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Israel's targeting of educational sites amounts to war crimes, the U.N. Commission said as the independent U.N. commission of inquiry on Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip reported that Israel's targeting of educational, religious and cultural sites constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The commission published its new report on Israel's targeting of cultural, religious and educational areas in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially Gaza.
The report stated, "Israel destroyed Gaza's education system, destroyed more than half of the religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip. This is part of a widespread and brutal attack against the Palestinian people in which Israeli forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The report recorded that Israel damaged and destroyed more than 90% of school and university buildings in Gaza with attacks, emphasizing that more than 658,000 children in Gaza have not been able to go to school for 20 months.
The report stated, "Israeli attacks on educational, religious and cultural areas in occupied Palestinian territories constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, meaning destruction."
The report emphasized that all religious and cultural sites attacked in Gaza were civilian places, reporting that these works were destroyed, removed or looted.
Commission Chair Navi Pillay, whose views were included in the report, evaluated: "We see increasing signs that Israel is conducting a coordinated campaign to destroy the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. Israel's targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm current and future generations and prevent their right to self-determination."
Stating that attacks on cultural and religious areas deeply affect intangible culture such as memories and history, Pillay said, "The targeting and destruction of heritage sites, restriction of access to these sites in the West Bank and the erasure of their heterogeneous histories erode Palestinians' historical ties to the land and weaken their collective identity."
The report called on Israel to immediately end attacks targeting cultural, religious and educational institutions, the seizure of these institutions and their military use.
The report also stated that Israel must immediately end its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territories, stating, "Israel must stop all settlement plans and activities, including those conducted in or endangering religious and cultural areas, and fully comply with provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice."
Meanwhile, the fuel shortage at Gaza's Shifa Hospital seriously endangers the lives of patients and wounded, especially those in intensive care, due to Israel's tightened blockade since March 2.
Shifa Hospital Director Mohammed Abu Salmiya said, "No medicine and medical supplies have entered Gaza for more than 90 days. This affects the lives of patients. We have also lost many patients because medical facilities were insufficient. If there is no electricity, this unit becomes a grave with its contents."
Abu Salmiya reported that the occupancy rate at Shifa Hospital is around 300 percent due to out-of-service hospitals in the north and increasing population density in Gaza city.
Abu Salmiya showed child patients in intensive care who were wounded in the head or abdomen, paralyzed, unconscious, or who had tracheostomy procedures because they could not breathe.
Stating that the number of patients who need treatment abroad due to insufficient medical facilities in Gaza exceeds 15,000, Abu Salmiya expressed that a "real crisis" is being experienced in Gaza hospitals because the Israeli army does not allow exits.
The Gaza Health Ministry stated that Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospitals face the danger of being out of service within 24 hours due to a fuel shortage, with emergency intervention for wounded patients carried out at these facilities.
Spokesperson of UNICEF, the U.N.'s children's fund, James Elder, stated that families in Gaza struggle to get one meal a day for their children, and children are dying because they cannot access food, clean water and basic health services.
Elder said, "Families are currently struggling to get one meal a day for their children. Mothers go hungry for 2 days because they make sacrifices and give food to their children. So there is no celebration of the holiday, no home, nothing."
Elder stated that severe malnutrition increases a child's likelihood of dying from preventable diseases by 10 times, saying, "This is what kills children. This vicious cycle of food shortages and then dirty water and lack of the most basic health services."
"We know that more than 2,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the end of the ceasefire," Elder said, emphasizing that they have no idea how many children died due to completely preventable situations.
Elder expressed that they witnessed terrible situations in Gaza, saying, "There is not enough food, absolutely not. We probably get 10 percent of the humanitarian aid that people need. More bombs and missiles enter Gaza than what people need to survive, even more than food."
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