The United Nations Economic and Social Council which accused Israel of being an “apartheid regime” and of racially dominating the Palestinians has authored a new document slamming the occupying entity for torturing Palestinians and carrying out extra-judicial executions.
The new report dated May 23 accused the Israeli occupation forces of using disproportionate force against Palestinians and mistreating Palestinian detainees including minors.
The report focused on the period from from April 1 2016 to March 31 2017 and says that Israeli forces killed 63 Palestinians including 19 minors and wounded an additional 2276 Palestinians including 562 children.
It also expresses concern over “the use of force and unlawful killings by Israeli security forces including some cases which may have amounted to extrajudicial executions.”
Citing the UN Committee Against Torture the report further accuses Israel of “torture or ill-treatment of Palestinian children” of “deprivation of basic legal safeguards for administrative detainees isolation and solitary confinement of detainees including minors punishment and ill-treatment of hunger strikers.”
“No criminal investigation was opened into more than 1000 complaints of torture or ill-treatment filed since 2001” the report read.
The agency also said Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of a lasting and comprehensive peace.”
On Thursday Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said he would work to have the newest report removed as well calling it “yet another blood libel against Israel.”
“Just as we succeeded in having the previous preposterous report removed we will fight relentlessly against this blatantly false distortion of the truth as well” he claimed in a statement. “We will not accept any attempt to slander the brave soldiers of the IDF.”
In March ESCWA penned a report titled “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” which sparked a backlash by Israel and the US leading Washington to demand action by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who pushed for its withdrawal.
The document was removed from the agency’s website and the head of the body Jordanian UN official Rima Khalaf resigned shortly thereafter.
