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The UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
A report, intended to be detailed and damning, summarizes evidence showing that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
He says Israel has violated the Genocide Convention, which was adopted in 1948 by the newly formed United Nations. The word genocide, and the convention that defined it as a crime, were directly inspired by the genocide of six million Jews by Nazi Germany.
Israel denies all allegations that its conduct in Gaza has violated treaties and conventions that constitute the laws of war and international humanitarian law. Israel justifies its actions as self-defense, in defense of its citizens, and to force the release of hostages taken by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on October 7, 2023, about 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
The Israelis have dismissed the report as anti-Semitic lies inspired by Hamas. It was compiled by a commission of inquiry set up by the UN Human Rights Council. Israel and the US are boycotting the Council, which both countries say is biased against them.
But the report's findings will fuel growing international condemnation of Israel's behavior, which is coming from both Israel's traditional Western allies as well as the Gulf Arab monarchies that normalized relations with Israel in the Abraham Accords.
Israel's military campaign, which has included heavy airstrikes and the controlled demolition of buildings and infrastructure, has left much of Gaza in ruins.
Next week at the UN General Assembly in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada and others will join the majority of UN members in recognizing the sovereignty of an independent Palestinian state.
The move will be more than symbolic. It will change the debate about the future of the conflict that began more than a century ago when Zionist Jews from Europe came to settle in Palestine. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has condemned the recognition as anti-Semitic and a reward for Hamas terrorism.
He says Palestinians will never have independence in any part of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as a Palestinian state would put Israelis at risk. Israeli religious nationalists believe the land was given to the Jewish people by God alone.
Genocide is defined in the 1948 convention as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in this case, the Palestinians in Gaza.
Many UN agencies have said that a "man-made famine" is ongoing in parts of Gaza.
The report details actions against Palestinians inside Gaza and in prisons inside Israel.
Among a long list of charges is Israel's targeting of civilians it has a legal obligation to protect, and imposing "inhumane conditions causing the death of Palestinians, including deprivation of food, water and medicine."
This is a reference to the blockade that has produced famine, as well as widespread hunger, according to the IPC, the international body that assesses food emergencies.
The new UN report also details the forced displacement currently taking place in Gaza City, after the Israeli military, the IDF, ordered all civilians there to move south. It is believed that about one million people have been affected. The Israeli offensive is gaining momentum, with airstrikes and the destruction of many buildings, including high-rise buildings that are symbols of Gaza City, which the IDF calls Hamas' "terror towers."
The report also says that Israel has imposed “measures aimed at preventing births.” This refers to an attack on the largest fertility clinic in Gaza, which reportedly destroyed some 4,000 embryos and 1,000 samples of unfertilized sperm and eggs.
In addition to the results of military actions, the UN report singles out three Israeli officials for inciting genocide.
They are Yoav Gallant, then defense minister, who said on October 9, 2023, that Israel was fighting “human animals.” Like Prime Minister Netanyahu, Gallant already faces an arrest warrant for war crimes from the International Criminal Court.
Netanyahu is also accused of inciting violence by comparing the war in Gaza to the history of the Jewish war against an enemy known as Amalek. In the Bible, God tells the Jewish people to eliminate all the men, women and children of Amalek, as well as their wealth and livestock.
The third official mentioned is President Isaac Herzog, who in the first week of the war condemned the Palestinians of Gaza for not rising up against Hamas. He said on October 13, 2023 that "there is an entire nation there that is responsible."
Legally, it is difficult to prove the crime of genocide. The people who drafted the Genocide Convention and the interpretations made by the ICJ in more recent cases deliberately set a high legal standard.
South Africa has filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague alleging that Israel committed genocide against the Palestinians. The case will take several years to be heard.
But, with the war in Gaza continuing and possibly escalating further with the current Israeli offensive, the UN report will deepen international divisions over the war.
On one side are countries that demand an immediate end to the killing and destruction in Gaza and condemn the famine caused by Israel's siege. They include the United Kingdom and France.
On the other side are Israel and the United States. President Donald Trump's administration continues to provide military aid and vital diplomatic cover, without which the Israelis would struggle to continue their war in Gaza and their bombing campaigns elsewhere in the Middle East. /Adapted from BBC/
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