
Four days ago, ripples of concern briefly surfaced in the global media, as a UN Commission of Inquiry — the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel — issued a devastating 72-page report establishing, definitively, that the State of Israel is engaged in a genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and has been throughout the whole of the last 23 months.
The Commission of Inquiry — chaired by Navi Pillay, who, over the last 30 years has served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal dealing with the Rwanda genocide, and at the International Criminal Court, and who was also, from 2008 to 2014, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights — was established in May 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate violations of international humanitarian law in the territories illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, and its latest report follows on from other devastating reports over the last year.
One of these was in October last year, focusing on Israel’s exterminatory “war” on Gaza’s hospitals, and its extraordinarily brutal treatment of Palestinians in its prisons, which I wrote about in detail in two articles at the time — UN Report Confirms Israel Guilty of War Crimes and “Extermination” in Attacks on Gaza’s Hospitals and UN Report Condemns Unparalleled Violence, Including Torture, Rape and Murder, in Israel’s Unaccountable Prisons for Palestinians.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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