UN panel accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attacks on medical staff, facilities in Gaza

(JNS) The Israeli mission to the United Nations in Geneva reacted furiously to a Thursday report issued by a U.N. commission, calling “outrageous” accusations leveled that Jerusalem has intentionally destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system.

The Commission of Inquiry on the Israeli-Palestinian file, dogged by accusations of bias and a documented history of antisemitic comments by its commissioners, issued a report on Thursday, asserting that Israel has “perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza.”

The commission accused Jerusalem of “committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities,” including detaining and torturing medical personnel and targeting medical vehicles.

The Israeli mission said it “firmly rejects the outrageous accusations,” calling it “another blatant attempt” by the commission to “delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel.”

The legation accused the commission of covering up crimes of terrorist organizations while attempting to “shamelessly” portray “Israel’s operations in terror-infested health facilities in Gaza as a matter of policy against Gaza’s health system.”

Israel has repeatedly provided evidence that Hamas and other Gazan terrorist groups have commandeered medical facilities and vehicles for “military” purposes, including for weapons storage, attack staging and the concealment of hostages. Tunnels used by Hamas for terrorist activities have also been located under numerous hospitals throughout the Strip.

The commission’s report acknowledges the evidence, but dismisses it as unreliable, untrue or impossible to verify.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” the mission said, adding that the commission “chooses once again to turn a blind eye to Hamas’s strategy of abusing civilian infrastructure and using the Palestinian population as human shields.”

The American Jewish Committee released a statement as well, criticizing the commission’s report and its overall bias, asserting that the panel “uncritically endorses defamatory claims that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza aims to deliberately harm the Palestinian people and largely ignores Hamas’s policy of recklessly and intentionally endangering civilians.”

AJC CEO Ted Deutch wrote that the report encapsulates “another sorry episode of a U.N.-appointed panel demonizing Israel and refusing to acknowledge that Israel has an inherent right to defend itself.”

The commission “has shown it lacks the moral integrity to assess the war with any credibility,” he said.