UN human rights chief says situation in Gaza is ‘apocalyptic’

Asked if Israel was deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza, Türk said “the facts speak for themselves”.

“If you have over 7,000 children who have been killed, if you have 70 percent of the victims women and children, there are very serious issues that arise from the perspective of whether or not this is proportional, whether the principle of distinction has been applied and whether or not precaution has been made,” the UN human rights chief explained.

He said the decision by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to invoke Article 99 of the UN charter for the first time since taking office was a way to convey the urgency of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. “We cannot pretend to the world that there is any meaningful humanitarian assistance,” he said. The letter is “a clarion call to the world to wake up to the situation in Gaza”.

Asked about the sexual crimes committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7, Türk said that what Hamas did “is utterly unacceptable and is to be condemned in the strongest terms”. He said mounting evidence of sexual violence by Hamas “needs to be investigated” and expressed hope that Israel would accept his proposal to deploy a team to probe the allegations.

The UN human rights chief said he was “extremely concerned about the rise in anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bigotry” since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, adding that “we need to work to address it head-on”.