UPDATE - UN human rights chief decries latest Israeli strikes on Gaza

ADDS FURTHER REMARKS; CHANGES DECK

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - The UN human rights chief on Tuesday decried the latest series of Israeli strikes on Gaza killing mostly women and children.

Volker Turk's remarks came after at least nine children among 16 Palestinians were killed on Sunday in an Israeli bombing targeting several homes east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

"The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed - this is beyond warfare," OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a UN briefing in Geneva, reading Turk's statement on the matter.

Turk reiterated such an operation to Rafah would lead to further breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well as it would "risk more deaths, injuries and displacement on a large scale – even further atrocity crimes, for which those responsible would be held accountable."

He also said he was "horrified" by the destruction of the Nasser Hospital and Al Shifa Hospital and the reported discovery of mass graves in and around these locations, calling for "independent, effective and transparent" investigations into the deaths.

At least 283 bodies have been recovered so far from the mass grave at the Nasser Medical Complex after the Israeli army withdrew from the city on April 7 following a four-month ground offensive, according to Gaza’s civil defense agency.

On "grave human rights violations" continuing in the occupied West Bank, Turk said that despite international condemnation of massive settler attacks from April 12-14 facilitated by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF), "settler violence has continued with the support, protection, and participation of the ISF."

Asked on the reports that Israel will expand so-called "humanitarian zones" in Gaza ahead of its Rafah ground attack, Shamdasani stressed: "There are no safe places in Gaza and any pretense that creating safe zones is actually dangerous."

"What we need is an immediate cease-fire," she reiterated.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

At least 34,151 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,000 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.