New UN report says Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza; Israel: Report ‘distorted and false’

By Ariela Karmel

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16 September 2025, 11:06 am

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

Chairwoman of the 'The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel,' South Africa's Navi Pillay speaks during a briefing to UN member states about ongoing investigations of the Commission at the UN offices in Geneva, on April 16, 2024. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

A new United Nations report says that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, has concluded that Israel has carried out four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Those include “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 adamantly rejects the charge that it is committing genocide, saying it strives to avoid civilian casualties, and blames Hamas for putting noncombatants in harm’s way. Israel’s Foreign Ministry accuses the report’s authors of being “Hamas proxies.”

“The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others,” the ministry’s statement says. “Israel categorically rejects this distorted and false report and calls for the immediate abolition of this Commission of Inquiry.”

The report was published after a nearly two-year investigation by the commission following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught that began the war. The October 7 attack receives only fleeting mention in the report, and the details of the massacre are not included at all.

According to the commission, explicit statements by “civilian and military authorities” as well as a “pattern of conduct” by the military “indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.”

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” says Navi Pillay, chair of the commission. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

All three members of the commission, including Pillay, announced their impending resignations in July. Pillay’s term will end in November.

The report accuses Israel’s leadership, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, of having “incited the commission of genocide.”

The authors of the report accuse Israel of numerous crimes in Gaza, including starvation, mass killing, systemic sexual and gender based violence, and directly targeting children.

The Commission urges Israel to “end the genocide in Gaza” and calls on UN member states to halt arms transfers to Israel, and to prosecute individuals or corporations under their jurisdiction that are complicit in genocide.