Arab League Decries Israeli Intention to Halt TIPH

FILE Photo: The Megiddo Prison in northern Israel, July 2018. Amir Cohen/REUTERS
FILE Photo: The Megiddo Prison in northern Israel, July 2018. Amir Cohen/REUTERS
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Arab League Decries Israeli Intention to Halt TIPH

FILE Photo: The Megiddo Prison in northern Israel, July 2018. Amir Cohen/REUTERS
FILE Photo: The Megiddo Prison in northern Israel, July 2018. Amir Cohen/REUTERS

The Arab League denounced what has been circulating in the Israeli media about an intention to halt the mission of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), following previous rejections to increase staff.

This discloses the occupation's implicit intention to continue its crimes against Palestinians and stop the work of observers concerned in monitoring violations and aggressions Palestinians are going through, in addition to the systematic suppression practiced against more than 6,500 inmates in Israeli prisons.

For instance, Palestinian inmates in Ofer prison has been subjected to unannounced raids, smashing of possessions, naked searches, verbal abuse, and the use of tear gas and rubber bullets. All this reflects Israeli insistence on violating the principles of international law and the resolutions on international legitimacy, particularly the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

The Arab League's Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories, Saeed Abu Ali, stated Wednesday that the occupation’s approach to halt the mission of the TIPH challenges the international law and will.

He stressed that Israel's clear quest to Judaize the old city in Hebron and lay hands over more surrounding Palestinian territories aimed to instill the racist policies and violations of the occupation.



UN: Nearly 70% of Verified Gaza War Dead Are Women and Children

FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
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UN: Nearly 70% of Verified Gaza War Dead Are Women and Children

FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70% of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
The UN tally since the start of the war, in which Israel's military is fighting Hamas militants, includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues.

The 8,119 victims verified is a much lower number than the toll of over 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month-old war. But the UN breakdown of the victims' age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.

This finding indicates "a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality," the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.

"It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment on the report's findings.

"Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law," Turk said in a statement.

"Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war."

His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.