Benjamin Netanyahu slams ‘rotten’ UN over ‘genocide’ report
Israel’s PM has blasted a UN council behind a report that found the destruction of Gaza’s main IVF clinic was an act of genocide.
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A United Nations investigation has concluded that Israel carried out “genocidal acts” in Gaza through the destruction of its main IVF clinic, maternity facilities and other reproductive healthcare facilities.
The UN Commission of Inquiry said Israel had “intentionally attacked and destroyed” the Palestinian territory’s main fertility centre, and had simultaneously imposed a siege and blocked aid including medication for ensuring safe pregnancies, deliveries and neonatal care.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the finding accusing the UN commission of being “an anti-Semitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting, and irrelevant body.”
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organisation in the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN is once again choosing to attack Israel with false accusations, including unfounded accusations of sexual violence,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement, referencing the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the report was nothing more than a conspiracy theory attempting to demonise the Jewish state.
“It is one of the worst cases of blood libel the world has ever seen (and the world has seen many),” the ministry said on X.
“It accuses the victims of the crimes committed against them.
“Hamas is the organisation that has committed horrendous sexual crimes against Israelis. It is indeed a sick document that only an anti-Semitic organisation such as the UN could produce,” the agency added.
In a statement, the UN commission said it found that Israeli authorities “have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare”.
It said this amounted to “two categories of genocidal acts” during Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The report said maternity hospitals and wards had been systematically destroyed in Gaza, along with the Al-Basma IVF Centre, the territory’s main in-vitro fertility clinic.
It said Al-Basma was shelled in December 2023, reportedly destroying around 4000 embryos at a clinic that served 2,000 to 3,000 patients a month.
The commission found that the Israeli Security Forces intentionally attacked and destroyed the clinic, including all the reproductive material stored for the future conception of Palestinians.
It concluded that the destruction “was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act”.
The United Nations’ genocide convention defines that crime as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
Of its five categories, the inquiry said the two implicating Israel were “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
Furthermore, the report said the wider harm to pregnant, lactating and new mothers in Gaza was on an “unprecedented scale”, with an irreversible impact on the reproductive and fertility prospects of Gazans.
The report concluded that Israel had targeted civilian women and girls directly, “acts that constitute the crime against humanity of murder and the war crime of wilful killing”.
Women and girls died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth due to the conditions imposed by the Israeli authorities impacting access to reproductive health care, “acts that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination”, it added.
The three-person independent International Commission of Inquiry was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged international law violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Commission member Chris Sidoti explained, “We have identified a number of acts that constitute the categories of genocidal act under the law. We have not yet examined the question of genocidal purpose,” he told a press conference.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP the report “confirms what has happened on the ground: genocide and violations of all humanitarian and legal standards”.
He said it underscored “the urgent need to expedite the prosecution of (Israel’s) leaders for these crimes and ensure their swift trial at the International Criminal Court”.
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ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS INVADE TRUMP TOWER
A mob of anti-Israel protesters flooded the dining area at Trump Tower Thursday to protest the arrest of ColumbiaUniversity pto-Palestine protests leader Mahmoud Khalil at lunchtime on Thursday.
Many in the crowd of at least 100 wearing red shirts with the slogan “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel” were arrested after storming the Trump Grill restaurant.
Police started rounding up and hauling away the demonstrators, who could be seen on video being marched away in zip ties.
The rally came after Khalil was arrested by federal immigration agents under President Trump’s administration, which is cracking down on alleged anti-Semitism by foreign citizens on college campuses.
Khalil faces having his green card revoked.
A judge temporarily blocked any attempt to deport him.
IRAN REBUFFS NUCLEAR TALKS WITH US
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected the idea of holding negotiations with the United States over a nuclear deal, as a letter arrived from US President Donald Trump calling for such talks.
Mr Trump sent a letter to Khamenei proposing nuclear talks but warning that “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The letter was handed over to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi by Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates.
Khamenei told a group of university students that Mr Trump’s offer for talks was “a deception aimed at misleading public opinion”, state media reported.
“When we know they won’t honour it, what’s the point of negotiating? Therefore, the invitation to negotiate … is a deception of public opinion,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by state media.
Khamenei said his country “does not have nuclear weapons” and was “not seeking” them after Mr Trump urged talks.
“If we wanted to make nuclear weapons, America could not stop us. The fact that we do not have nuclear weapons and are not seeking nuclear weapons is because we ourselves do not want them,” Khamenei said.
VIOLENCE RESUMES IN GAZA AND WEST BANK
An Israeli air strike hit Gaza City on Tuesday, with the civil defence agency reporting four men killed and the military saying it had targeted “terrorists” posing a threat to troops.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the Gaza Strip’s civil defence agency, told AFP that the Israeli strike “on a group of citizens in the Netzarim area in south Gaza City” resulted in “four martyrs including two brothers”, all men in their 20s.
The Israeli military said that its air forces had struck “several terrorists engaged in suspicious activity posing a threat to IDF troops”.
During a raid in the areas of Qabatiya and Jenin, Israeli forces “encountered several armed terrorists who had barricaded themselves inside a structure in Jenin,” the military said in a statement.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said among the dead was Palestinian woman Fayza Ibrahim Abu Ghali, 58.
It did not offer further details on how she was killed.
Israeli forces have been waging a weeks-long offensive in the northern West Bank that began around refugee camps regarded as bastions of Palestinian militancy.
POWER CUT TO GAZA IS ‘ESCALATION IN GENOCIDE’
Egypt condemned Israel’s decision to cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip, calling it a “new violation of international humanitarian law”.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said the move was part of Israel’s “policies of collective punishment” after Israeli authorities blocked the entry of aid into Gaza.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan also condemned Israel’s decision to cut electricity to the war-battered Gaza Strip, calling for the international community to take action.
Britain has called on Israel to restore electricity, warning the country could be in violation of international law.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office told reporters, “We’re clear that a halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza, including basic needs such as electricity, risks breaching Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.”
Germany also criticised Israel.
The sole power line between Israel and Gaza supplies its main desalination plant, and Gazans now mainly rely on solar panels and fuel-powered generators to produce electricity.
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