UN condemns intensified Israeli attacks in Gaza

The United Nations on Tuesday condemned what it described as intensifying Israeli military attacks in Gaza. The UN rights office said the attacks had killed at least 57 Palestinians, including six children and eight women, from July 13 to 20.

A ceasefire agreed in October remains in place between Israel and Hamas, but it has not stopped violence in Gaza. UN rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva that, nine months after the ceasefire was announced, nowhere was safe for Palestinians in Gaza. He said Israeli attacks in recent days had killed and injured dozens of Palestinians.

The Israeli army has announced a series of recent strikes in the Gaza Strip. It said the strikes targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad members who it said were involved in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel or in holding hostages afterward. It also said it struck a weapons depot, an arms manufacturing site and a rocket-launching position, saying the sites threatened its troops.

Kheetan said the strikes had hit residential buildings, at least one tent sheltering internally displaced people and other crowded areas. He said 34 of those killed were far from the Israeli-imposed yellow line.

The UN rights office said it had determined that 10 Israeli attacks on July 17 and 18 in Gaza City, central Gaza, northern Gaza and Khan Younes killed at least 21 Palestinians. Kheetan said one attack on an apartment in Gaza City killed five members of one family: both parents and three siblings, reportedly aged eight, 15 and 17.

Kheetan said the killing of civilians in the attacks raised concerns about continuing violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes in Gaza. He said deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime under international law.

He also warned that Israel's repeated westward movement of the yellow line had left Palestinians in Gaza trapped in a shrinking area. He said the Israeli military appeared to routinely fire on Palestinians for being near that line, which he said violated international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the truce took effect in October, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations. Kheetan said the UN rights office had so far verified the killing of 685 Palestinians between last October and April.

Restrictions on media outlets and limited access in Gaza prevent independent verification of tolls and free coverage of the violence there.