The United Nations human rights office says Israeli airstrikes on Gaza “may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war.”
A report released Wednesday examined six airstrikes conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces between October and December of last year during the opening weeks of the war in Gaza. More than 200 people were confirmed by the human rights office to have been killed in the airstrikes, whose targets included residential buildings, a school, a market and refugee camps.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said it appeared Israel made no attempt to “effectively distinguish” between Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters in its bombing campaign of Gaza.
“Civilian lives and infrastructure are protected” under international human rights law, Turk said. “This law lays out the very clear obligations of parties to armed conflicts that make protection of civilians a priority.”
The report said the six attacks involved the suspected use of heavy bombs between 113-kilograms and 907-kilograms.
The report also says continued missile attacks towards Israel by Palestinian armed groups is “inconsistent with their obligations under international humanitarian law.”
Health authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip say more than 37,266 people have been killed and 85,102 have been injured since the start of the Israeli ground and aerial campaign that began soon after the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, Israeli authorities say.