‘Misinformation campaign’: Israel rejects UN-sponsored probe accuses it of ongoing Gaza genocide
Commission also alleges crimes against humanity, including torture and rape, by Israeli forces in West Bank; Israel blasts report as effort to demonize and delegitimize it
A ceasefire agreement in Gaza has not stopped what a group of independent experts commissioned by the UN say is genocide carried out by Israel in the territory, the team said, in a new report Monday that also accused Israeli forces of crimes against humanity, including torture and rape, in the West Bank.
In response, Israel’s mission in Geneva called for the commission’s dissolution and said on X that the report marked an example of the body’s “misinformation campaign to demonize the state of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, said the commission was seeking “to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and deny its fundamental right to exist and defend itself.”
The three-member commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 as an open-ended inquiry into alleged Israeli and Palestinian rights violations and the “root causes” of the conflict. It does not speak for the UN itself.
The commission first accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza in September 2025, saying it had found evidence of four of the five genocidal acts defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Israel rejected the finding as “distorted and false.”
Israel has long criticized the commission’s output and strenuously denies accusations of genocide in Gaza and sexual assault by its forces. It has also long accused the Human Rights Council of system bias.
The Associated Press could not independently corroborate multiple graphic accounts described in the report of sexual assaults by prison guards and soldiers on Palestinian detainees since October 2023. In one, female guards allegedly strip-searched a pregnant Palestinian, touching inside her anus and vagina. In another, guards were accused of beating a detainee and hurling sexist slurs, while denying her access to the toilet and sanitary pads. She bled onto her clothes and the interrogation chair.
The findings by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which seeks to document in minute detail the allegations and evidence of crimes to bolster accountability for perpetrators, could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or in other jurisdictions to try to bring justice to alleged victims and their relatives.
Monday’s report said Israel was “continuing to commit genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza.”
Much of the harm has come from Israel’s expansion deeper into Gaza during the ceasefire period, the report said. Since October 2025, when the ceasefire was signed, Israeli forces have gone from controlling 53 percent of Gaza to at least 60%, the commission said.
In that time, Israeli fire across the advancing front has killed at least 196 Palestinians – including 18 women, 32 boys, and 11 girls, the commission said.
Under the ceasefire deal, the IDF initially withdrew to the so-called Yellow Line, leaving it in control of around 53% of the Strip, mostly outside urban areas.
The IDF has said it opens fire on Palestinians who cross or approach the Yellow Line and are deemed to pose a threat to troops. It has also reported repeated attempts by terror operatives to cross the line or attack soldiers.
The report also accused Israeli soldiers and prison guards of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including extermination, torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence and persecution against civilians.
According to the commission, the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank rose from six between 2008 and October 6, 2023, to 254 between October 7, 2023, and September 30, 2026.
It said Israeli military operations since January 2025 had also caused the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967, with 34,176 people remaining displaced as of August.
Israel launched Operation Iron Wall in the northern West Bank in January 2025, saying it was targeting terror groups operating from areas including Jenin and Tulkarem. The operation displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians; the IDF has denied issuing broad evacuation orders to residents.
The commission also said that it had recently documented six cases where Israeli guards were sexually violent toward male detainees from Gaza in the Sde Teiman military prison.
In one case, it said guards raped a Palestinian detainee with a stick, then forced him to put the stick in his mouth until he vomited. It also recalled another episode in which guards allegedly instructed a Palestinian man to urinate as they tied a plastic cord around his genitals.
The Sde Teiman facility came under intense scrutiny in 2024 after a Palestinian security detainee was hospitalized with broken ribs and a tear in the wall of his rectum following an alleged assault by IDF reservists.
Nine soldiers were initially arrested, and five were later indicted in February 2025, on charges of causing severe injury and assault under aggravated circumstances.
The commission also faulted the Palestinian Authority, saying it had targeted Palestinians who voice dissenting views and that journalists and human rights defenders had been killed and injured.
The ceasefire scaled down a devastating war started by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, when terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Israel responded with a campaign that has killed over 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.