Hello and welcome to Newsar from the BBC World Service coming to you live from

our studios in Central London I'm Julian Marshall.

A ceasefire in Gaza remains elusive, eight months into the war which began when Hamas,

deemed a terror group by many Western governments mounted a surprise attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people,

and seizing more than 250 hostages.

And Israel's subsequent bombardment of Gaza has, according to Hamas, claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people.

Both Israel and Hamas now stand accused in a new UN report committing war crimes and crimes against humanity on and since

October the 7th the day of the Hamas attack.

UN investigators say both sides are guilty of murder, willful killing, torture and

sexual violence.

The report contains satellite images and video of Hamas's attack, eyewitness accounts from Gaza and forensic medical detail

from both sides. Let's hear first from the BBC's Imogen Fuchs at the UN in

Geneva. What the report particularly looks at is deliberate attacks on civilians, not really a surprise

that. We saw that on October the 7th. We've seen evidence in this report of torture, of sexual

violence, of real horrible treatment

and parents shot in front of their children, children killed in front of their parents,

things that were designed to instill terror in the population and of course they did and

then of course the taking of hostages which is also a violation of international law.

So a great many details what they couldn't do is go into Israel and talk to people

there who were subjected to those attacks because Israel did not cooperate but

they had a wealth of other evidence including really

dreadful video taken by some of the attackers themselves.

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