GENEVA – A set of independent experts contracted by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council has determined that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza. On Tuesday, they released a report urging the global community to halt the genocide and take measures to hold those accountable for it.
The thoroughly-documented report by the three-person team adds to ongoing claims of genocide directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration by human rights advocates. This comes as Israel continues its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands. The report was dismissed by Israel as being “distorted and false.”
Established four years prior, the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel has persistently reported alleged human rights violations in Gaza since the violent events on October 7, 2023, instigated by Hamas, as well as in other Palestinian territories.
Although neither the commission nor the 47-nation council it is part of within the U.N. framework can directly take legal steps against a nation, their findings might influence proceedings at the International Criminal Court or the U.N.’s International Court of Justice.
This report also acts as the final statement from the team led by former U.N. rights head Navi Pillay. All three members announced their resignation in July, attributing it to personal reasons and a desire for change.
The team was commissioned by the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s top human rights body, but it does not speak for the United Nations.
Israel has not engaged with the commission, accusing it and the Human Rights Council of bias against Israel. Earlier, the Trump administration, an important ally of Israel, withdrew the United States from the council, the U.N.’s main human rights entity.
After a painstaking legal analysis, the commission said Israel had committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined under an international convention adopted in 1948 known colloquially as the “Genocide Convention,” three years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Pillay, the commission chair. “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.”
Pillay, a former U.N. human rights chief, said “responsibility for the atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons” over the nearly two-year war.
Her commission concluded that Netanyahu, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, had incited the commission of genocide. It hasn’t assessed whether other Israeli leaders had done so too.
Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued an angry response Tuesday, saying it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report.”
“Three individuals serving as Hamas proxies, notorious for their openly antisemitic positions — and whose horrific statements about Jews have been condemned worldwide — released today another fake ‘report’ about Gaza,” it said.
Genocide accusations are especially sensitive in Israel, which was founded as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust and where memories of the Holocaust still play an important role in the country’s national identity.
In coming to its conclusion of genocide, the commission said it 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 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 commission urged other countries to halt weapons transfers to Israel and block individuals or companies from actions that could contribute to genocide in Gaza.
“The international community cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said 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 current U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, 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.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
