20 Nov 2023

UN expert on Palestinian rights cries for children killed

From Morning Report, 8:18 am on 20 November 2023
A man entertains children amid the ruins of the family home destroyed in an Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on 7 November 2023.

Photo: SAID KHATIB

The Israel Defence Forces have released footage this morning which it says is the entrance to a tunnel under al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.

The IDF says it has exposed a tunnel that is 55 metres long, contains numerous weapons and has an entrance that features a blast-proof door and a firing hole.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the footage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a Hamas command and control centre sits underneath the hospital - an accusation that is denied by Hamas.

Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Mr Netenyahu, said the IDF had been meticulous in venturing into the the alleged tunnel.

The United Nations' expert on the rights of people in the occupied Palestinian territories wants the world to focus on how the war is affecting children indiscriminately caught up, and killed, in the conflict.

She says the war is not just depriving them of a future, but of a present.

Francesca Albanese is among many UN experts calling on the international community to act to prevent genocide, and to end Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Ms Albanese is the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the territories.

She spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.