Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council has concluded.
The findings by the three-member team form the latest accusation of genocide against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government by rights advocates. Israel rejected what it called a “distorted and false” report.
The report calls on the international community to end the genocide and take steps to punish those responsible for it. However, the Israeli army has intensified its war on Gaza city overnight and into Tuesday, destroying infrastructure it says belongs to Hamas, and calling on people to leave.
The panel, headed by former UN rights chief Navi Pillay, said Israel had committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined under the Genocide Convention since the deadly October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel led by Hamas. They are: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group and preventing births.
The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which was created four years ago, has repeatedly documented alleged human rights abuses and violations in Gaza and other Palestinian areas since October 7.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Ms Pillay. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.” The convention was adopted in 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Ms Pillay said “responsibility for the atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons” over the nearly two-year war.
Her team concluded that Mr Netanyahu, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, had incited genocide. Israel has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an anti-Semitic “blood libel.”
Israel's Foreign Ministry issued an angry response on Tuesday, saying it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report”.
“Three individuals serving as Hamas proxies, notorious for their openly anti-Semitic positions – and whose horrific statements about Jews have been condemned worldwide – released today another fake ‘report’ about Gaza,” it said.
While neither the Commission nor the 47-member state council that it works for within the UN system can take action against a country, the findings could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or the UN's International Court of Justice. The team does not speak for the United Nations.
Israel has refused to co-operate with the Commission and has accused it and the Human Rights Council of bias against it. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump's administration, a key benefactor of Israel, pulled the US out of the council, which is the UN's highest human rights body.
Genocide accusations are especially sensitive in Israel, which was founded as a haven for Jews following the Holocaust and where memories of the Holocaust still play an important role in the country’s national identity.
The experts said they pored over the conduct of Israeli security forces and “explicit statements” by Israeli civilian and military authorities, among other criteria.
In particular, the experts cited as factors the high death toll, Israel's “total siege” of Gaza and blockade of humanitarian aid that has led to starvation, a policy of “systematically destroying” the health care system, and direct targeting of children.
“The international community cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Ms Pillay, who is a South African jurist. “When clear signs and evidence of genocide emerge, the absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has decried Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and spoken out forcefully against alleged crimes, but has not accused Israel of carrying out genocide.
His office, alluding to international law, has argued that only an international court can make a final, formal determination of genocide. Critics counter that could take years and insist that thousands of people, many of them civilians, are being systematically killed in Gaza in the meantime.
The International Court of Justice is hearing a genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.
