UN Rights Chief Warns Of Israel-Gaza War Crimes

Palestinians salvage what they can of their belongings from the rubble of their destroyed house following an early morning Israeli missile strike in Gaza City, Wednesday, July 16, 2014. A Hamas website says Israel ha... Palestinians salvage what they can of their belongings from the rubble of their destroyed house following an early morning Israeli missile strike in Gaza City, Wednesday, July 16, 2014. A Hamas website says Israel has fired missiles at the homes of four of its senior leaders as it resumed bombardment of Gaza, following a failed Egyptian cease-fire effort. Health officials say the Palestinian death toll in nine days of fighting has reached 204.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) MORE LESS
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GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s top human rights official has told diplomats that Israel’s military and Hamas militants appear to have violated international humanitarian law and might have committed war crimes during their two-week war in the Gaza Strip.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Wednesday that around three-quarters of the 650 Palestinians and 31 Israelis killed in the conflict were civilians, and thousands more have been injured.

Pillay told the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council that the situation in Gaza requires its urgent attention because of “a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes.”

Pillay says every allegation of human rights abuses “must be properly and independently investigated.”

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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