UN rights chief denounces Israeli ‘genocidal rhetoric’ on Gaza

Geneva: The UN rights chief accused Israeli officials on Monday of using overt “genocidal rhetoric” about Gaza and called for decisive international action to “end the carnage”.

In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council that was criticised by Israel, Volker Turk said the occupied Palestinian territory was already “a graveyard”.

He accused Israel of inflicting “indescribable suffering and wholesale destruction” and added: “I am horrified by the open use of genocidal rhetoric and the disgraceful dehumanisation of Palestinians by senior Israeli officials.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stressed that nearly two years after the war erupted following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel, “the region is crying out for peace”.

The Israeli army bombed a Gaza City residential tower block on Sunday - the third in as many days - and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the military was “deepening” its assault on the Gaza Strip’s key urban centre.

The UN estimates nearly one million people remain in and around Gaza City, where it officially declared a famine last month.

“Further militarisation, occupation, annexation and oppression will only feed more violence, retribution and terror,” Turk warned.

He insisted Israel had “a legal obligation to take the steps ordered by the International Court of Justice to prevent acts of genocide, punish incitement to genocide and ensure enough aid reaches Palestinians in Gaza”.

The UN rights chief said the international community was “failing the people of Gaza.

“Where are the decisive steps to prevent genocide,” he asked, demanding that countries do more to “avert atrocity crimes”.

“They must stop the flow to Israel of arms that risk violating the laws of war,” he said.

“We need action now, to end the carnage.”

Israel, which like the United States disengaged from the council shortly after President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, was not in the room during Turk’s presentation but reacted angrily.

Turk “is led by the anti-Israel activism that plagues his office”, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, said in a statement posted on X.

“Facts and complexities are not to be bothered with as far as (his office) is concerned,” he said, charging that Turk “continues to spread libellous rhetoric and undermines the security of the Jewish State”.