Israel is guilty of the crime of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to a landmark report by the UN’s top investigative mechanism on occupied Palestine.

The UN commission of inquiry on Palestine and Israel concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces have carried out four of the five acts defined as genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a people, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

It said the report was “the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date” 

In its report, the commission said it had reasonable grounds to determine that Israeli officials and military forces acted with “genocidal intent”. It cited repeated statements by senior Israeli leaders, combined with patterns of military conduct, as evidence of that intent.

“The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,“ said the report. 

“On incitement to genocide, the Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement,” it added. 

The findings echo assessments made over the past year by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups.

It is the first comprehensive legal determination by a UN body, and analysts say it could influence proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where South Africa has brought a case accusing Israel of genocide.

Decades of repression

The commision said while the report is limited to looking at the Palestians in Gaza, “the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians as a whole has extended to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, that is, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, based on Israeli authorities’ and Israeli security forces’ action therein, and to the period before 7 October 2023.”

It added: “The events in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have not occurred in isolation, as the commission has noted. They were preceded by decades of unlawful occupation and repression under an ideology requiring the removal of the Palestinian population from their lands and its replacement.”

To establish genocidal acts, investigators reviewed Israeli military operations in Gaza that included:

• Killing and seriously harming unprecedented numbers of Palestinians
• Imposing a total siege, including restrictions on humanitarian aid, that led to starvation
• Systematic destruction of healthcare and education systems
• Acts of sexual and gender-based violence
• Direct targeting of children
• Widespread attacks on religious and cultural sites
• Ignoring provisional measures ordered by the ICJ

The panel urged Israel and all states to comply with their obligations under international law, including ending the genocide and ensuring accountability for those responsible.

Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the findings, calling the report “distorted and false.”