The UN human rights chief Zeid Ra\u2019ad Al Hussein has sharply criticised Israel, calling recent killings by its soldiers during Palestinian demonstrations along the Gaza border fence \u201cshocking\u201d and saying living conditions inflicted by Israel\u2019s 11-year blockade of the territory are \u201cgrossly inadequate\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zeid said in a video address to the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People that the situation in Gaza has escalated dramatically in recent months with \u201cthe potential to generate threats to peace across a far broader region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zeid, who heads the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it is essential for all parties to cooperate with the independent, international commission of inquiry into the recent deadly events in Gaza that his office is helping to establish.<\/p>\n
It was authorised by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on May 18 \u201cto advance accountability\u201d for the killings and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, he said.<\/p>\n
Zeid said there are \u201cserious concerns\u201d that Israeli accountability mechanisms don\u2019t comply with international standards of \u201cindependence, impartiality, and effectiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVery few investigations ever occur,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the rare cases where an investigation has led to an indictment, the sentence has been extremely lenient in light of the gravity of the crime committed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zeid said it is vital to address the root causes of the Gaza demonstrations, which have resulted in the deaths of over 100 Palestinians, including 17 children, and the wounding of more than 4,100 others with live ammunition since March 30.<\/p>\n
In addition to \u201cgrossly inadequate living conditions\u201d caused by Israel\u2019s blockade for the residents of Gaza, most of whom are refugees, restrictive measures have also been imposed by Egypt that have \u201cexacerbated these conditions,\u201d Zeid said.<\/p>\n
He added that the situation in Gaza may be \u201cseverely aggravated\u201d in the coming months by the financial crisis facing the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, as a result of dramatic cuts to its budget by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Zeid criticised last week\u2019s approval by Israel\u2019s parliament of a bill defining that country as the nation-state of the Jewish people.<\/p>\n
He said that it \u201canchors inherent discrimination against non-Jewish communities,\u201d most notably the Arab citizens of Israel and residents of occupied East Jerusalem. He warned that it \u201ccould also further inflame tensions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the bill\u2019s passage a \u201chistoric moment in the history of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel,\u201d saying: \u201cIsrael is the nation state of the Jewish people, which honours the individual rights of all its citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zeid also criticised Israel\u2019s approval, planning and construction of settlements across with West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.<\/p>\n
He called Israel\u2019s detention of hundreds of Palestinian children, some without charge, under a system of \u201cadministrative detention,\u201d a \u201cfundamental human rights violation.\u201d \u201cIt should be absolutely clear that international law requires detention only be used for children as a last resort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UN human rights chief Zeid Ra\u2019ad Al Hussein has sharply criticised Israel, calling recent killings by its soldiers during Palestinian demonstrations along the Gaza border fence \u201cshocking\u201d and saying living conditions inflicted by Israel\u2019s 11-year blockade of the territory are \u201cgrossly inadequate\u201d. Zeid said in a video address to the UN Committee on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37186,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37184\/revisions\/37186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}