UN Human Rights Office Sounds The Alarm Over Mass Graves Uncovered In Gaza

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Since the onset of Russia's war in Ukraine, the United States has amplified the info war concurrent with its proxy war in eastern Europe to continue to drum up public support for the endless aid it has spent on it over the last 2 years. Like any propaganda campaign, the US has constantly elicited an emotional response from its masses. In doing so, provoking that pathological response supersedes any logical reaction to the war that may undermine the politically correct narrative the US propogates. One crucial component of that tactic has been accusing Russia of war crimes, human rights abuses, and other violations of international law such as the episode of the purported massacre in Bucha. While the US hasn't hesitated to make those claims without any filter, discretion, or even determination of their validity, it has remained silent about similar violations of international law Israel has been accused of.

With the spate of anti-Israel protests held in college campuses around the nation creating the same Islamic boogeyman that the neocon establishment of the early 2000's used to scare people into supporting the PATRIOT Act and war in Iraq, the US propaganda ministry has been able to drown out credible claims of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by Israel that that Congress can only wish it had to use as political capital against Russia. The sheer horror of the recent discovery of mass graves unearthed in the Gaza Strip by United Nations Human Rights Office shows the lengths that the United States and Israel's other allies are willing to go to delude the public about the horrors of the wars their interventionist foreign policies are in support of.

According to a press release issued by the OHCHR on May 6th, UN experts condemned the continued violence that the IDF has committed against civilian populations in Gaza. While Israel and its staunch supporters have characterized the civilian deaths in Gaza as the inherent collateral damage that comes with war, even showcasing the hubris to suggest it's somehow an accomplishment Israel has been able to minimize them to the degree it has, those defenses ring hollow in the wake of discoveries like that made by the OHCHR. According to its experts, over 390 bodies were discovered near the al-Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza which showed signs of summary executions of civilian casualties and torture including people being buried alive.

“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner For Human Rights. Despite this evidence held by the OHCHR, the IDF contends that the 200 found dead near the Al-Shifa medical complex, Gaza's largest hospital, were the civilian cost of a military operation. The report from the OHCHR on the nature of the bodies found in the wake of that operation comes just days after a prominent Palestinian doctor who worked at al-Shifa Hospital died in captivity while being held as a prisoner by Israel. Adnan al-Bursh, the head of orthopedics at al-Shifa hospital had been in custody for the last 4 months. According to the Gaza Ministry Of Health, his death brings the total number of medical personnel to be killed in Gaza since the war began to 496.

These indications of potential war crimes and human rights violations committed by the IDF fall in line with its wanton abandonment for the dignity of human life in Gaza. Evidence so readily available that its impact on public perception has led to censorship efforts in allied countries. As of the end of April, women and children have accounted for 24,000 of the nearly 35,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza according to OHCHR estimates. Additionally, 75% of the over 77,000 injured since the start of the war have been women and children as well, with Gaza now having the highest rate of child amputations anywhere in the world. In addition to those injuries and fatalities, the onset of famine and the displacement of in excess of one million civilians forecasts other humanitarian crises that will surely contribute to the number of mass casualties in the region.

In spite of that horror, the international community has failed to condemn Israel as vociferously as it has spoken out against nations not aligned with the western political orthodoxy that the Jewish state is part of. That double standard of selectively recognizing international law when it comes to holding Israel accountable was highlighted by Queen Rania of Jordan when she joined CBS News for an interview on its program Face Of The Nation. During the interview, the queen eloquently described the perspective the rest of the world has when seeing the blatant hypocrisy allies of Israel commit, emphasizing how that political subservience has damaged the reputation of the US in particular:

"When we see these violations, human rights violations and international law violations, and we're watching the World letting it happen. When October 7th happened, the world rightfully condemned and took strong actions, strong positions. We are outraged that the same is not happening when Palestinians are getting killed. And so there is a sense of the selective application of humanitarian law and a sense of unfairness, a sense of our lives don't matter as much. And, you know, this is something I think that's creating a, certainly causing a great loss of credibility to the US, but also causing us to rethink our, our view of the world order, you know. As cruel and-and ugly as the war in Gaza is, the state of our rules-based world order is looking exponentially worse."

Further evidence included in the OCHR's report on the discovery of mass graces in Gaza illustrated that double standard. While reports of rape by Hamas' militants on October 7th has long-served as a moral justification for Israel's unabated onslaught in Gaza, Israel has failed to address the continued cases of sexual assault and violence against women and girls that members of the IDF have been accused of per the UN report. “We are appalled that women are being targeted by Israel with such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, seemingly sparing no means to destroy their lives and deny them their fundamental human rights,” UN officials stated.

Yet congress has remained incredulous in the face of criticism of the international community regarding the US' role by emboldening Israel's disregard for international law. In the wake of reports that the International Criminal Court is preparing arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other of the country's top officials, Congress has wasted no time in coming to its ally's defense. According to Axios, House Republicans are preparing legislation to issue sanctions against the ICC in the event those arrest warrants are issued. This was confirmed by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) who started that the legislation is being drafted in anticipation of them. The House draft legislation is in concert with a bill introduced to the Senate by fellow Republican, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. Cotton's legislation more broadly aims to sanction the ICC for any probes into US allies such as Israel who are not members of the ICC. Like Israel, the United States is not a member of the ICC. Although President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000, it did not submit it to the Senate for ratification. Following Bush's election, the US withdrew from the Rome Statute and consequently passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act to immunize its citizens from the ICC's jurisdiction.

While Republicans in the House and Senate wasted no time to protect Israel's ruling elite, going as far to preemptively come to their defense, the same cannot be said of their commitment to the American people. Much like the aid package which sent $95 billion in taxpayer money to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel while including no funding to enhance border security, congressional Republicans have again shown that their commitment to representing their constituents is little more than an afterthought. Putting Israel before the American people was also the impetus behind the passage of H.R. 6090: The Antisemitism Awareness Act which sacrifices citizens' First Amendment rights in the name of defending the nation's supposed "greatest ally."

With that unconditional support in mind, Israel has continued its offensive in the Gaza Strip by entering into the southern city of Rafah bordering Egypt despite the jeopardy that poses to on-going talks for a ceasefire being held in Cairo. Israel's hubris demonstrated by its decision to intensity the war even if that undermines a threat to the success of those ceasefire negotiations has been so glaring that it has even given Israel's staunchest ally in the United States cause for concern. Given that over a million displaced Palestinians sought refuge in Rafah after being promised safe haven in the city following the offensive operations by the IDF in the north of the Gaza Strip, the outbreak of war in the southern city amplifies concern over that the humanitarian crisis in the territory is spiraling out of control.

Reaction to that expansion of the war has prompted the Biden administration to withhold shipments of weapons to Israel after it failed to heed calls against continuing its offensive into southern Gaza. This measure comes after months of failed promises from the Biden administration to temper its support for Israel in light of criticisms of civilian deaths in Gaza at the hands of the IDF.

As Israel takes control of Rafah with ceasefire talks hanging in the balance, new doubts arise on whether conflict in Gaza will come to an end anytime soon. Until it has, the true toll on human life will be impossible to measure. Preliminary estimates on how long the effort to rebuild Gaza will take place the timeline to do so into the next century. The failures of the international community to hold Israel accountable for violations of international law alleged by agencies like the OHCHR demonstrates that the carnage of the conflict has reached such a horrific scale that as difficult as brokering a peace has been, ending the war will not pose as difficult of a challenge as dealing with the woe of its aftermath.