The UN’s human rights office said on Thursday it has received reports that Israeli troops “summarily killed” at least 11 unarmed Palestinians in a possible war crime in Gaza. The OHCHR office in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the killings were alleged to have been carried out in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City this week.
The reports came after the UN Security Council again delayed a vote on a new resolution calling for a ceasefire and desperately needed aid as envoys wrangled over key wording to avoid another US veto.
“The Israeli authorities must immediately institute an independent, thorough and effective investigation into these allegations, and if found to be substantiated, those responsible must be brought to justice and measures implemented to prevent any such serious violations from recurring,” said the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in a statement on Wednesday.
Disturbing information on summary killings of at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members in Al Remal neighbourhood.#Gaza #opt #IHL #humanrightshttps://t.co/Gf0GdyDPAZ
— UN Human Rights OPT (@OHCHR_Palestine) December 20, 2023
Meanwhile, there are no longer any functional hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization said Thursday, describing “unbearable” scenes of largely abandoned patients begging for food and water.
The UN health agency said it had led missions to two badly damaged hospitals, Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli, in the north of the Palestinian territory on Wednesday.
“Our staff are running out of words to describe the beyond catastrophic situation facing remaining patients and health workers,” said Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory.
His comment came amid increasingly frantic diplomatic efforts to secure a pause in the war that Hamas says has already claimed 20,000 lives in Gaza, 70 percent of them women and children.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
WHO has already described Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza which last month was the focus of an extended Israeli army operation and has been devastated by Israeli bombardments, as “a blood bath”.
The smaller Al-Ahli hospital had since become the only place where surgeries were possible in the north, but its director said it had stopped operating on Tuesday after being stormed by the Israeli army.
