Geneva, March 2 (RHC)-- A United Nations inquiry has found that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting unarmed protesters in Gaza with lethal force -- including children, journalists and the disabled.  

The report by the U.N. Human Rights Council looked at Israel’s bloody response to weekly Great March of Return demonstrations launched by Palestinians in Gaza nearly one year ago, targeting Israel’s heavily militarized separation barrier.  The report found that, to date, Israeli forces have killed 189 Palestinians -- almost all of them with live ammunition. 

Sara Hossain, a member of the United Nations independent commission that led the investigation, told reporters: “We are saying that they have intentionally shot children, they have intentionally shot people with disabilities, they have intentionally shot journalists, knowing them to be children, people with disabilities and journalists.  And some of the children -- not all of the children are visibly children perhaps, but many of them are.  And the people with disabilities, as I said, a double amputee in a wheelchair, a person using crutches, they were visible.  And they’ve been shot at by snipers, who also have spotters available with them, who have very high-level technology available to see who is out there in the field.”

The UN report calls on states to arrest “persons alleged to have committed, or who ordered to have committed, the international crimes,” or to seek their extradition.  Israel’s acting foreign minister dismissed the report as “theater of the absurd.”