UN probe finds Israel attacks on Gaza reproductive centres 'genocidal'

Geneva: A United Nations investigation determined on Thursday that Israel committed "genocidal" crimes in Gaza by systematically destroying sexual and reproductive health facilities.

According to the UN Commission of Inquiry, Israel "intentionally attacked and destroyed" the Palestinian territory's major fertility clinic while also imposing a siege and blocking aid, including medication for safe pregnancies, births, and neonatal care, AFP reported.

“Israel categorically rejects the unfounded allegations,” its mission in Geneva said in a statement.

The commission stated in a statement that Israeli authorities “have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive health care.”

The inquiry found that Israel committed "two categories of genocidal acts" during its offensive in Gaza, following Hamas militant attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

According to the United Nations' genocide convention, genocide is defined as acts committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.

The inquiry stated that out of its five categories, the two implicating Israel were “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

“These violations have not only caused severe immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls, but irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group,” the commission’s chair Navi Pillay said in a statement.

The UN Human Rights Council formed the three-member Independent International Commission of Inquiry in May 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Pillay, a former UN rights chief, was a judge on the International Criminal Court and presided over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Israel charged the commission with advancing a “predetermined and biased political agenda... in a shameless attempt to incriminate the Israel Defense Forces.”

According to the report, maternity facilities and wards in Gaza have been systematically destroyed, as well as the Al-Basma IVF Centre, the territory's largest in-vitro fertilisation centre.

It stated that Al-Basma was shelled in December 2023, destroying over 4,000 embryos at a clinic that served 2,000 to 3,000 patients each month. The commission determined that the Israeli Security Forces purposefully attacked and destroyed the clinic, including all reproductive material held for future Palestinian conceptions.

The commission discovered no convincing evidence that the building was used for military reasons.

It concluded that the destruction “was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act.”

Furthermore, the report stated that the harm to pregnant, breastfeeding and new mothers in Gaza was on an "unprecedented scale," with irreversible consequences for Gazans' reproductive prospects.

The commission ruled that such underlying activities "amount to crimes against humanity" and are intended to destroy the Palestinian people as a group. The findings come after the commission held public hearings in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday to hear from victims and witnesses of sexual abuse.

The report concluded that Israel had directly targeted civilian women and girls, “acts that constitute the crime against humanity of murder and the war crime of wilful killing.”

Women and girls have also died from difficulties related to pregnancy and childbirth due to the circumstances imposed by the Israeli authorities regarding access to reproductive health care, “acts that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination,” it added.

The report also stated that forced public stripping and nudity, the issue of sexual misconduct, including threats of rape, and sexual assault are all part of the Israeli Security Forces' "standard operating procedures" against Palestinians.