UN probe confirms Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
Senior independent rights investigators appointed by the Human Rights Council alleged on Tuesday that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, stating there is clear intent to destroy Palestinians through acts that meet the criteria outlined in the Genocide Convention.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” insisted Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission, stressing that “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 Commission is headed by Ms. Navanethem (Navi) Pillay of South Africa, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, alongside its members Mr. Miloon Kothari of India, former UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, and Mr. Chris Sidoti of Australia, an international human rights expert and former Australian Human Rights Commissioner.
At a press conference in Geneva, Commission of Inquiry members Pillay and Chris Sidoti stated that their investigations into the Gaza war, which began with Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces “committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
According to the Genocide Convention, these acts include killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
The Commission reiterated its findings that Israeli security forces had deliberately killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza by employing wide-impact munitions that caused mass casualties, and that these actions were carried out with full knowledge that they would result in civilian deaths.
“Victims were targeted collectively due to their identity as Palestinians,” said the report.
The Commission found that the Israeli authorities “intended to kill as many Palestinians as possible” through its military operations in Gaza since 7 October 2023 and knew that the means and methods of warfare employed would cause mass deaths of Palestinians, including children.
The Commission also noted that deaths were a result of the deliberate infliction of conditions of life in Gaza calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza, especially the blocking of medicine, medical equipment, food, and water from entering Gaza.
The Commission finds that Israeli authorities “knew that blocking the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza would lead to the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Therefore, the Commission noted that the “Israeli authorities intended to kill and cause the deaths of the Palestinians in Gaza through the military operations and war strategies employed.”
Accordingly, the Commission concluded that both the actus reus and mens rea of “killing members of the group” under Article II(a) of the Genocide Convention have been established.
Ms. Pillay emphasized that responsibility for the atrocity crimes “lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons,” citing “explicit statements” by Israeli civilian and military officials that denigrate Palestinians.
The Commission also examined the conduct of Israeli authorities and security forces in Gaza, highlighting actions such as imposing starvation and inhumane living conditions. According to the panel, “genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference” from the nature of these operations.
The review included Israeli military actions that resulted in the killing and serious harm of unprecedented numbers of Palestinians, as well as the imposition of a “total siege,” which blocked humanitarian aid and led to starvation.
The 72-page report further documented what the Commission described as the “systematic destruction” of healthcare and education in Gaza, alongside “systematic” sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians.
“The Commission finds that Israeli security forces have perpetrated sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October 2023, including rape, sexualised torture and other forms of sexual violence.
“Israeli security forces committed acts of sexual violence not only to profoundly degrade the direct victims, but also to publicly humiliate the Palestinians as a group. This is evident through the Israeli soldiers’ social media content where they blatantly showed themselves committing acts to dehumanise Palestinians,” read the report.
It also examined the alleged “direct targeting” of children and Israel’s disregard for the International Court of Justice’s March 2024 order, which required Israel to take “all necessary and effective measures” to ensure the unhindered provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians throughout Gaza.
“From 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025, out of 60,199 Palestinians who were killed, 18,430 were children,” they said.
“The international community cannot remain silent in the face of the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Pillay stated.
“When clear signs and evidence of genocide emerge, the absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity. All States are under a legal obligation to use all means reasonably available to them to stop the genocide in Gaza,” she added.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly rejected the inquiry’s findings, calling them “fake” in a post on X. The ministry alleged that the report’s authors were “serving as Hamas proxies,” a claim often made in response to criticism of Israel over alleged genocide.
“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,” they said.
The report found that on 7 October 2023, Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza, involving both airstrikes and ground operations. Since then, the hostilities have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, with entire extended Palestinian families wiped out across several generations. From 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025, 60,199 Palestinians were killed, including 18,430 children and 9,735 women.
Life expectancy in Gaza dropped dramatically, from 75.5 years prior to October 2023 to 40.5 years during the first year of the war—a decline of 34.9 years, or nearly half. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as of 15 July 2025, 46 percent of Palestinians killed in Gaza were women (9,497) and children (17,921), out of 58,380 verified deaths at that time. Strikingly, between 18 and 25 March 2025, women and children made up nearly 60 percent of total fatalities after Israel resumed large-scale military operations.
