UN: Israeli Occupation Targeting Of Palestinian Education, Heritage Sites War Crimes

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) GENEVA, June 10 (KUNA) -- The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said Tuesday that Israeli occupation forces have destroyed Gaza's education system and over half its religious and cultural sites.
"Israeli forces committed war crimes including directing attacks against civilians and willful killing in their attacks on educational facilities that caused civilian casualties. In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination," said the commission in its latest report.
The report found that Israeli occupation used airstrikes shelling, burning and controlled demolitions to damage and destroy more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings in Gaza, making education impossible, as more than 658.000 children have had no schooling for 20 months.
"We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza" said Navi Pillay Chair of the Commission.
"Israel's targeting of the educational cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come hindering their right to self-determination," warned Pillay.
The Commission documented and investigated several cases of burning and demolition of educational facilities by Israeli occupation forces which it concluded were deliberate and unnecessary, adding that Israeli soldiers recorded and distributed videos in which they mock Palestinians and their education before destroying schools and universities.
"These acts reflect a clear intent to deny Palestinians long-term access to education," said the report.
The Commission also found significant evidence that Israeli occupation security forces seized and used educational facilities as military bases or staging areas for military activity including transforming a part of the (Al-Azhar) university's (Al-Mughraqa) campus to function as a synagogue for the troops.
In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the education system has suffered from increasing military operations by Israeli security forces the harassment of students and an increase in checkpoints demolitions and settler attacks which have affected more than 806.000 Palestinian students.
The Commission found in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, repeated military raids and harassment at Al-Aqsa Mosque have severely limited Palestinian worshippers' access while Jewish worshipper presence has increased.
The Commission stressed that such actions must be seen in the context of Israel's illegal occupation settlement expansion and disregard for the site's status quo in violation of international law.
"The targeting and destruction of heritage sites the limiting of access to those sites in the West Bank and the erasure of their heterogenic history erode Palestinians' historical ties to the land and weaken their collective identity." Pillay warned.
In its recommendations the Commission called on Israeli occupation authorities to halt settlement activity, halt all attacks on educational religious and cultural institutions, cease military use of these sites and immediately end the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory.
The Commission is scheduled to present its report on 17 June to the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council which runs from 16 June to 9 July at the UN headquarters in Geneva. (end)
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