GENEVA: United Nations experts on Monday condemned “unacceptable” violence by the Israeli military against women and children during the ongoing war in Gaza, particularly sexual violence and enforced disappearances.
“We are appalled that women are being targeted by Israel with such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, seemingly sparing no means to destroy their lives and deny them their fundamental human rights,” the seven special rapporteurs said in a statement.
Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. They do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
The statement pointed to “continued reports of sexual assault and violence against women and girls, including against those detained by Israeli occupation forces.”
They cited UN reports saying women and girls in Gaza were victims of enforced disappearances.
Referring to Hamas, which runs the besieged Palestinian territory, Israel’s mission in Geneva alleged the experts had “once again chosen to ignore Hamas’s systematic militarization of health facilities and civilian infrastructures in the Gaza Strip, voluntarily and actively using the population as human shields.”
“In issuing such a statement, the signatories try to create an alternative narrative, parroting the agenda of a terrorist organization that is actively destroying the lives of the Palestinian population in Gaza,” the Israeli mission said.
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war started after an unprecedented attack on southern Israel by militants from Hamas on October 7.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 34,700 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The UN experts said Israel’s widespread destruction of housing in Gaza and the fact that Palestinians were having to live in “precarious” conditions in makeshift tents had a disproportionate impact on women and girls, particularly on their personal security and privacy.
“The treatment of pregnant and lactating women continues to be appalling, with the direct bombardment of hospitals and deliberate denial of access to health care facilities by Israeli snipers,” they added.
More than 180 women per day were giving birth without pain relief, while hundreds of babies have died due to a lack of electricity for incubators, they said.
These conditions have led to a surge in miscarriages, the experts said.
They said Israeli forces had “destroyed Gaza’s largest fertility clinic,” which stored embryos, and estimated that 690,000 women and girls in Gaza were deprived of menstrual hygiene products.
The Israeli mission in Geneva said Israel “categorically rejects unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assaults and violence.”
It said Israel was ready to investigate “any concrete claims of misconduct by its security forces when presented with credible allegations and evidence.”
The UN experts said “the government of Israel has continuously failed to conduct an independent, impartial and effective investigation into the reported crimes.”

LONDON: An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon that killed seven aid workers in March may have been conducted with a US-supplied weapon system, according to an investigation by The Guardian.

The incident claimed the lives of seven paramedics aged 18-25, all volunteers, at an ambulance center in Al-Habariyeh in southern Lebanon on March 27.

It came five days before an Israeli strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers working for World Central Kitchen.

Debris found at the scene in Al-Habariyeh was identified by The Guardian, an independent expert and Human Rights Watch as having belonged to a 500-pound Israeli MPR bomb and a Boeing-made Joint Direction Attack Munition, a system attached to explosives to turn them from “dumb bombs” into GPS-guided weapons.

HRW’s Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss told The Guardian: “Israel’s assurances that it is using US weapons lawfully are not credible. As Israel’s conduct in Gaza and Lebanon continues to violate international law, the Biden administration should immediately suspend arms sales to Israel.”

The US government is legally unable to help or arm foreign militaries where “credible information” of human rights abuses exists, under the terms of the 1997 Leahy law.

A spokesperson for the US National Security Council told The Guardian: “The US is constantly working to ensure defense articles provided by the US are being used consistent with applicable domestic and international law. If findings show violations, we take action.”

But Josh Paul, a non-resident fellow with Democracy for the Arab World Now and a former State Department employee, said: “The State Department has approved several of these (weapons) transfers on a 48-hour turnaround. There is no policy concern on any munitions to Israel other than white phosphorus and cluster bombs.”

He added that JDAMs have been “key items” regularly requested by Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will deliver a report on Wednesday to Congress on Israel’s use of American weapons and whether they may have been involved in violations of this or other laws.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen told The Guardian that the findings from Al-Habariyeh are “deeply concerning and must be fully investigated by the Biden administration, and their findings should certainly be included in the NSM-20 report that is due to be submitted to the Congress on May 8.”

The airstrike on the ambulance center in Al-Habariyeh came without warning before 1 a.m. on March 27. No fighting had been reported in the area.

The victims had been at the center for the night shift, and were named as twin brothers Hussein and Ahmad Al-Shaar, aged 18; Abdulrahman Al-Shaar, 19; Mohammad Hamoud, 21; Mohammad Al-Farouk Aatwi, 23; Abdullah Aatwi, 24; and Baraa Abu Kaiss, 24.

The Israeli military claimed that the strike, which leveled the two-storey building, killed a “prominent terrorist belonging to Jamaa Islamiya,” an armed Lebanese political group with ties to Hezbollah. It did not identify the person by name.

A Jamaa Islamiya spokesman acknowledged that some of the ambulance volunteers were members of the group, but denied that they were part of its armed wing.

Samer Hardan, head of the local Civil Defense center who was among the first responders, told The Guardian: “We examined every centimetre looking for parts of bodies and their possessions. We saw nothing military-related. We knew (the victims) personally, so we could identify their remains.”

Since Oct. 7, 16 medical workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, and a further 380 people have died including 72 civilians. Eleven Israeli soldiers and eight civilians have also been killed.

Kassem Al-Shaar, father of Ahmad and Hussein, said he had warned his sons not to volunteer.

“I told them that it was dangerous to do this type of work, but they said that they accepted the risk. I don’t know what Israel was thinking — these were young people excited to help others,” he said.

“My sons wanted to do humanitarian work, and look what happened to them. Israel wouldn’t dare to do what they did if it wasn’t for the US standing behind them.”