Babies Are Special Targets of Israeli killings

The attacks by Israel on Gaza show a targeted annihilation of newborns and infants that should be punished, the head of a UN panel that probed the excesses determined. 

The violence unleashed by Israeli forces was “unjustified and disproportionate… in considerable terms”, Justice S Muralidhar, the chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, said in an exclusive interview on Tuesday when he presented his findings.

The Gaza war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 07, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Israel’s subsequent military operation devastated much of Gaza, killing over 73,000 Palestinians and injuring more than 173,000, according to the local health authorities. 

Citing a pattern of targeted attacks on children, Muralidhar (left) pointed out: “When you shoot a 10-day-old baby breastfeeding on his mother... through his head, you can by no means label such a baby as an enemy of the State of Israel and justify these kinds of attacks”. 

He drew attention to the fact that Israeli quadcopters with thermal imaging cameras can clearly distinguish a child from an adult. 

That children were being singled out for callous murder is clear from the number of “instances of babies with gunshot wounds to their head and neck to cause maximum damage”. Babies were aimed at with “tiny cube-shaped pellets” that “spread like a cluster of ammunition and destroy all the internal organs”.  

“So it became very clear… that babies were special targets”, Muralidhar, who once served as chief justice at the high court in India's state of Odisha, disclosed. 

The pattern clearly emerged from the totality of the evidence, including forensic and medical records.

Israel carried out airstrikes on the most densely populated areas, knowing that children would constitute a sizable proportion of the population, he noted, stating: “The demolition of the hospitals is [done] with patients still... in the hospital”. 

Muralidhar revealed that “one of the elements of genocide is to prevent childbirths”, claiming that for Israeli forces, “mothers who are pregnant are targets, and they are denied any nutritious intake, so the mothers are malnourished”. 

Not only hospitals but orphanages too and the report cited over 58,000 parentless children in just two years. 

Muralidhar lamented the failure of all UN member states to prevail upon Israel to comply with the three Gaza orders of the International Court of Justice, to address the prevention of genocide and the protection of civilians in Gaza as per the ⁠Genocide Convention. 

Well, that's the UN for you, all talk and no action! 😡😡😡