Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, U.N. Inquiry Says

A United Nations commission investigating the war in Gaza said Tuesday that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians, the panel’s most sweeping findings yet about the Israeli government’s conduct in the conflict.

In earlier reports, the commission found that Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war with Hamas militants, but stopped short of declaring it genocide. On Tuesday, it said that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” the panel’s leader, Navi Pillay, a South African high court judge and former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

Israel has repeatedly rejected allegations of genocide from scholars and human rights groups, saying the target of its military campaign is the militant group Hamas. It did so again on Tuesday.

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, denounced the report in a statement as “fake.”

“In stark contrast to the lies in the report, Hamas is the party that attempted genocide in Israel,” Mr. Marmorstein said.

Since the Israeli military launched a retaliatory assault in response to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has come under international condemnation over the toll the war has taken on civilians.

The report details the deaths of civilians killed during intense Israeli bombing of densely populated areas, the destruction of hospitals and clinics, including Gaza’s main fertility clinic, and the destruction of educational, religious and cultural sites. The consequence, it said, is the erasure of Palestinian identity.

While the U.N. commission that issued the report has no enforcement power, Ms. Pillay said in an interview that its findings would carry weight with the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, as well as with International Criminal Court. The court is weighing a petition by South Africa to declare that Israel is committing genocide.

“This is a significant, independent report, one that will have to be taken seriously by all who read it, not least by those who are advising the prime minister and government of Israel,” said Philippe Sands, a law professor at University College London who specializes in genocide cases and has appeared before many international courts.

Even before the war, Israel often accused the United Nations of being biased against it and of unfairly singling it out for criticism. Relations have deteriorated still further since its military campaign against Hamas began.

The panel that issued the report Tuesday, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, was set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate the root causes of conflict in Gaza and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It has focused on the war in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people.

The panel’s 78-page analysis builds off three previous reports about the conflict through the end of July. They covered a range of what the commission found to be war crimes and crimes against humanity. In March, for example, it accused Israel of targeting hospitals and other health facilities in “genocidal acts” intended to prevent births. Israel says Hamas fighters have based themselves at the hospitals.

In issuing its new findings, the panel noted developments in Gaza since the last report was put out.

“Everything that has happened since the 1st of August confirms and strengthens the conclusions to which we have come,” Chris Sidoti, a member of the panel, said in an interview. He was alluding to Israel’s escalation of military strikes on Gaza City, with Israel saying on Tuesday that it had begun a ground invasion there.

In the months since it issued its last report, commission members assessed whether the evidence they gathered met the requirements of the Genocide Convention, Ms. Pillay said. Under the International Court of Justice’s standard, for genocide to be declared, it must be “the only inference that could be reasonably drawn from the acts in question.”

In the report released on Tuesday, the U.N. panel said that was the case in Gaza.

“Israeli authorities were aware,” the commission said, “of the high probability that their military operations, the imposition of a total siege, including the blocking of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the destruction of housing and of health systems and facilities would lead to the physical destruction of Palestinians, in whole or in part, in Gaza.”

The panel also said that Israel’s relentless military strategy pursued in “flagrant” defiance of orders issued by the court and warnings from humanitarian agencies was among the most compelling factors in its conclusion that genocidal intent was “the only reasonable inference” to be drawn.

Last year, the court, allowing the genocide case against Israel to proceed, directed the Israeli government to take action to prevent acts of genocide by its forces in Gaza.

Another compelling factor was Israeli troops’ “extensive and deliberate” targeting of Palestinian children, Mr. Sidoti said. Medical workers testified they had treated many children with direct gunshot wounds to the head and upper body.

The report said that it did not preclude future investigations into whether Israel genocide has been committed by Israel in the West Bank or by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack.

“We’ve been gathering the evidence on the West Bank,” Ms. Pillay said. “That would come next.”