A senior United Nations Human Rights official has left his post citing the United Nation’s failure to prevent what he refers to as a genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza who remain under severe Israeli bombardment. The Former Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights Craig Mokhiber wrote a letter to the High Commissioner for Human Rights arguing that the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler-colonial ideology, left no room for doubt that this was a textbook case of genocide.
His departure letter comes on a day Israel confirmed it was responsible for a deadly strike on a Gaza refugee camp that killed at least 50 people, injuring 150.
Israel says its strike on the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza was to target and kill a senior Hamas commander, a strike it says caused the collapse of an underground tunnel structure situated under the camp and while outrage grows in the region and beyond, Israel’s closest ally said Tuesday it was not in a position to comment.
“I’m not going to offer commentary on every strike. We’re just not in a position to do so from a podium here without information that we have verified on our own. I would just reiterate what I have said before, which is, of course, Israel has the right to defend itself. We have talked to them about that right and we’ve talked about it publicly. But as we have said publicly and have also communicated privately to them, they also have the burden and the responsibility to exercise that self-defense in a way that minimizes civilian harm,” says State Department’s Spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Ceasefire
Anti-war protestors calling for a ceasefire interrupted the United States Secretary of State Tuesday during Senate testimony on funding requirements for Israel’s defense, with protestors raising their red painted hands symbolizing blood.
Washington’s current posture remains unwavering as Antony Blinken explained.
“I also hear very much the passions expressed in this room and outside this room. All of us are committed to the protection of civilian life. All of us know the suffering that is taking place as we speak. All of us are determined to see it end. But all of us know the imperative of standing up with our allies and partners when their security when their democracies are threatened. That’s what’s happening now. We stand resolutely with them, even as we stand resolutely for the protection of innocent civilians.”
The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees Filipo Grandi firmly rebuked the Security Council’s inability to act.
“Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was always described as ‘elusive’: but it has not been elusive; it has been repeatedly and deliberately neglected, cast aside as something no longer necessary, almost ridiculed. I hope that now, amidst the horrors of war, we can at least see how grave a miscalculation that has been. There will be no peace in the region and in the world without a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the end of the Israeli occupation. The gravity of this moment cannot be overstated. The choices that the fifteen of you make, or fail to make, will mark us all and for generations to come.”
Scathing letter
This, while the outgoing Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Craig Mokhiber wrote a scathing letter to his boss pointing to the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians and the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure as a textbook case of genocide; accusing the governments of the United States, United Kingdom and much of Europe, of complicity in the horrific assault while providing political and diplomatic cover for Israel , an issue raised with the Secretary General’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“There was a letter sent by a staff member of the UN Human Rights Office who, but I think it’s important to note that I know the letter is making the rounds that those are the personal views of the staff member who’s retiring [as of 1 November]. And those are his views. I mean, the views of the office are reflected in all the public statements coming out of that office. ”
Dujarric also explained that the designation of genocide needed to be made by a competent legal body and was not something the UN Secretary-General had the legal authority to make within the UN context.
The organisation’s humanitarian office said Wednesday that the fighting had entered an even more terrifying phase with increasingly dreadful consequences, in a world seemingly unable or unwilling to act, particularly on getting aid, at scale, into Gaza; the death toll on both sides now exceeding 10 000, 8 500 of that number are Palestinians, 70% women and children.
