Gaza ceasefire must hold, human rights chief insists
UN human rights chief Volker Türk issued a strong appeal on Wednesday for the fragile ceasefire in Gaza to hold, amid delays to talks between Hamas and Israel on extending the truce.
At the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Türk condemned the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel that sparked the war in October 2023.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also said there was no justification for Israel’s devastating military operations in Gaza, which have left more than 48,000 Palestinians dead, according to local authorities:
“The ceasefire must hold. Each phase must be implemented by both sides, in good faith, and in full. All of us must do everything in our power to build on it, to create a path to a sustainable peace, so that Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in equal dignity and rights. And it should be for the Palestinian people to determine their own future.”
According to news reports, the delayed release by Israel of Palestinian prisoners is expected to go ahead imminently, in exchange for the return of the bodies of four hostages.
West Bank security situation remains alarming, warns UN aid agency
Weeks of deadly Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank have turned Palestinian communities into “battlefields” and left 40,000 people homeless, UN humanitarians said on Wednesday.
The violence has seen exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants – and the use of bulldozers in refugee camps for the first time in 20 years – destroying vital electricity and water networks.
Israel’s defence minister said on Sunday that forces could remain in the camps for the “coming year”.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN’s Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, said that camps lie in ruins and that more than 50 people including children have been killed since Israeli military raids started five weeks ago.
Nicaragua’s ‘systemic’ repression in human rights spotlight in Geneva
Investigators tasked by the UN Human Rights Council to track alleged grave abuses of power by top Nicaraguan officials on Wednesday insisted that the International Court of Justice should prosecute what they called systemic repression.
The Group of Experts on Nicaragua – who act in an independent capacity and are not UN staff – have previously reported that the Government’s violations appear to constitute crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, torture and rape.
In its latest report, the Group maintains that President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, have created “an authoritarian State where no independent institutions remain”.
Here’s Jan-Michael Simon, Chair of the Group of Experts on Nicaragua:
“We can today conclude that the State of Nicaragua and the ruling Sandinista party have virtually fused into a unified machine of repression. This machine is responsible for myriad cases of deaths, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, expulsion of nationals, arbitrary deprivation of nationality, et cetera.”
It was in response to grave concerns about the severe repression of civil rights in Nicaragua that the international community decided in 2018 to establish an investigative body to report back to the Human Rights Council.
Daniel Johnson, UN News
Music composed and produced by Joachim Harris. All rights reserved
Source of original article: United Nations (news.un.org). Photo credit: UN. The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views or opinion of Global Diaspora News (www.globaldiasporanews.com).
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