UN rights office: Reports say Israeli troops ‘summarily killed’ Palestinians
The UN human rights office says it had received reports that Israeli troops “summarily killed” at least 11 unarmed Palestinians in a possible war crime in Gaza. This picture taken in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 21, 2023, shows an Israeli artillery firing towards Gaza amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / Agence France-Presse)
Jerusalem, Undefined — The United Nations human rights office said it had received reports that Israeli troops “summarily killed” at least 11 unarmed Palestinians in a possible war crime in Gaza.
The OHCHR office in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the killings were alleged to have been carried out in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City this week.
It said on Wednesday it had received “disturbing information alleging that Israeli Defense Forces (the Israeli army) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men.”
The incident “raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime,” it said, adding the men were killed in front of their family members.
The report said troops also ordered women and children into a room “and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child.”
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An Israeli official rejected the claims as “nothing but blood libel.”
“The latest claims are yet another example of the partisan and prejudiced approach against Israel that the OHCHR has adopted for years now,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
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Israeli troops have previously been accused of deliberately targeting and killing civilians, according to the office.
The war between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, began after the Islamist group attacked southern Israel on October 7 and killed around 1,140 people, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 20,000 people, most of them children or women, according to the Hamas government.
