In a 56-page report (pdf), the UNHCR's three-member panel wrote that Israeli commandos had committed war crimes during their May 31 raid of the Turkish aid ship the MV Mavi Marmara that left nine Turkish, pro-Palestinian activists dead.
Although Israel contends that its soldiers acted in self-defense, the council found that their response was “disproportionate” and that soldiers exercised an “unacceptable level of brutality.”
“There is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,” wrote the report's authors.
The council also found that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is “unlawful” because of the humanitarian crisis, reports the BBC.
The three-member council consisted of Karl T. Hudson-Phillips, a retired judge of the International Criminal Court; Desmond de Silva, former chief prosecutor of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone; and Mary Shanthi Dairiam of Malaysia, a former member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Mustafa Badaha drove along the edge of his land, past rows of olive trees he could...
An Alabama woman has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that her civil rights and those of...
Raneem Mousa lifts a heavy volume from a shattered shelf inside the centuries-old library of Gaza’s...
Mounted by dogs, penetrated by carrots, and rectums torn by batons. These are just some of the...
