Tag: un

UN: Israeli Authorities Responsible for Crimes Against Humanity

Speaking to the UN Security Council, the head of an investigatory body probing the Gaza war found Israeli officials committed war crimes during military operations in the Strip.

Navi Pillay, chairperson of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, announced her findings to the UNSC on Wednesday, stating the commission had concluded that “Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

She explained that those crimes include “extermination, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, murder or willful killing using starvation as a method of War, forcible transfer, gender persecution, sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture and cruel or inhuman treatment.”

The commission noted that Hamas has committed similar crimes throughout the latest conflict.

During the eight-month assault on Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 37,000 Palestinians and injured an estimated 85,000. Israeli bombings have also destroyed most of Gaza’s homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, and farmland. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been plunged into near-famine conditions.

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Free Speech at Risk: UN Pushes for Global “Hate Speech” Eradication

In a statement issued on the occasion of the “International Day for Countering Hate Speech,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the global eradication of so-called “hate speech,” which he described as inherently toxic and entirely intolerable.

The issue of censoring “hate speech” stirs significant controversy, primarily due to the nebulous and subjective nature of its definition. At the heart of the debate is a profound concern: whoever defines what constitutes hate speech essentially holds the power to determine the limits of free expression.

This power, wielded without stringent checks and balances, leads to excessive censorship and suppression of dissenting voices, which is antithetical to the principles of a democratic society.

Guterres highlighted the historic and ongoing damage caused by hate speech, citing devastating examples such as Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and Bosnia to suggest that speech leads to violence and even crimes against humanity.

“Hate speech is a marker of discrimination, abuse, violence, conflict, and even crimes against humanity. We have time and again seen this play out from Nazi Germany to Rwanda, Bosnia and beyond. There is no acceptable level of hate speech; we must all work to eradicate it completely,” Guterres said.

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UN probe finds Israel GUILTY of crimes against humanity in Gaza

Israel is guilty of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations (UN) committee has concluded.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) made this conclusion on June 12, deeming Tel Aviv guilty of the atrocities committed during its eight-month-long campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The COI said Israeli authorities are accountable for “the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare, murder or willful killing, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, forcible transfer, sexual violence, torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, arbitrary detention, and outrages upon personal dignity.”

The COI also discovered that “the crimes against humanity of extermination, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, murder, [and] forcible transfer” were also committed. According to the commission’s findings, the the enormous number of civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza is “the inevitable result of a strategy undertaken with the intent to cause maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality, and adequate precautions.”

Moreover, the investigation resolved that the inflammatory remarks by Israeli officials “amounted to incitement and may constitute other serious international crimes,” adding that direct and public provocation to genocide is a crime under international law whenever committed.

The COI also criticized Israel’s continued assaults on civilian evacuation routes and “safe areas” and stated leading Israeli authorities have “weaponized the siege and used the provision of life-sustaining necessities, including by severing water, food, electricity, fuel, and humanitarian assistance, for strategic and political gains.”

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The UN Cybercrime Draft Convention is a Blank Check for Surveillance Abuses

The United Nations Ad Hoc Committee is just weeks away from finalizing a too-broad Cybercrime Draft Convention. This draft would normalize unchecked domestic surveillance and rampant government overreach, allowing serious human rights abuses around the world.

The latest draft of the convention—originally spearheaded by Russia but since then the subject of two and a half years of negotiations—still authorizes broad surveillance powers without robust safeguards and fails to spell out data protection principles essential to prevent government abuse of power.

As the August 9 finalization date approaches, Member States have a last chance to address the convention’s lack of safeguards: prior judicial authorization, transparency, user notification, independent oversight, and data protection principles such as transparency, minimization, notification to users, and purpose limitation. If left as is, it can and will be wielded as a tool for systemic rights violations.

