Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations independent commission concluded in a report published Tuesday.
“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,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the Commission.
The Israel Defense Forces launched a new ground offensive late Monday as it seeks to capture Gaza City after weeks of heavy bombardment, as part of a nearly two-year war on Hamas militants. “Gaza is burning,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said early Tuesday.
“The Commission also finds that Israel has failed to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, through failure to investigate genocidal acts and to prosecute alleged perpetrators,” Pillay added.
The 72-page report finds 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. They include killing; serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births. The report is based on the commission’s prior investigations, factual and legal findings about the Israeli attack on Gaza, the conduct and statements of Israeli authorities — and on a examination of underlying genocidal intent and genocide.
The Israeli foreign ministry immediately rejected the report, calling it “fake and distorted.”
“The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others … Israel categorically rejects this distorted and false report and calls for the immediate abolition of this Commission of Inquiry,” the ministry said in a post on X.
The U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has been investigating war in the area since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in which Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people on Israeli soil and took around 250 hostages into Gaza. Since then, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings in the coastal enclave.
Both advocacy group Amnesty International and European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera have called Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide.
Israel’s ongoing war has led to several European countries announcing they will recognize Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly later this month.
The post Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UN Commission says appeared first on Politico.
