Claims in regards to the presence of Hamas fighters in hospitals in Gaza below siege by Israel’s navy have been “grossly exaggerated”, a prime prosecutor on the worldwide prison court docket (ICC) has stated.
Andrew Cayley, who’s main the ICC’s Palestine investigation, questioned the reliability of claims about navy exercise in Gaza’s hospitals which have been made to justify Israeli assaults on healthcare services within the territory.
Talking at an occasion final week, Cayley supplied a uncommon glimpse contained in the ICC prosecutor workplace’s investigation into warfare crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity by Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.
Cayley – who stories on to the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan – is overseeing the inquiry which was launched in 2021 however accelerated after the Hamas-led 7 October assaults and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza.
Final month, Khan secured arrest warrants in opposition to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; the nation’s former defence minister, Yoav Gallant; and Hamas’s navy chief, Mohammed Deif, as a part of the inquiry. Israel has claimed Deif was killed in a July airstrike, however the court docket has been unable to find out whether or not he’s useless or alive.
The allegations in opposition to the three suspects are just one facet of the investigation. Cayley’s crew is constant to look at a variety of alleged crimes throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.
ICC prosectors are understood to have reviewed incidents during which hospitals have been broken or destroyed in Israel’s navy offensive in Gaza.
In response to the newest figures revealed by the World Well being Group (WHO), of the 35 hospitals in Gaza it has evaluated solely 17 are described as “partially functioning”. 5 are “totally broken” and 13 are categorised as “non-functional”.
The Israel Protection Forces (IDF) has repeatedly justified operations in opposition to medical services in Gaza with claims that they have been being utilized by Hamas militants.
Cayley stated the ICC confronted “nice issue assessing” the extent of Hamas militant presence in hospitals “as a result of clearly there are lies being spoken, however that’s actually one thing we do have to unravel as a prosecution workplace”.
He added: “I feel that has been grossly exaggerated, however we’d like to have the ability to display very clearly what the extent of navy presence was, if in any respect, in these hospitals as a result of I feel we’ve been misled about that within the press.”
Cayley indicated that Israeli operations in opposition to Gaza’s healthcare services could be examined. “ injury to well being services, destruction of well being services, we shall be approaching to that most likely later subsequent 12 months. We’re having to do that in levels merely due to the sources that we’ve,” he added.
Cayley, a British barrister and former UK chief navy prosecutor, made the remarks at an occasion in The Hague about assaults on healthcare services in Sudan, Ukraine and Palestine held on the sidelines of the annual convention of the ICC’s member states.
He stated Gaza’s well being system is now barely functioning. “Airstrikes, sieges, raids on hospitals. Add to that lack of gas, electrical energy, meals, medication. That’s why the system has collapsed.”
Hospitals, in addition to medical infrastructure and personnel, have particular protections below worldwide humanitarian regulation. Assaults in opposition to them are prohibited, however there are particular circumstances during which medical services can lose their protected standing if they’re used for fight exercise.
Requested about Cayley’s remarks, a spokesperson for the IDF stated it acts in accordance with authorized obligations and goals to “minimise hurt and disruption as a lot as potential” when conducting operations involving medical services.
They claimed that Hamas has chosen to “methodically abuse the safety of medical services for its deplorable objectives” and has embedded tunnels, infrastructure and arms caches inside such services.
“Repeatedly the IDF has encountered Hamas presence in medical services, regardless of ample alternatives for Hamas to as soon as and for all distance itself from such places,” they added.
Talking final week, Cayley stated his crew had met and interviewed medical personnel who had returned from working within the territory.
Cayley stated that the ICC has entry to “exceptionally good satellite tv for pc imagery” that confirmed “every day how these [hospitals] are destroyed”, however stated investigators are searching for correct imagery “displaying both the reality or the falsehood of the utilization of those services as navy fight services”.
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