A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
A new report says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.
It cites statements by Israeli leaders, and the pattern of conduct by Israeli forces, as evidence of genocidal intent.
Israel’s foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false”.
It accused the three experts on the commission of serving 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 ministry added.
An Israeli military official dismissed the report as “baseless”, saying: “No other country has operated in these conditions and done so much to prevent harm to civilians on the battlefield.”
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
At least 64,905 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Most of the population has also been repeatedly displaced; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed food security experts have declared a famine in Gaza City.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The commission said its report was “the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date”. However, it does not officially speak for the UN, which has not yet used the term genocide.
The three-member expert panel is chaired by Navi Pillay, a South African former UN human rights chief who was president of the international tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide. The two other members are Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer, and Miloon Kothari, an Indian expert on housing and land rights.
The commission has previously concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and other grave violations of international law on 7 October 2023, and that Israeli security forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The commission’s latest report alleges that Israeli authorities and Israeli forces have committed and are continuing to commit four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention against a national, ethnic, racial or religious group – in this case, Palestinians in Gaza:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday the Trump administration would not impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods to halt China’s purchases of Russian oil unless European countries hit China and India with steep duties of their own.
Bessent told Reuters and Bloomberg in a joint interview that European countries needed to play a stronger role in cutting off Russian oil revenues and bringing its war in Ukraine to an end.
“We expect the Europeans to do their share now, and we are not moving forward without the Europeans,” Bessent said, when asked whether the U.S. would impose Russian oil-related tariffs on Chinese goods after President Donald Trump slapped an additional 25% duties on Indian imports.
Bessent said he pointed out in talks with Chinese officials in Madrid on trade and TikTok that the U.S. had imposed tariffs on Indian goods and that Trump has been urging European countries to impose tariffs of 50% to 100% on China and India to cut off Russian oil revenue.
REUTERS
