UN Inquiry: Both Israel and Hamas Committed War Crimes

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Facts

• The UN released a report on Wednesday detailing alleged war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas. The inquiry found that Israeli forces are guilty of forced starvation, intentionally targeting civilians, forced displacement, sexual violence, torture, and arbitrary detention.¹
• The report continued that Israeli forces had conducted a campaign of 'extermination' in Gaza, adding that Israeli leaders had made statements reflecting 'the policy of inflicting widespread destruction and killing large numbers of civilians.'²
• The inquiry also reportedly found that Israeli forces had committed sexual and gender-based violence crimes against Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, alleging that this violence constituted 'part of ISF (Israel Security Forces) operating procedures.'³
• It also concluded that Hamas as well as six other Palestinian armed groups had also committed war crimes. These include the intentional targeting of civilians, murder, destroying or seizing the property of an adversary, torture, cruel treatment, and hostage-taking — to include children.²
• The report said that it was 'unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and genital mutilation,' during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack but added that militants had used female Israeli captives as 'trophies' and women were disproportionally targeted in multiple incidents. The corpses of Israeli men and women were also desecrated in a sexual manner. [Editor's Note: full report linked in OHCHR press release].²
• Israel dismissed the inquiry's result as biased, while Hamas did not immediately comment.⁴

Sources: ¹New York Times, ²Ohchr, ³Archive and ⁴Reuters.

Narratives

• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by Timesofisrael. Israel rigorously follows the laws of war and goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties. All this report demonstrates is that the UN is deeply biased against Israel and seeks to create a nauseating equivalence between Israeli self-defense and Hamas' horrific terrorism.
• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by Al Jazeera. Israel can no longer play the victim card as the evidence mounts that it's Israeli forces who are committing the most serious crimes. The propaganda offensive accusing Hamas of systematic rape has been thoroughly debunked, and, as it turns out, Israeli forces are committing sexualized torture against Palestinians in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Predictions