Countries committed to human rights and the rule of law must unite to demand stronger data protection and human rights safeguards or reject the treaty altogether. These domestic surveillance powers are critical as they underpin international surveillance cooperation

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UN Report Details Israeli War Crimes During First Months of War on Gaza

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) provides a detailed analysis of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the Israeli assault on Gaza. The report finds both sides committed war crimes but concludes there is no evidence to support the claim that Hamas engaged in mass rape during its rampage in southern Israel. The COI found evidence of Israel intentionally killing civilians and Israeli forces engaged in acts of sexual torture. 

The report’s analysis of the events on October 7 concluded Hamas intentionally targeted two dozen civilian targets, leading to hundreds of deaths. The COI found evidence that members of Hamas committed sexual assaults on Israelis, with some female bodies found undressed. 

However, the report debunks the widespread claim that top Israeli and US officials have often repeated that Hamas engaged in mass rape during its attack. “The Commission has reviewed testimonies obtained by journalists and the Israeli police concerning rape but has not been able to independently verify such allegations,” the report says. “Additionally, the Commission found some specific allegations to be false, inaccurate or contradictory with other evidence or statements and discounted these from its assessment.”

While the assertion that Hamas engaged in mass rape on October 7 has been widely discussed in the US media, the Palestinian accusations that Israeli forces have systematically engaged in horrific sexual violence have gone largely unreported. 

The COI found evidence to back the Palestinian claims that Israel is engaging in systemic sexual torture and humiliation. “Based on testimonies and verified video footage and photographs, the Commission finds that sexual violence has been perpetrated throughout the [Israeli enforced] evacuation processes.” The report continues, “Palestinians were made to watch members of their family and community strip in public and walk completely or partially undressed while subjected to sexual harassment.”

The Israeli forces inflicted sexual torture on males, according to the COI. “Males were repeatedly filmed and photographed by soldiers while subjected to forced public stripping and nudity, sexual torture and inhumane or cruel treatment,” the report found. 

The COI concluded that the Israeli forces were authorized or allowed to engage in the sexual abuse. “The Commission concludes that forced public stripping and nudity and other types of abuse by Israeli military personnel were either ordered or condoned.” It adds, “These acts were intended to humiliate and degrade the victims and the Palestinian community at large by perpetuating gender stereotypes that create a sense of shame, subordination, emasculation and inferiority.”

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Failed climate prediction: A senior UN official claimed that entire nations would be wiped off the face of the Earth by the year 2000

In 1989, a senior UN environmental official warned that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000. This prediction was made in an Associated Press article written by veteran reporter Peter James Spielmann and published on 29 June 1989.

According to the article, governments had a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it went beyond human control. The UN official also predicted that as the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations.

In 2019, Snopes “fact-checked” the claim that, “A senior UN environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000” because it “serves as the basis for clickbait posts from several climate denial media outlets.” 

However, because the article was available for all to read, all Snopes could do was demonstrate that Spielmann’s article was not supported by scientific papers or the UNEP report referred to. In other words, the senior UN official lied and Spielmann amplified his lies.

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U.N. Reduces Estimated Number of Women, Children Killed in Gaza by Half, Blames Error on ‘Fog of War’

The United Nations has seemingly revised the estimated number of women and children it believes have been killed in Gaza during Israel’s war on Hamas, blaming the “fog of war” for the mistake.

In a graphic featured within OCHA’s recent daily briefing on May 6th, it was claimed that approximately 9,500 women had lost their lives in the ongoing conflict. The organization also cited data sourced from the Hamas-administered Ministry of Health in Gaza asserting that since hostilities began last October, roughly 14,500 children had been killed.

Yet just two days later, the U.N. agency appeared to revise these figures significantly downward in its subsequent report. The updated data indicated that approximately 4,959 women and 7,797 children had lost their lives.

The conflict erupted following a brutal attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel from Gaza, resulting in the deaths of over 1,200 individuals, predominantly civilians, and the taking of approximately 240 individuals as hostages.

A reporter from the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) asked the U.N. about the revision, with the spokesperson blaming the “fog of war” for the errors.

