A United Nations (UN) impartial international committee of investigation concluded that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The commission stated that the 72-page report released Tuesday is “the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date” on the war.
According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, Israeli bombings have killed at least 64,964 individuals since the hostilities began in October 2023.
The United Nations commission has been researching the events for the past two years and has concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts listed by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
They include killing, causing serious bodily or mental suffering, intentionally inflicting conditions of existence designed to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures to prevent births.
Navi Pillay, a former UN human rights official and president of the international tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide, chairs the three-member expert group, which also includes Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer, and Miloon Kothari, an Indian specialist on housing and land rights.
“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,” Pillay said.
“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.”
The report coincided with Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, a significant turning point in the conflict.
Until the invasion, Gaza City was one of the districts of the beleaguered enclave that the IDF had not yet captured.
Other Gaza cities, including as Rafah and Khan Younis, have been largely damaged and levelled by Israeli strikes and demolitions.
Israel’s foreign ministry has categorically rejected the UN commission report, calling it “distorted and false”.
