New Delhi: Reuven Azar, Israel’s Ambassador to India Thursday hit out at Justice S. Muralidhar, for “creating unsubstantiated” allegations against the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
Justice Muralidhar, a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem and Israel, recently released a report that said the IDF deliberately targeted Palestinian children.
“Justice Muralidhar, Hamas didn’t just take hostages on October 7th. They barbarically attacked our communities committing murder of hundreds of civilians including women and children, savage rape, mutilation and burning of entire families,” Azar said in a post on the social media platform X.
The Israeli Ambassador added: “The CoI invested USD 4 million in creating unsubstantiated allegations against our soldiers that you are shamelessly quoting, ignoring Hamas tactics of hiding behind civilians including children and using them as combatants and as human shields. Instead, you are basing your so-called findings not on presence on the ground, but on information supplied many times by the terrorists themselves, many of them disguising as medical and press staff.”
The Conference Paper by the CoI titled ‘The essence of childhood has been destroyed: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023’, stated that at least 20,179 Palestinian children have been killed since 7 October, 2023 and a further 44,143 have been injured.
Azar criticised Justice Muralidhar for not being a “military expert”, while defending the IDF’s record of doing more than “any army in the world to get civilians out of harm’s way with millions of early warnings”.
The Conference Paper, published on 23 June, found that Israel deliberately targeted children and key infrastructure including schools and hospitals in the Gaza strip that could incidentally negatively impact the lives of children.
The CoI in findings under international law said that “on reasonable grounds” it finds that Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces have “continued to commit the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, and war crimes in the West Bank.”
“The Commission found consistent evidence that indicates a clear pattern of the Israeli security forces intentionally targeting Palestinian children in Gaza,” the paper added, highlighting that the Israeli state “bears the responsibility” for crimes against humanity “amounting to extermination, murder and other inhumane acts.”
The CoI has found the scale of killing of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip as “unparalleled across modern conflicts globally”. The latest conference paper by the CoI highlights a number of examples of children killed or injured in the Gaza Strip during the two years of war between Hamas and Israel.
The CoI invited Israel to furnish evidence at least 13 times since 7 October, 2023. The Israeli government has so far not responded to the CoI’s requests, while four requests were made to the Palestinian Authority and one request was made to the health authorities in the Gaza strip.
The state of Palestine and the authorities in Gaza Strip provided the information requested by the CoI. The CoI was set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate the abuses of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.
The CoI has published four mandated reports and conference papers since 7 October 2023. In earlier reports, the CoI found that Israeli children were subjected to “physical and emotional mistreatment” on 7 October 2023. The CoI concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups had committed “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes,” over their egregious targeting of children for abduction.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched an operation against Israel, resulting in the death of at least 1150 Israelis, while abducting at least 250 people. Hamas released all the Israeli hostages last year as a part of the phased deal to end the two year war with Israel.
(Edited by Archishman Ganguly)
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