Updated 15.33 | Published 15.22
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fullscreen UN’s former head of human rights Navi Pillay. Archive image. Photo: Salvatore Di Nolfi/AP/TT
Israel prevents UN investigators from speaking to witnesses and victims of the October 7 attack. This is according to the UN’s former head of human rights, Navi Pillay, who is leading an investigation into the attack.
– I regret that people in Israel who want to talk to us are denied that opportunity, because we cannot get access to Israel, says Pillay at a meeting at the UN office in Geneva.
The Commission of Inquiry was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The Commission is currently investigating alleged crimes during the Hamas attack as well as alleged crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
“As far as the government of Israel is concerned, we have faced not only a lack of cooperation but also an active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims of the events that occurred in southern Israel,” said Chris Sidoti, one of the investigators for the commission .
In a statement to the AFP news agency, Israel claims that the country has given the commission access to travel to Israel and meet with victims. At the same time, they express criticism.
“The 1,200 people murdered, the women and girls raped, the hostages taken in Gaza, know all too well that they will never receive any justice or the dignified treatment they deserve from the commission of inquiry and its members, who have a history of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements,” Israel said in a statement to the AFP news agency.
The commission will present its first conclusions to the UN Human Rights Council in June.
FACTS The October 7 attacks
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, the terror-labeled Palestinian Islamist group Hamas surprisingly attacked Israel. About 2,500 armed Hamas militiamen broke through the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel in a coordinated fashion. Thousands of rockets were fired at Israeli territory.
More than 1,100 people in Israel, the vast majority of whom were unarmed civilians, were shot, stabbed and burned to death. Massacres were carried out in kibbutzim and at the Nova music festival organized near the border. According to Israeli data, there were systematic rapes, torture and embalming.
Close to 250 people, among them children, were taken hostage and taken to Gaza by Hamas.
The day after the deadliest attack on Israel in the country’s history, the Israeli government formally declared war on Hamas. In extensive and sustained bombing, entire areas of the Gaza Strip have subsequently been left in ruins. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas.
At present, it is believed that roughly 100 of the hostages remain in Hamas captivity, since some have been released and others have been killed.
More than 33,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attack, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The absolute majority of them are civilians.
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