An independent United Nations commission has said that Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of seeking to exterminate Palestinians, AFP reports.

“Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip,” the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report.

It accused Israeli forces of “war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities that caused civilian casualties. In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination.”

It noted: “While the destruction of cultural property, including educational facilities, was not in itself a genocidal act, evidence of such conduct may nevertheless infer genocidal intent to destroy a protected group.”

The commission urged the Israeli government to stop attacking cultural, religious and educational institutions and called on Israel to “immediately end its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory”, cease all settlement activity and comply fully with provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.