UNITED NATIONS: The Zionist entity’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said Thursday, accusing the country of “using starvation as a method of war”. The United Nations Special Committee pointed to “mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians”, in a fresh report covering the period from Oct 7 last year through to July.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, (the Zionist entity) is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury,” it said in a statement.

The Zionist entity’s warfare practices in Gaza “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide”, said the committee, which has for decades been investigating Zionist practices affecting rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Zionist entity, it charged, was “using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population”.

A UN-backed assessment at the weekend warned that famine was imminent in northern Gaza. Thursday’s report documented how the Zionist entity’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza had decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe with lasting health impacts. By February this year, Zionist forces had used more than 25,000 tons of explosives across the Gaza Strip, “equivalent to two nuclear bombs”, the report pointed out.

“By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, (the Zionist entity) has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the committee said. The committee said it was “deeply alarmed by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure and the high death toll in Gaza”, where more than 43,700 people have been killed since the war began.

The staggering number of deaths raised serious concerns, it said, about the Zionist entity’s use of artificial intelligence-enhanced targeting systems in its military operations. “The (Zionist) military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores (the Zionist entity’s) disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” it said.

It warned that reported new directives lowering the criteria for selecting targets and increasing the previously accepted ratio of civilian to combatant casualties appeared to have allowed the military to use AI systems to “rapidly generate tens of thousands of targets, as well as to track targets

to their homes, particularly at night when families shelter together”. The committee stressed the obligations of other countries to urgently act to halt the bloodshed, saying that “other States are unwilling to hold (the Zionist entity) accountable and continue to provide it with military and other support”.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday that the Zionist entity’s repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the “war crime of forcible transfer”, and to “ethnic cleansing” in parts of the Palestinian territory. “Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that (Zionist) officials are... committing the war crime of forcible transfer,” the report said.

“(The Zionist entity’s) actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing” in the areas where Palestinians will not be able to return, HRW added. Nadia Hardman, an HRW researcher, noted the 172-page report’s findings are based on interviews with displaced Gazans, satellite imagery, and public reporting conducted until Aug 2024.

“The (Zionist) military has bulldozed entire areas ... In those areas, (the Zionist entity) has committed ethnic cleansing,” Adam Coogle, HRW’s Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division told Reuters in Amman. “Systematically rendering large parts of Gaza uninhabitable... in some cases permanently... amounts to ethnic cleansing,” Ahmed Benchemsi, spokesman for HRW’s Middle East division said in a press briefing.

The HRW report pointed in particular to the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, running along the Egyptian border and cutting Gaza along its east-west axis respectively, which have been “razed, extended, and cleared”, by the Zionist army to create buffer zones and security corridors.

HRW’s report argued “the actions of the (Zionist) authorities in Gaza are the actions of one ethnic or religious group to remove Palestinians, another ethnic or religious group, from areas within Gaza by violent means”. It pointed to the organized nature of the displacement, and the intention for Zionist forces to ensure affected areas will “remain permanently emptied and cleansed of Palestinians”.

Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza said Zionist forces had inflicted widespread destruction on their home districts in their latest six-week-old offensive and a rights group raised concerns the Zionist entity might put some areas permanently off-limits. Former construction contractor Abu Raed, who was displaced from Jabalia, said Zionist forces were blowing buildings up remotely after booby-trapping them or sending in robots.

“The destruction before Oct 5, 2024 was big, but what happened in the past month can’t be described in words. Most of the camp was destroyed this time,” he told Reuters. “I have friends and relatives in Beit Hanoun, there are hardly any building standing there, Beit Lahia also,” the 75-year-old said.

Ragheb Al-Rubaiya, a 63-year-old Palestinian from Jabalia, said to AFP that he had been driven from his home after “bombing started from the air and the tanks, and they drove us out against our will”. “They’re destroying everything in Jabalia, and the goal is clear even to the blind: To wipe out the north and cut it off from Gaza,” he added.

Palestinian health ministry officials said the Zionist entity’s latest airstrikes killed at least 15 people across the enclave, including four at Gaza City’s Salahudeen School, which shelters displaced families. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, said there were no ambulances working in the north. – Agencies