The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) urged the Israeli authorities to immediately launch an “independent” investigation about information alleging that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members in the Al Remal neighborhood, Gaza City, said the Human Rights Office in a release on Wednesday.
According to social media accounts of witnesses and the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, while in control of the building and the civilians sheltering there, the IDF allegedly separated the men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men–mostly in their late twenties and early thirties–in front of their family members.
The IDF then allegedly forced the women and children into a room and either fired at them or hurled grenades into the room, thereby gravely wounding some of them, including a newborn and a young child. OHCHR has confirmed the deaths at the Al Awda building; however, the details and circumstances of the executions are still being investigated.
The Human Rights Office asserted that if the allegations are proven, “…those responsible must be brought to justice and measures implemented to prevent any such serious violations from recurring.”
This act sounds the alarm about the possible commission of a war crimes in Gaza strip, at a time when concerns about Israeli targeting and killing of civilians are more pressing than ever before on an international scale.