UN Commission says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
A commission established by the United Nations has said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
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The report said 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.
“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the UN Commission set up to investigate war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel's foreign ministry rejected the report, denouncing it as "distorted and false" and saying it is based on ‘lies’.
In response, Israel said “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.”
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Israel launched the military campaign in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, in which 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.
The report said that Israel has “committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births”.
Israel launched new strikes on Gaza City overnight and there are reports of a new ground offensive beginning as Israel attempts to occupy the entire city.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Monday the only way to end the conflict in Gaza is through the elimination of Hamas and the release of the remaining 48 hostages - with around 20 believed to be alive - setting aside calls for an interim ceasefire in favour of an immediate end to the conflict.
Hamas has said it will only free the remaining hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
What does genocide mean?
Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin defined the term in 1944 in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust.
The UN calls it "targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people".
Genocide was first recognised as a crime under international law in 1946.
To quote the United Nations:
"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
- 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,
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