During this period, OHCHR documented 224 Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for displaced people between 18 March and 9 April 2025. In at least 36 of those strikes, fatalities recorded were exclusively women and children. On 25 March 2025, Save the Children reported that more children were killed in the first week of renewed Israeli operations than in any other week since 7 October 2023.
The Commission also noted intelligence reports indicating that, by May 2025, Israel had identified around 8,900 militants from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or presumed dead. By that time, however, an estimated 53,000 Palestinians had been killed, meaning that approximately 83 percent of those killed were civilians.
Israel’s use of heavy, unguided munitions with wide margins of error in densely populated residential areas was found to align with a deliberate military strategy. An Israeli security forces spokesperson stated openly: “we are focused on what causes maximum damage.” The Commission observed that urban areas of Gaza were repeatedly subjected to massive bombardment using explosive weapons with wide-area effects rather than precision-guided “smart” weapons, resulting in the destruction of entire neighborhoods.
The sheer scale of bombardment was described as extraordinary compared to other conflicts worldwide. One military expert noted: “Israel is dropping in less than a week what the United States was dropping in Afghanistan in a year, in a much smaller, much more densely populated area.” The Commission further highlighted that the Israeli Air Force employed a wide range of fighter aircraft armed with munitions of enormous destructive capacity, especially devastating when deployed in densely populated zones.
The report also raised alarm over the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli- and US-backed body set up in May 2025 to distribute aid in Gaza. By 31 July 2025, at least 1,373 Palestinians had reportedly been killed while seeking food—859 near GHF sites and 514 along food convoy routes.
“Palestinians in Gaza were attacked in their homes, at hospitals, in shelters (including schools and religious sites), during the evacuations and in designated safe zones,” they said.
They stated that this act encompasses two types of harm: bodily harm, which involves serious physical injury, and mental harm, which entails serious impairment of mental faculties, such as the infliction of intense fear, terror, intimidation, or threats.
To analyse the genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities, the Commission also referred to statements made by members of the Israeli government (direct evidence of dolus specialis) and to the pattern of conduct of the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces, including during military operations, that were consistent with the sentiments of the statements of the Israeli government.
“Israeli officials made statements that indicated their intention to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group. Palestinians were consistently dehumanised by Israeli officials. Furthermore, Israeli authorities made many statements that explicitly called for vengeance, destruction and annihilation,” she said.
The Commission also highlighted the scale of environmental destruction in Gaza since 7 October 2023, noting that by December 2024, UNOSAT had identified over 170,000 damaged or destroyed structures, while UNEP estimated more than 50 million tonnes of debris, enough to take 21 years to clear with 105 trucks, alongside toxic remnants from explosions that pose long-term risks to future generations.
“Israel’s actions amount to violations of its obligations under the Genocide Convention, namely for the commission of genocide by its organs and for the failure to prevent and punish the commission of the crime,” they said.
They asserted that the duty to prevent and punish genocide applies not only to the responsible State but to all States Parties to the Genocide Convention and indeed to all States under customary international law.
The Commission recommended that Israel immediately end the commission of genocide in Gaza, implement a permanent ceasefire, comply with International Court of Justice orders, and allow full humanitarian access under a UN-led response.
It further urged Israel to end its starvation policy, halt the use of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for aid distribution, permit medical evacuations and emergency teams, and grant the Commission access to continue investigations, while also investigating and punishing acts of genocide and incitement.
The Commission called on all UN Member States to use all means available to prevent genocide in Gaza, halt arms transfers to Israel, ensure that individuals and corporations under their jurisdiction are not complicit, and take action, including sanctions, against Israel and those facilitating genocide. It also urged states to cooperate with International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations.
The Commission also recommended that the ICC Prosecutor examine the crime of genocide within the Palestine investigation, including amending or adding charges to arrest warrants, and assess the involvement of Israeli officials identified in the report as those most responsible for international crimes.
Earlier, the International Association of Genocide Scholars also declared that Israel’s policies and actions meet the legal definition of genocide under Article II of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
