Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a United Nations commission said Tuesday, calling on the international community to end the campaign and punish the top officials it found responsible for inciting it.
Israel rejected the accusations as “distorted and false,” labeling them “scandalous.”
A team of independent experts called a commission of inquiry detailed their assessment in a new report, joining a growing chorus of rights advocates and scholars to level the accusation against the U.S. ally.
The findings were published as Israel launched its long-anticipated ground offensive on Gaza City, a widely condemned assault on a famine-stricken area where hundreds of thousands of people were living.
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“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, the commission chair and former U.N. human rights chief. “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 three-member team said in its 72-page report that Israel has committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention: Killing members of a group, causing serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.
To count as genocide, at least one of five acts must have occurred. The commission found no evidence in relation to the fifth category, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The inquiry’s conclusion is the strongest U.N. finding to date but the body is independent and does not officially speak for the U.N. The team was commissioned by the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s top human rights body.
It said Israel has attacked “protected objects” such as civilian homes and healthcare facilities, while targeting “civilians and other protected persons.” It also accused Israel of severely mistreating detainees, carrying out forced displacement and environmental destruction, and blocking essential aid, water and supplies.
The report cited an attack on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, which reportedly destroyed 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples and fertilized eggs, as a measure intended to prevent births.
To meet the legal definition under the convention, it must also establish that any of the genocidal acts were committed with the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.
The commission concluded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had “incited the commission of genocide.”
It cited Gallant’s remarks in October 2023, after Hamas fighters attacked Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.
Gallant announced “a complete siege” of Gaza, declaring: “No electricity, no water, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”
Since then, Palestinian health officials say Israeli forces have killed nearly 65,000 people in Gaza, including thousands of children, while displacing most of the population and destroying or damaging much of its infrastructure.
Addressing U.N. member states, the commission urged they employ “all means reasonably available to them” to prevent genocide in Gaza, and “examine the involvement of officials” mentioned in the report “as those most responsible for international crimes” in Gaza.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on X that the report relies “entirely on Hamas falsehoods,” adding it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report.”
The country’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Daniel Meron, called the report “scandalous” and “fake.”
“Israel categorically rejects the libelous rant,” he said in a statement posted on X.
It pointed to a study by Israel’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University that argued allegations of starvation, indiscriminate bombing, and deliberate civilian killings in Gaza lacked verifiable evidence.
The ministry claimed the report “refuted every single false claim regarding genocide.”
Several international rights groups and some Israeli NGOs have already accused Israel of committing genocide.
Earlier this month, the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution saying the legal criteria had been met to establish that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Eighty-six percent of voting members backed the resolution.
Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide; both Israel and the United States have rejected the accusation.
While neither the commission nor the 47-member council it reports to can act against a country, the findings could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or the U.N.’s International Court of Justice.
There is an “accumulated impact,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program. “It isolates Israel further and further in the international arena. It legitimizes the isolation of Israel.”
Pointing to the intense new ground assault on Gaza City, he told NBC News that “it’s difficult to very much for a country to defend itself against when it continues like this.”
Israel “will end up as a pariah state” under Netanyahu, he said.
Netanyahu appeared to acknowledge the international backlash on Monday, saying Israel was facing a “kind of isolation,” and called on the country to become self-reliant.
“We are Athens and Sparta, or perhaps Super-Sparta,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “We have no choice.”
