VOA News | Friday, November15, 2024 
UN committee: Israel war in Gaza ‘consistent with genocide’

While fighting continued in Gaza and Lebanon on Thursday, a United Nations special committee said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” In a report published Thursday, the U.N. Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices also accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war” and running an “apartheid system” in the occupied West Bank. There was no immediate response from the Israeli government. In the past, it has accused the U.N. of being biased against Israel. The U.N. special committee was set up in 1968 to monitor the Israeli occupation. Its annual report covers the period from October 2023 to July 2024. The International Court of Justice is investigating a claim by South Africa that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is genocidal. The Israeli government has rejected the charges. Also Thursday, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war against Hamas militants in Gaza, a conclusion Israel rejected. The report said Israel, which has repeatedly displaced and relocated civilians, is “committing the war crime of forcible transfer,” and the actions “appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing”…Read more