The report, which does not have the force of law, found that the Israeli military has engaged in deliberate assaults on hospitals and other health care providers.
United Nations investigators on Thursday accused Israel of engaging in “relentless and deliberate attacks” on health care facilities, medical workers and wounded civilians in the Gaza Strip and said the actions amounted to war crimes and extermination, a crime against humanity.
A U.N. report said the Israelis had imposed“collective punishment” on Palestinians in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks Hamas militants led on Israel a year ago from Gaza. The Israeli siege that followed, it said, has prevented hospitals from receiving food, fuel, water and medical supplies, and has also limited the number of patients allowed to leave Gaza for treatment.
“Israel must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction of health care facilities in Gaza,” Navi Pillay, head of the commission that conducted the report said in a statement.
Ms. Pillay, the former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s health care system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, rejected the accusations.
“This U.N. report is detached from reality and includes baseless claims about Israel,” Mr. Danon said in a statement. He said the commission should focus its investigation on Hamas’s crimes on Oct. 7 and on the hostages taken that day who are still being held in Gaza.
