UN human rights bodies have called for an investigation into the shooting and killing of 11 Gaza civilians by Israeli forces
Hu Ruoyu. Earlier this week, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights received information that Israeli forces had shot and killed 11 unarmed Palestinian men in a building in the Gaza Strip "in front of their families."
The UN Human Rights Office issued a statement on the 20th, saying that the office of this agency in the Occupied Palestinian Territory received the above-mentioned "disturbing news" and asked Israel to investigate.
The statement said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly surrounded and broke into the "Arwada House" (also known as the "Annan House") in the Remal neighborhood of Gaza City between 20 and 23 o'clock on the 19th, where the Palestinians Annan and three relatives and family took refuge.
According to the statement and eyewitness accounts cited by Euro-Mediterranean human rights watchdogs, Israeli forces separated men from women and children and then shot and killed at least 11 of them, most of them in their mid-thirties, "in front of their families."
According to eyewitness accounts, Israeli soldiers then ordered the women and children to enter a room and shot at them or threw grenades into the room, resulting in serious injuries to a number of people, including a baby and a child.
Qatar's Al Jazeera reported, citing a survivor: "They (Israeli troops) saw us, the man, the man's wife and children. My brother-in-law tried to explain to them that all the people in the house were civilians, but they killed him. ”
According to a statement issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitoring Organization on the 20th, according to eyewitness testimony, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 13 people in the building and kidnapped an elderly man, whose whereabouts are still unknown.
The UN Human Rights Office said in a statement that the killings at the "Arvada House" had been confirmed, but that the circumstances and circumstances of the killing had yet to be verified. The incident raised alarm about "a possible war crime". Moreover, there have been previous allegations that the Israeli army deliberately targeted and killed civilians.
The statement said that the Israeli authorities must immediately launch an independent, thorough and effective investigation into these allegations and, if they are substantiated, must bring those responsible to justice and take measures to prevent the recurrence of such serious violations.
The Israeli military has not yet released anything about this incident.
Since the outbreak of the new Israeli-Palestinian conflict on 7 October, Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have so far killed more than 20,000 Palestinians. After Israeli soldiers mistakenly killed three Israeli detainees who had asked the Israeli army for help in Gaza City on the 15th of this month, the head of the IDF General Staff, Hezi Al-Halewi, then demanded that the frontline troops not "let go" the surrendered Gazans. (End) (Special article by Xinhua News Agency).
Keywords: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).