The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded there are reasonable grounds to find that Israel carried out four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law since the war with Hamas began in 2023.
The panel cited killings, serious bodily and mental harm, the deliberate creation of life-threatening conditions, and measures intended to prevent births.
The commission said its 72-page legal analysis draws on interviews with victims, witnesses and doctors, as well as verified open-source material and satellite imagery gathered since the conflict began. It said the findings add its voice to rights groups and others that have reached similar conclusions.
“Genocide is occurring in Gaza,” said commission chair Navi Pillay, a South African former UN human rights chief who also presided over the tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide.
Pillay said the dehumanization of victims in that genocide was “very, very similar to [the Rwandan genocide].”
“When I look at the facts in the Rwandan genocide, it’s very, very similar to this. You dehumanize your victims. They’re animals, and so therefore, without conscience, you can kill them,” she said.
“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.”
Israel slams the report
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it categorically rejected the report, calling it “distorted and false.” A spokesperson accused the commission’s three experts of acting as “Hamas proxies” and relying “entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others” that had “already been thoroughly debunked.”
“In stark contrast to the lies in the report, Hamas is the party that attempted genocide in Israel — murdering 1,200 people, raping women, burning families alive, and openly declaring its goal of killing every Jew,” the spokesperson said.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, labeled the findings “scandalous” and “fake,” saying “Israel categorically rejects the libelous rant published today by this commission of inquiry.”
Israel committed ‘four of the five acts of genocide’ defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention
According to the report, the acts underpinning the genocide finding include: killing Palestinians through attacks on protected objects and civilians, causing serious bodily and mental harm through direct strikes, severe mistreatment of detainees, forced displacement and environmental destruction, and deliberately creating conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction by razing essential infrastructure, denying access to medical care, blocking aid, water, electricity and fuel, reproductive violence, and measures impacting children.
The commission also said an attack in December 2023 on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic reportedly destroyed some 4,000 embryos along with 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilized eggs, constituting measures intended to prevent births.
It cited statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials as “direct evidence of genocidal intent,” pointing to a letter he wrote to soldiers in November 2023 that the commission described as likening the Gaza operation to a biblical “holy war of total annihilation.”
The report also named Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The panel stressed it is independent and does not speak for the United Nations as a whole. The UN has not used the term genocide but is under mounting pressure to do so, the commission said.
Israel is contesting a genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and maintains it is acting in self-defense following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Since then, at least 64,905 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most residents have been displaced multiple times; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed food security experts have declared a famine in Gaza City.
(jh)
Source: Reuters, BBC, CNN