[News] 'Genocide without any doubt' in Gaza, says UN special rapporteur

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240215-genocide-without-any-doubt-in-gaza-says-un-special-rapporteur/>
'Genocide without any doubt' in Gaza, says UN special rapporteur
Middle East Monitor
February 15, 2024

Food, water, sanitation and other basic needs are in unprecedented short
supply for over one million Palestinians who have fled across the Gaza
Strip to the territory’s southern city of Rafah, a UN special rapporteur
has told *Anadolu*.

“More than one million people are concentrated in Rafah, having fled from
other parts of Gaza. They are lacking very seriously in the basic
necessities of life, from food and water and sanitation with the threat of
diseases beyond anything that we have seen in any conflict in recent
decades around the world, severe as those conflicts were,” explained
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to housing.
“You never had a situation where a population was not even allowed to flee.”

Rajagopal pointed out that even Israel does not know where these people are
expected to go, recalling many statements from sources within Israel
indicating “a desire to expel them entirely from Gaza.”

Pointing to serious claims that top Israeli officials and other leaders are
planning to eliminate the Palestinian population of Gaza, Rajagopal
emphasised that these claims, viewed by some as “rantings of random people
within Israel” cannot be ignored.

“Unfortunately, everything that we thought was not possible is becoming
more and more possible by the day. We have to judge the actions of Israel
not by what they say, but by what actually happens. What’s happening is
that people have been displaced multiple times, and they have been
concentrated in Rafah. They’re being bombed now.”

Underlining how UN rapporteurs have written numerous reports on the
“genocidal” dimension of Israel’s attacks in Gaza, Rajagopal noted that
they mentioned a “serious risk of genocide” in their initial report. He
added that they published another report that included the possibility of
ongoing genocidal acts, stating: “Since then, we have confirmed that in
fact. What’s happening in Gaza constitutes genocide.”

*READ: Israel: ministers reject Palestinian statehood as part of post-war
plan
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240215-israel-ministers-reject-palestinian-statehood-as-part-of-post-war-plan/>*

Commenting on the genocide case brought against Israel at the International
Court of Justice (ICJ), Rajagopal said the interim ruling by the top UN
court was that South Africa, which filed the charges, was “largely correct”
in its petition. “The actions taken by Israel to create conditions where
Gaza becomes uninhabitable for the population of people living there,
together constitute in my view, acts of genocide, without any doubt.”

Comparing the situation in Gaza to the Bosnian War of the 1990s, Rajagopal
pointed out that the ICJ had also ruled that the massacre of Muslim
Bosnians by Serb forces in Srebrenica had also amounted to genocide.
“During the Bosnian war, in the former Yugoslavia, and in that conflict,
about 8,000 to 9,000 people were killed. If that case was genocide, I find
it hard to believe that what’s happening in Gaza is not genocide.”

Israeli attacks have killed more than 28,000 Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip, mostly women and children.

Highlighting the Gaza issue, said the special rapporteur, represents a
“complete failure” of the international community. The mechanism for
collective action is completely frozen and the international community has
done nothing.

“The UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly have passed very weak
resolutions that have not been carried out. Even in a proforma manner, the
International Court of Justice ruling, while morally and symbolically an
important one, didn’t actually order anything concrete that actually led to
specific actions or inactions on the part of Israel.

“Basically, institutionally, I think the world has failed. It has failed
Gaza. And once again, Israel has shown that it is protected by what I have
been calling an institutionalised impunity. Israel seems to be protected no
matter what the transgression.

“In other words, the system is designed to protect Israel from any
consequences.”

Pointing out that many buildings in Gaza have been destroyed as a result of
the attacks, Rajagopal stated that assessments based on satellite data and
field reports show that more than 70 per cent of homes in Gaza have been
destroyed or severely damaged, rendered unusable. He noted that data for
areas such as Khan Younis in southern Gaza indicates that 82 to 84 per cent
of these areas may have been completely wiped out.

“We are talking about a very vast level of destruction, the kind that we
haven’t seen in other conflicts, like for example, even in Mariupol, which
was the most severely destroyed city by the Russian bombing in Ukraine, or
by conflicts in Syria.”

Rajagopal highlighted that homes in Gaza were not only destroyed by bombing
or heavy artillery attacks, but also by Israeli forces moving into the
bombed areas and destroying homes and public buildings.

He underlined that the reconstruction of Gaza will be extremely challenging
and will take years of persistent effort, drawing parallels with the
rebuilding of other countries destroyed during conflicts.

“I wonder how long it will take to clear the rubble alone in Gaza. The
rebuilding of Rotterdam took almost two decades. That was, by the way,
under the most ideal circumstances that we were ready for a very, very
significant investment of resources and time to rebuild the place.

“The second thing is more important: Make sure that conditions are
established for a sustainable peace in the region before rebuilding can
actually happen. Because otherwise, it’s not possible to expect rebuilding
to go forward in any meaningful way,” he concluded.

*READ: $20bn cost of Gaza post-war reconstruction, UN trade body says
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240215-20bn-cost-of-gaza-post-war-reconstruction-un-trade-body-says/>*

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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