Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanities in Gaza and the West Bank, the UN said in a report published on the eve of the first Israeli elections since the October 7 terror attacks.
The UN commission of inquiry claimed Israel had committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, persecution, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The report further accused Israel of “intentionally targeting Palestinian civilians” and continuing to commit “genocidal acts” even since the so-called ceasefire agreement in Gaza, with “the intent to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part”.
Israel has categorically denied that its military actions in Gaza constitute genocide. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations general assembly in New York last month that allegations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza were “the biggest lie of the century”.
He alluded to Israel’s facilitation of food aid and vaccination campaigns, saying that Israel “did everything possible to get them out of harm's way”.
In the West Bank, the commission concluded that Palestinians were being targeted on the basis of their nationality, race and ethnicity, gender and age.
Torture, reproductive violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence formed “part of the broader attack” against the civilian population in the West Bank, they assessed, adding that sexual violence “has been used with the intent to displace, subjugate and destabilise the Palestinian people”.
The commission says it drew its conclusions after investigating seven cases between November 2023 and June 2026, where Israeli forces caused bodily harm on Palestinians, often children, who did not appear to be posing a threat.
Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the commission, said: “The intentional killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians and destruction of homes in the West Bank combined with Israel’s persistent denial of responsibility form part of a broader strategy to exterminate and displace Palestinians and impose conditions of life that are unliveable.”
The commission recommended that Israel should comply with the advisory opinion of July 2024 of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and immediately end the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory and remove all settlers and settlements.
The Palestinian Authority must also stop targeting human rights defenders and investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and rights law, they added.
The commission of inquiry was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to “investigate, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021”.
The report concluded that the situation in the West Bank had “deteriorated gravely” since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks from Gaza.
Israeli forces still hold more than 60% of the territory in Gaza and conduct almost daily airstrikes, while Hamas controls most of the area where more than two million Palestinians live, mostly in temporary shelters with what aid agencies call inadequate aid supplies.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has said about 1.4 million people, or two-thirds of Gaza's population, face crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, including roughly 200,000 people in emergency conditions.
Last year's US-brokered Gaza ceasefire calls for the eventual reconstruction of the territory. But little progress has been made towards implementing a deal to end the conflict that includes terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops.
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