Top Iranian legal expert urges UN to report on crimes of Israel in Gaza

A senior Iranian legal expert has called on 16 special rapporteurs of the United Nations to report on the crimes of Israel against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

In a letter to the UN special rapporteurs on Tuesday, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, head of the Islamic Public Law Association of Iran, said Israel’s atrocities against civilians, particularly women and children, represent flagrant violations of international law. 

“The Gaza Strip has been the scene of deadliest attacks by Israel since October 7. As a result of the horrific crimes, the total death toll in the besieged territory has passed the 10,000 figure, of which over 4,000 were defenseless children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. This shows the apartheid nature of the Israeli regime.”

Kadkhodaei, who is a professor of law with the Faculty of Law and Political Science at University of Tehran, said the Israeli military continues the targeted killing of women and children in Gaza, despite the fact that international law provides a great deal of protection for women and children in armed conflicts.

“Using banned weapons, forcing two million people out of Gaza and making them homeless, making plans for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, imposing blockade on civilians, denying Palestinians their full sovereignty over their natural resources, cutting people’s access to food and medicine, targeting civilian infrastructures, including schools, hospitals, and residential, historical and cultural sites, and confiscating their lands are all among the regime’s crimes which have led to the fragmentation of Palestinians’ motherland,” the former spokesman for Iran’s Constitutional Council said.

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Calling on the UN special rapporteurs, Kadkhodaei said in accordance with the Code of Conduct for Special Procedures Mandate-holders of the Human Rights Council they “are obliged to report on the deteriorating situation of two million Palestinians in Gaza who are grappling with electricity crisis, food crisis, and water crisis. Women and children are main victims of unrelenting Israeli bombardment and it is incumbent upon special rapporteurs to report without any form of prejudice on such atrocities, adopting a one-sided approach.”

He said “slanted reporting based on undocumented sources undermines the principle of impartiality which, as a cornerstone of international law, helps prevent biased and unfounded reporting.”

“It is worth considering that the Israeli regime as well as the US would continue to exert pressure on Special Procedures to affect and overshadow their impartiality and objectivity; however, it is obvious that your conscience, justice-seeking spirit, and independent status would hold back all pressures.”

Kadkhodaei addressed the letter, among others, to Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Paula Gaviria Betancur, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, and Olivier De Schutter, the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.

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