Israel Committing 'Genocide' In Gaza, Say UN investigators
United Nations investigators on Tuesday accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza in a bid to "destroy the Palestinians" there, and blamed Israel's prime minister and other top officials for incitement.
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On Tuesday, UN investigators formally accused Israel of perpetrating "genocide" in Gaza with the intention to "destroy the Palestinians" in the region. The investigation also implicated Israel's prime minister and other senior officials for inciting violence.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), an entity that does not officially represent the United Nations and has received strong criticism from Israel, determined that "genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur," commission leader Navi Pillay informed AFP.
"The responsibility lies with the State of Israel."
The commission, charged with examining human rights conditions in occupied Palestinian territories, released its newest findings almost two years after the Gaza conflict erupted following Hamas's lethal October 7, 2023 incursion into Israel.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-governed Gaza, nearly 65,000 individuals have perished in Gaza since the war's commencement—figures the United Nations considers credible.
The overwhelming majority of Gaza's residents have been displaced at least once, with additional mass relocations currently happening as Israel intensifies operations to gain control of Gaza City, where the UN has declared a complete famine.
The COI concluded that Israeli authorities and forces have committed "four of the five genocidal acts" outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention since October 2023.
These acts include "killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group".
'Intent to destroy'
The investigators reported that explicit statements from Israeli civilian and military officials combined with patterns of Israeli force conduct "indicated that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy ... Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group".
The report determined that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant "incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement".
"The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons," declared Pillay, 83, a former South African judge who previously headed the international tribunal for Rwanda and served as UN human rights chief.
While the commission is not a judicial body, its reports can exert diplomatic pressure and gather evidence for future court proceedings.
Pillay told AFP the commission is collaborating with the International Criminal Court prosecutor.
"We've shared thousands of pieces of information with them," she stated.
'Complicity'
"The international community cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza," emphasized Pillay while presenting her final report.
"The absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity," she cautioned.
Since the war's beginning, Israel has faced accusations of committing genocide in Gaza from numerous NGOs, independent UN experts, and even before international courts.
Israeli officials strongly reject these allegations.
The UN organization itself has not officially classified the Gaza situation as genocide, though the UN aid chief urged world leaders in May to "act decisively to prevent genocide," and the rights chief recently condemned Israeli "genocidal rhetoric".
In January last year, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to prevent acts of "genocide" in Gaza.
Four months after this ruling, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In response to this action, US President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions last month on two ICC judges and two prosecutors, including entry bans to the United States and freezing their US-based assets.