UNITED NATIONS: Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said on Thursday, accusing the country of “using starvation as a method of war”.

The United Nations Special Committee pointed to “mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians”, in a fresh report said.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury,” it said in a statement.

Israel’s warfare practices in Gaza “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide”, said the committee, which has for decades been investigating Israeli practices affecting rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel, it charged, was “using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population”. A UN-backed assessment at the weekend warned that famine was imminent in northern Gaza.

Bombing campaign has decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe

Thursday’s report documented how Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza had decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe with lasting health impacts.

By February this year, Israeli forces had used more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives across the Gaza Strip, “equivalent to two nuclear bombs”, the report pointed out.

AI-assisted targeting

“By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the committee said.

The committee said it was “deeply alarmed by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure and the high death toll in Gaza”, where more than 43,700 people have been killed since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The staggering number of deaths raised serious concerns, it said, about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence-enhanced targeting systems in its military operations.

“The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” it said.

It warned that reported new directives lowering the criteria for selecting targets and increasing the previously accepted ratio of civilian to combatant casualties appeared to have allowed the military to use AI systems to “rapidly generate tens of thousands of targets, as well as to track targets to their homes, particularly at night when families shelter together”.The committee stressed the obligations of other countries to urgently act to halt the bloodshed, saying that “other States are unwilling to hold Israel accountable and continue to provide it with military and other support”.

Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Thursday that Israel’s repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the “war crime of forcible transfer”, and to “ethnic cleansing” in parts of the Palestinian territory.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2024