\n
\u00a0The killing of five-year old\u00a0Hind Rajab<\/a><\/em>, her family and two paramedics may amount to a war crime, independent experts warned today, denouncing Israeli claims that its troops were not in the area at the time as \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n They urged an immediate halt to the attacks against the civilian population in Gaza, which have already killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, including 13,000 children, warning that the systemic nature of the attacks may amount to a crime against humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe absence of proper investigation and accountability, more than five months after the tragic killing of Hind and six other members of her family trapped in a car which came under Israeli fire in Gaza is deeply troubling and may in itself amount to a violation of the right to life,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n Two paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society were also killed when their ambulance came under Israeli fire while attempting to save Hind\u2019s family. Audio recordings of calls between Hind and emergency services suggest that she was the only survivor in the car before she was also killed.<\/p>\n Recent forensic analysis of the crime scene offers compelling evidence about the location of the family\u2019s car stranded in the line of sight of an Israeli tank and how it was shot at from very close range using a type of weapon that can only be attributed to the Israeli forces.<\/p>\n \u201cThe brutality of these killings seem to illustrate how reckless the army has been in its Gaza campaign: all instances of extrajudicial killing must be duly investigated and accounted for,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cHind\u2019s family, like many others in Gaza, had been forcibly displaced multiple times since Israel\u2019s military operations in the strip,\u201d the experts said. \u201cThey were shot dead while fleeing the neighbourhood of Tal Al-Hawa seeking safety, in what seems to be part of a broader pattern of indiscriminate killings of civilians attempting to find shelter and escape the fighting in Gaza upon so-called \u2018evacuation\u2019 orders by the Israeli military.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese killings are not isolated cases,\u201d the experts said. \u201cWe are extremely troubled by the pattern of apparent indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civillians in Gaza, including on locations used for humanitarian assistance or to shelter IDPs,\u201d they said. \u201cThe firing of heavy-calibre projectiles at a humanitarian zone near an office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza, killing 22 displaced civilians, and most recently the attacks on IDP tents in Al Mawasi area, on Ash Shati’ Refugee Camp, and on the UNRWA Abu Oreiban school sheltering IDPs, among others, killing nearly 320 Palestinians, half of them women and children, have reinforced the fact that there is no safe place in Gaza\u201d the experts said. \u201cSuch attacks amount to grave violations of international humanitarian law, must be promptly and reliably investigated, and should be severely punished.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wilful or indiscriminate killing of protected persons, including civilians, medical personnel and humanitarian workers, amount to war crimes, and if systematic, crimes against humanity, and should be prevented at all costs,\u201d the experts warned. \u201cWe remain deeply troubled by the total impunity and apparent lack of investigations, and prevention of these crimes. This is all the more worrisome in the context of the recent order from the International Court of Justice for Israel to take immediate measures to protect Gaza’s population from the risk of genocide,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Government of Israel and its armed forces must take immediate measures to protect the right to life of all protected persons in Gaza, including women and children\u201d they said.<\/p>\n They urged the Israeli Government to allow access of independent experts, including international human rights monitoring bodies into Gaza to ensure that all violations of international law committed since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in Gaza are credibly investigated. The experts repeated their offer of technical assistance.<\/p>\n Renewing calls for an immediate end to the bloodshed and grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including the unconditional release of all hostages, the experts urged the international community to ensure accountability for those responsible and protection and urgent assistance for the population in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n *The experts: Morris Tidball-Binz,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions<\/a><\/em>; Ben Saul,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism<\/a><\/em>; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Laura Nyirinkindi (Vice-Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krsti\u0107, and Haina Lu,<\/strong>\u00a0Working group on discrimination against women and girls<\/a><\/em>; Paula Gaviria Betancur,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons<\/a><\/em>; Reem Alsalem,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 19 July 2024 \u00a0The killing of five-year old\u00a0Hind Rajab, her family and two paramedics may amount to a war crime, independent experts warned today, denouncing Israeli claims that its troops were not in the area at the time as \u201cunacceptable.\u201d They urged an immediate halt to the attacks against the civilian population in Gaza, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[5465,6726,6681,4754,6221],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1829,2005,1741,2309,6845,1745,6844],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-298976","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-extrajudicial-summary-arbitrary-executions","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-human-rights-of-internally-displaced-persons","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-promotion-and-protection-of-human-rights-and-fundamental-freedoms-while-countering-terrorism","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-violence-against-women-and-girls-its-causes-and-consequences","document-source-working-group-on-discrimination-against-women-and-girls","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-protection","document-subject-protection-of-civilians","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","document-subject-war-crimes","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/298976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/298976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299010,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/298976\/revisions\/299010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=298976"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=298976"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=298976"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=298976"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=298976"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=298976"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=298976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}