South Korean NGO accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza

In South Korea, charges have been filed against seven senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

The non-governmental organization People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) had filed a complaint with the South Korean police investigation agency against Netanyahu as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

According to PSPD, Israeli officials are involved in “the planning, ordering and execution of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.”

According to the group, these include “crimes against humanitarian causes and special symbols, attacks on medical facilities and ambulances, the use of banned chemical weapons and the use of illegal methods of warfare such as starvation.”

In the next step, the South Korean police must decide whether to forward the case to the district prosecutor’s office for further processing.

This is the second case against Ben-Gvir since the beginning of the Gaza war. Norway had already initiated a case, but the investigation was later closed. It is also the first case against Smotrich.

The move prompted Seoul’s Foreign Ministry to ask the Israeli officials mentioned to consider visiting South Korea to consult with the ministry, according to a Ynet Report.

Israel is accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice, whose recent ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military operation in Rafah. Over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war in Rafah before the invasion in May.

Last week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Israeli forces had repeatedly violated the laws of war in the Gaza war and failed to distinguish between civilians and combatants.

In a report on six Israeli attacks that caused numerous casualties and destroyed civilian infrastructure, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said Israeli forces “may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality and caution in attacks”.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare in such a way that harm to the civilian population is avoided or at least minimized as far as possible is apparently consistently violated in Israel’s bombing raids,” said Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Separately, the head of a UN investigation accused the Israeli military of carrying out the “extermination” of the Palestinians.

“We concluded that the immense number of civilian casualties in Gaza and the widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a deliberate strategy to inflict maximum damage,” said the head of the UN commission of inquiry, Navi Pillay.

Pillay also condemned Israel’s military methods in the Gaza Strip.

“The targeted use of heavy weapons with great destructive power in densely populated areas represents a deliberate and direct attack on the civilian population,” she said.

The Israeli air and ground offensive killed more than 37,650 people in Gaza, more than 70 percent of whom were women and children.