“The revisions are taken … you know, of course, in the fog of war, it’s difficult to come up with numbers,”  Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said at a press conference last Friday.

“We get numbers from different sources on the ground, and then we try to cross check them. As we cross check them, we update the numbers, and we’ll continue to do that as that progresses.”

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UN Relief and Works Agency Staff Stealing, Reselling Humanitarian Aid Meant for Gazans

On Wednesday, a UNWatch report revealed that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency staff have been stealing humanitarian aid materials meant for Gazan civilians, and reselling the materials at a profit. 

UNRWA staff are stealing aid and selling it for profit, while those who report it face reprisals, according to numerous reports published by Palestinians in an UNRWA-related chatroom.

The posts expose a deep frustration by employees that senior UNRWA employees are engaged in the abuses, and that the agency is doing nothing about it. This comes amid a recent call by UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini for countries to increase direct cash assistance to Gazans because, although “there is more food available… it still does not mean that the food is accessible.”

The chatroom is run by a former UNRWA employee, Haitham al-Sayyed, who was removed from UNRWA in 2016 after he publicly called out the agency for hiding an UNRWA school map that denied the existence of Israel, covered up with a white cloth to hide it from the cameras while UN chief Ban Ki-moon was holding a press conference in June 2016.

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Rebuilding Bombed-Out Gaza Could Take Into Next Century: UN

Gaza will need rebuilding on scale not seen since World War 2, the United Nations has said in a new report which seeks to assess the immense scale and scope of damage after almost seven months of war.

The report released by the UN Development Program (UNDP) said that Gaza needs “approximately 80 years to restore all the fully destroyed housing units” and that rebuilding all that’s been destroyed in the Strip could even drag into the next century.

“Unprecedented levels of human losses, capital destruction, and the steep rise in poverty in such a short period of time will precipitate a serious development crisis that jeopardizes the future of generations to come,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said in a statement.

The report tallies that some 80,000 homes have been fully destroyed while at least 370,000 have been damaged. The UN also indicated there’s a possibility that rebuilding could be completed by 2040, but only if “construction materials are delivered five times as fast as in the last crisis in 2021” and if there war were to immediately stop.

According to more via Reuters, “In a scenario where the war lasts nine months, poverty is set to increase from 38.8% of Gaza’s population at the end of 2023 to 60.7%, dragging a large portion of the middle class below the poverty line, the report said.”

One UN official referenced in international reports said that Israel’s bombardment of the Strip has resulted in a “moonscape” of destruction.

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UN Official Condemns Health “Misinformation,” Advocates for “Digital Integrity Code”

The United Nations continues with an attempt to advance the agenda to get what the organization calls its Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms implemented.

This code is based on a previous policy brief that recommends censorship of whatever is deemed to be “disinformation, misinformation, hate” but that is only the big picture of the policy UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming is staunchly promoting.

In early April, Fleming gave a talk at Boston University, and here the focus was on AI, whose usefulness in various censorship ventures makes it seen as a tool that advances “resilience in global communication.”

A piece on the Boston University Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases site first asserts that AI had a “major role” in helping spread misinformation and conspiracy theories “in the post-pandemic era,” while the UN is described as one of the institutions that have been undermined by all this, while “working to dispel these narratives.”

(The article also – helpfully, in terms of understanding where its authors are coming from – cites the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the “authority” which has proclaimed that “the threat from misinformation and disinformation as the most severe short-term threat facing the world today”).

You will hardly hear Fleming disagreeing with any of this, but the UN’s approach is to “harness” that power to serve its own agendas. The UN official’s talk was about AI can be used to feed the public the desired narratives around issues like vaccines, climate change, and the “well-being” of women and girls.

However, she also went long into all the aspects of AI that she perceives as negative, throwing pretty much every talking point already well established among the “AI fear-mongering genre” in there:

“One of our biggest worries is the ease with which new technologies can help spread misinformation easier and cheaper, and that this content can be produced at scale and far more easily personalized and targeted,” she said.

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