UN Report Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza: Evidence, Allegations, and Global Reactions

The allegations of genocide against Israel in Gaza by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry are based on a report which states that since the beginning of the war with Hamas in 2023, Israel has committed four out of the five acts required under international law to classify a situation as genocide.

This detailed report presents evidence and concludes that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention, which was adopted in 1948 by the newly established United Nations.

The word genocide, and the convention that defined it as a crime, was directly influenced by Nazi Germany’s extermination of six million Jews.

The definition of genocide in the 1948 Convention is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group—in this case, the Palestinians of Gaza.

Israel denies all such allegations that its conduct in Gaza has violated the conventions and treaties that form the basis of the laws of war and international humanitarian law. It presents its actions as measures of defense aimed at protecting civilians and pressuring for the release of Israeli hostages.

The Israeli military launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas attacks killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 Israelis. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, nearly 65,000 Palestinians have been killed so far by Israeli strikes and operations. Ninety percent of homes are either destroyed or damaged. Gaza’s public health, water, and sanitation systems have also collapsed.

Israel has dismissed the report as Hamas-influenced, anti-Semitic lies. The report was prepared by the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry. Both Israel and the United States have boycotted this council.

The findings of the report are expected to add to the growing international condemnation of Israel’s conduct—not only from its traditional Western allies but also from Gulf Arab monarchies that normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.

Next week, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the UK, France, Australia, Canada, and other countries are expected to formally recognize an independent Palestinian state.

This step will be far more than symbolic. It is likely to change the debate about the future of the conflict, which began more than a century ago when Zionist Jews from Europe settled in Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the move as anti-Semitic. He has declared that Palestinians will never gain independence on any part of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, claiming that a Palestinian state would endanger Israelis. Religious nationalist extremists in Israel believe that this land was granted by God solely to the Jewish people.

The investigative report also details Israel’s actions against Palestinians both inside Gaza and in Israeli prisons.

The long list of allegations includes Israel’s targeting of civilians, whom it is legally obligated to protect, as well as the imposition of “inhuman conditions” that cause Palestinian deaths—such as deprivation of food, water, and medicine.

According to the international body IPC, which monitors food emergencies, this refers to the blockade that has led to famine and widespread starvation in Gaza.

The UN’s new report also documents forced displacement inside Gaza, including the order by the Israeli military for all residents of Gaza City to move south. This reportedly affected around one million people.

Israel’s aggression in Gaza has intensified, with airstrikes destroying many buildings, including iconic high-rises that once defined Gaza City’s skyline.

The report further states that Israel has taken “measures intended to prevent births.” This refers to the attack on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, in which nearly 4,000 embryos and around 1,000 sperm and egg samples were reportedly destroyed.

Along with the consequences of military action, the UN report also criticizes three Israeli officials.

One of them is then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who declared on October 9, 2023, that Israel was “fighting human animals.” Like Prime Minister Netanyahu, Gallant already faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes.

Netanyahu himself is accused of incitement for comparing the war in Gaza to the biblical story of the Jewish fight against the Amalekites, in which God commanded the Jews to destroy all Amalekite men, women, children, and even their livestock.

The third official is President Isaac Herzog, who in the first week of the war condemned Gaza’s Palestinians for not rising against Hamas. On October 13, 2023, he stated: “This is an entire nation that is responsible.”

Those who drafted the Genocide Convention, and the International Court of Justice in its recent rulings, have set a high legal threshold for determining genocide.

As the war in Gaza continues—and perhaps escalates with Israel’s ongoing aggression—the UN report is expected to further divide global opinion on the conflict.

On one side are countries demanding an immediate end to the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza, and condemning the famine caused by Israel’s blockade. These include the UK and France.

On the other side are Israel and the United States. The Trump administration continues to provide Israel with significant military aid and diplomatic protection—without which it would struggle to sustain its war in Gaza and its bombing campaigns elsewhere in the Middle East.