Volker Turk cited an opinion released by the U.N. top court in July that called Israel’s occupation illegal. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.N. human rights chief said on Monday (September 9, 2024) that ending the nearly year-long war in Gaza is a priority and he asked countries to act on what he called Israel’s “blatant disregard” for international law in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Nearly 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials, since Israel unleashed a military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and a further 250 taken hostage. The conflict has also fuelled a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Ending that war and averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority,” the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said in a speech at the start of the five-week U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva.

“States must not – cannot – accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the (U.N.) Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation.”

He cited an opinion released by the U.N. top court in July that called Israel’s occupation illegal, and Mr. Turk said this situation must be “comprehensively addressed”. Israel has rejected the opinion and called it one-sided.

Mr. Turk’s comments were given in a broad speech marking the mid-way point of his four-year term as U.N. rights chief where he described massive challenges around the world and a crisis of political leadership. The session will also debate crises in Sudan, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

“It seems to me we are at a fork in the road. We can either continue on our current path – a treacherous ‘new normal’ – and sleepwalk into a dystopian future,” he said in a speech met with applause from diplomats.

He denounced the increased use of the death penalty and “alarming regressions” on gender equality, in reference to new morality laws in Afghanistan.

In Western countries like Britain, Germany and the United States, politicians risk spurring violence by scapegoating migrants and minorities during election periods, he said.

Mr. Turk, a former lawyer from Austria, also used the speech to defend his record, after criticism from some that his policy of engaging China over alleged abuses has been too soft.

“I believe in engagement, frank exchanges and keeping dialogue open, even more so in the face of fierce disagreement,” he said.

Buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City on October 28, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on October 28 there was the potential for thousands more civilians to die if Israel presses a major ground offensive in Gaza.

Israel’s army relentlessly hammered the territory on October 28 after fierce overnight bombardment that rescuers said destroyed hundreds of buildings three weeks into a war sparked by the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

“Given the manner in which military operations have been conducted until now, in the context of the 56-year-old occupation, I am raising alarm about the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza and the potential for thousands more civilians to die,” Turk said.

“There is no safe place in Gaza and there is no way out. I am very worried for my colleagues, as I am for all civilians in Gaza.”

Follow live updates from the Israel-Hamas war on October 28

Israel unleashed its bombing campaign after Hamas gunmen stormed across the Gaza border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing more than 220 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes had killed 7,703 people, mainly civilians, including more than 3,500 children.

The U.N. rights chief also condemned the Internet and telecommunications blackout that has hit the Palestinian enclave since Friday.

“Compounding the misery and suffering of civilians, Israeli strikes on telecommunications installations and subsequent Internet shutdown have effectively left Gazans with no way of knowing what is happening across Gaza and cut them off from the outside world,” he said.

“Ambulances and civil defence teams are no longer able to locate the injured, or the thousands of people estimated to be still under the rubble.

“When these hostilities end, those who have survived will face the rubble of their homes and the graves of their family members,” Turk said.

He called on all parties “to do all in their power to de-escalate the conflict”.

The conflict is the fifth and deadliest in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.

The latest Israeli strikes against Hamas, the Islamist group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, were the most intense since the war broke out. They coincided with ground operations.

“Continued violence is not the answer. I call on all parties as well as third States, in particular those with influence over the parties to the conflict, to do all in their power to de-escalate this conflict,” Turk added.

Furniture piled up on a sofa in a flooded house in Larissa, central Greece on September 11, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Climate change is sparking human rights emergencies in numerous countries, the UN rights chief said on Monday, stressing the need to fight the impunity of those who “plunder our environment”.

Speaking before the United Nations Human Rights Council, Volker Turk pointed to recent examples of the “environmental horror that is our global planetary crisis”.

He described visiting Basra, Iraq, where date palms once lined canals, but now “drought, searing heat, extreme pollution and fast-depleting supplies of fresh water are creating barren landscapes of rubble and dust”.

“This spiralling damage is a human rights emergency for Iraq, and many other countries,” he said in his address opening the 54th council session in Geneva.

“Climate change is pushing millions of people into famine. It is destroying hopes, opportunities, homes and lives. In recent months, urgent warnings have become lethal realities again and again all around the world,” Mr. Turk said.

“We do not need more warnings. The dystopian future is already here. We need urgent action now.”

Mr. Turk was speaking after the G-20 at the weekend failed to commit to a phase-out of fossil fuels, something he said was desperately needed.

At a time when the ravages of climate change are forcing more and more people to leave their homes, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said he was “shocked by the nonchalance” seen towards surging numbers of migrant deaths.

“It is evident that far more migrants and refugees are dying, unnoticed,” he said, pointing to the more than “2,300 people reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean this year, including the loss of more than 600 lives in a single shipwreck off Greece in June.”

He also highlighted migrant deaths in the English Channel, the Bay of Bengal, in the Caribbean, along the U.S.-Mexican border, and at the Saudi border, where he said his “office is seeking urgent clarification about allegations of killings and mistreatment”.

The UN rights chief also highlighted a wide range of other concerning situations around the world, including in Russia, Pakistan and the Palestinian territory.

On China, he reiterated concerns raised in a report by his office a year ago about the situation in the far-western Xinjiang region, which cited possible crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

“As my Office highlighted a year ago, the concerns in the Xinjiang … requires strong remedial action by the authorities,” Turk said Monday, also voicing concern at “continued detention of human rights advocates”.

Mr. Turk also spoke about the situation in Lebanon, decrying a total lack of accountability for the 2020 Beirut port blast, that killed more than 220 people, urging “an international fact-finding mission to look into human rights violations related to this tragedy.”

And he mentioned the situation in Iran, one year after the death of Mahsa Amini in custody after her arrest for allegedly breaching the strict dress code for women.

Mr. Turk voiced concern at a bill that would impose harsher penalties for breaching the dress code, and “renewed deployment of the morality police.”

Climate change and environmental degradation played a role in a number of the rights situations he mentioned, including in Africa’s Sahel region.

Mr. Turk insisted on the need to “counter the impunity of people and businesses who severely plunder our environment”, welcoming a proposal to recognise “ecocide” as an international crime.

Amid the towering problems facing the world, Mr. Turk decried “politics of deception”.

“Helped by new technologies, lies and disinformation are mass-produced to sow chaos, to confuse, and ultimately to deny reality and ensure no action will be taken that could endanger the interests of entrenched elites,” he said.

“The most apparent case of this is climate change.”