UN Rights Council Accuses Israel of War Crimes in Gaza

Council approves February report on intentionally killing civilians

In a 23-8 vote, the UN Human Rights Council voted Friday to endorse a report on Israel’s treatment protests along the Gaza Strip, which determined that the government’s actions amounted to war crimes against civilians in Gaza.

The report itself was published in late February, and found that Israel intentionally shot both children and journalists in the Gaza Strip during those protests. They noted that 154 out of 183 people killed at the time had been unarmed.

Israeli officials insisted at the time the report came out that the killings amounted to the “right of self-defense and the obligation to defend its citizens and borders.” Israeli officials now say the only supporters of the resolution are dictatorships and “hypocrites.”

Other UNHRC resolutions, also opposed as “absurd” by Israel, included an endorsement of the right of Palestinian self-determination, and criticism of Israeli abuses in the occupied territories, and one on the illegality of Israeli settlements.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.