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NEW YORK: Former Australian human rights commissioner, Chris Sidoti, expressed deep concerns on Thursday over the escalating conflict in Gaza, describing it as an “Israeli terrorism creation factory.”

Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, Sidoti said ongoing violence was planting seeds for future hostilities and emphasized the disproportionate impact on children.

“Kids aren’t terrorists,” Sidoti said, repeating the statement to journalists.

“On Oct. 7, 38 Israeli children were killed, one of them under the age of two years. Since then, at least … 13,319 children have been killed in Gaza, of whom 786 were under the age of one. In addition, 165 children have been killed in the West Bank.”

Sidoti, one of three members of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, warned that without intervention, the conflict was likely to worsen further.

“When the current Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu talks about finishing off Hamas, I wonder about what the 1 million children in Gaza will be doing in 20 years’ time. The conflict in Gaza is an Israeli terrorism creation factory and there is no sign of it finishing,” .

“People are still being killed, in particular, kids are still being killed in very large numbers, and the likelihood is it will get worse before it gets better.

“There is no end in sight. To help these kids, to help Israel, it’s got to stop. Then, there is a possibility, but until it stops, there is no chance,” he added.

He expressed concern over the long-term trauma faced by children affected by the conflict.

“The kids who are traumatised by the loss of parents, siblings, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins, can’t go through what they have had to experience without this having a severe impact on them and their lives forever.”

The commission’s latest report, delivered on Oct. 30, painted a dire picture of the situation on the ground, citing systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, attacks on medical personnel, and the targeting of children.

“Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated, and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles, constituting the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment,” the report stated.

The inquiry also documented abuses of Israeli and Palestinian hostages, with Sidoti adding: “The commission finds that the majority of hostages were subjected to mistreatment, and that some were subjected to physical violence.

“The commission received credible information about some hostages being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence while in captivity, including sexualised torture and abuse against men and women when they were held in tunnels. One released female hostage reported that she had been raped in an apartment,” he said.

“We found there was strong evidence of torture, of significant mistreatment, and a wide variety of human rights abuses that, in both cases, constituted war crimes. The practices were clear and systematic on both sides,” Sidoti added.

Reflecting on the broader conflict, Sidoti said the violence “started long before Oct. 7, 2023, it’s been going on for 85 years ... The parties are not willing to find a way to resolve it.”

Despite diminishing hope, he remained committed to the work of investigation and advocating for accountability.

“We just have to keep at our work — investigating, reporting, encouraging and enabling accountability — and know that at some point in the future, there will be accountability, that those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity will be brought to justice,” he said.

“A resolution requires a willingness from parties to sit down and solve this. But one thing this fighting has done over the last 13 months has been to cement the position of extremists on all sides, and even the outside.”

MAARAB: The head of Lebanon’s largest Christian party said Iran-backed Hezbollah should relinquish its weapons as quickly as possible to end its year-long war with Israel and spare Lebanon further death and destruction.
Samir Geagea, Hezbollah’s fiercest political opponent in Lebanon, spoke to Reuters on Thursday at his mountain home and party headquarters in Maarab, north of Beirut, as Israel carried out waves of strikes on areas Hezbollah holds sway.
“With the destruction of all of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and its warehouses, a big part of Lebanon is also being destroyed. That’s the price,” he said.
Hezbollah’s critics in Lebanon, such as Geagea, say it unilaterally pulled Lebanon into a new war after it began firing at Israel in solidarity with Palestinian group Hamas following the Oct. 7 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah says it is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression and has vowed to keep fighting, saying it will not lay down its arms or allow Israel to achieve political gains on the back of the war.
The intense pressure of Israel’s military campaign, which has escalated and expanded since late September to include ground incursions into southern Lebanon, presented an opportunity to get the country back on track, Geagea said.
“If the challenges and the prices paid are so big, then we can take advantage of them to get the situation back to normal,” he said, calling on Hezbollah and the Lebanese state to swiftly implement local accords and international resolutions disbanding armed factions outside the control of the state.
“That is the shortest way to end the war. It’s the least costly way for Lebanon and for the Lebanese people,” he said.
Faltering diplomatic efforts on a ceasefire have centered on United Nations Resolution 1701, which brought an end to Hezbollah’s last deadly conflict with Israel in 2006.
Israel has insisted that this time around, it wants to keep carrying out strikes against Hezbollah threats even if a truce is agreed.
Geagea said he was opposed to granting Israel that option but said Lebanon had little power to stop it, especially if an excuse remained in the form of Hezbollah’s armed presence.
Arms race
Lebanon’s population is a mosaic of more than a dozen religious sects, with political representation divided along sectarian lines. Religious divisions fueled the 1975-1990 civil war, which left some 150,000 people dead and drew in neighboring states.
Geagea’s party, the Lebanese Forces, was one of the main warring factions during the civil war and aligned itself with Israel, including when Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon reached Beirut, and its leader, Bashir Gemayel, was elected president.
Gemayel was assassinated before he could assume office, and Geagea said he saw no parallels with that period today.
The Lebanese Forces relinquished its weapons in line with the Taef Accord, which ended the civil war and called on all militias to disband.
Hezbollah did not, saying it needed them to fight Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon. But the group refused to disarm when Israeli troops withdrew in 2000, citing ongoing threats.
Despite his decades-old opposition to Hezbollah, Geagea, 72, said he opposed the Lebanese army forcefully disarming the group.
He said he does “not see the possibility of any civil war” breaking out and said that his party “categorically” did not want one to start.
Still, he noted that the mass displacement of mostly Shiite Muslim Lebanese into Sunni and Christian-majority areas could spark “problems here or there” in a country that was already suffering an economic crisis before the war.
They include thousands who have fled into areas that are strongholds of Geagea’s party. In Beirut, Lebanese Forces flags were put up overnight in neighborhoods where the group has strong support, but no clashes have been reported.
More than 1.2 million people have fled heavy Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s south, eastern Bekaa valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
In recent weeks, Israeli troops carrying out incursions into southern Lebanon have laced entire villages with explosives and detonated them, leaving border towns in ruins.
Hezbollah says it has managed to keep Israeli troops at bay by preventing them from holding any ground in south Lebanon.
But Geagea disputed that reading, saying Israel’s “new military doctrine” was to enter areas, carry out operations, and leave, and that the war’s next phase could see villages deeper into Lebanon being hit.
He said Israel’s military and economic strength would always give it an advantage over Hezbollah, even if the group re-armed.
“Do you have the ability to enter this arms race?” he said.