UN condemns high number of civilians killed in Gaza
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The United Nations' Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has warned that the violence in Israel and Gaza could amount to war crimes or even genocide. A new UN report says nearly 70 per cent of the thousands of fatalities were women and children. The report covers Hamas’ attack in Israel on October 7th and the first six months of Israel’s war in Gaza. Mr Türk said there had to be justice for what he described as horrific violence. In response, Israel says the report "fails to accurately reflect the realities on the ground".
Also in the programme: the mayor of Amsterdam has condemned the violent attacks on Israeli citizens following a football match saying they brought to mind anti-Jewish pogroms; we speak to the Prime Minister of Belgium about Europe’s relationship with US President-elect Donald Trump; and we hear about efforts to train the next generation of arm wrestlers in South Africa.
(Picture: A Palestinian views the site of a missile strike on a house in the central Gaza Strip on November 7, 2024. Credit: Reuters/Abd Elhkeem Khaled)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:08.5 | I'm James Menendez. And we're going to begin today in the Middle East, and a damning report into Israel's military assault on Gaza and also the Hamas attacks of October the 7th and the group's actions in the weeks and months after. |
| 0:23.0 | It's been drawn up by the United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk. |
| 0:26.9 | It covers the first six months of the war. |
| 0:29.6 | And he's warning that what he calls the horrific violence in that time could amount to war crimes or even genocide. |
| 0:36.9 | I've been speaking to Jeremy Lawrence, |
| 0:39.1 | whose spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office. We've been gathering the personal details of those |
| 0:45.3 | killed by strikes and shelling and other conduct of hostilities. Of those fatalities that we've |
| 0:51.5 | verified so far, we've found close to 70% to be children and women. |
| 0:57.7 | The 5 to 9 age group represents 7%, 10 to 14 and 6.5% and 0 to 4 at 6.5%. |
| 1:05.9 | So the numbers are really quite shocking and quite telling. |
| 1:11.1 | How did you go about verifying those personal details, given the constraints? |
| 1:16.2 | And I just wonder, what is the total number of people whose details you did manage to verify? |
| 1:21.0 | This is quite a slow process. |
| 1:23.1 | We do have limited access to Gaza through our national colleagues. |
| 1:28.3 | We also are in contact with other UN colleagues on the ground in Gaza. |
| 1:33.3 | And then on top of that, we use the numbers provided by the health ministry, |
| 1:38.3 | as well as civil society organisations. |
| 1:41.3 | We have a very rigorous process we use at OHCHR. To verify a number, we need three |
| 1:48.6 | independent verifications. And then we go into more precise detail. When I say personal details, |
| 1:54.1 | it's the age, the sex, and the circumstances where that death occurred. How many people's |
| 2:00.2 | details did you manage to verify? |
... |
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