Israel’s actions since it laid siege to war-torn Gaza last year are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” according to a new report by the United Nations committee investigating how the state’s policies and practices impact the Palestinian people’s human rights.
Since launching its military offensive more than 400 days ago, Israel has “publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water and fuel,” the committee said in a Thursday statement about its report, which will be presented to the General Assembly on Nov. 18.
“These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalize life-saving supplies for political and military gains,” it continued.
The Israeli government has not yet publicly responded to the report, though officials have repeatedly denied any violations of international law and framed such accusations as antisemitic. Israeli officials have also consistently criticized the U.N. as being biased against their country.
The U.N. established the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in 1968 to monitor the state of human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The committee is made up of representatives from Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Senegal, who said they were unable to visit the areas in question because Israel never responded to their requests.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
The new report covers the first nine months of Israel’s ongoing military campaign, which began in October 2023 after Hamas militants launched an attack in Israel that killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. Some 100 Israelis remain in captivity.
Israel has since displaced 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza and killed more than 43,000, most of whom are believed to be women and children. Outside experts and medical workers estimate the true death toll is much higher, but that deaths have been undercounted because the Ministry of Health’s infrastructure has been destroyed; because bodies remain stuck under rubble, where rescuers can’t reach; and because some victims’ bodies were damaged so severely that they can’t be identified. The casualty count from the war likewise does not account for deaths from starvation, from diseases that the collapsed health care system in Gaza couldn’t treat or from what the committee called “an environmental catastrophe.”
The report mostly focuses on the Israeli military’s U.S.-assisted destruction of Gaza. Among Israel’s genocidal conduct, the report alleges, is its indiscriminate bombing, including in areas it has deemed “safe zones,” as well as its continued blocking of humanitarian aid, its alleged placement of civilians in torture camps, and its obliteration of water, sewage and health care infrastructure in Gaza.
All of this, the U.N. panel report argues, proves that Israel is inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian people in an attempt to wipe them off the map.
The findings are consistent with those from other U.N. agencies, human rights groups, humanitarians and media investigations. On the same day the U.N. committee released its conclusions, Human Rights Watch published its own thorough report describing Israel’s actions as the mass “forced displacement” and “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians — actions that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Senior officials in the Israeli government and the war cabinet have repeatedly declared their intent to forcibly displace the population, declaring their policy goal throughout the conflict, from the early days of the war to over a year later, with government ministers stating that the territory of Gaza will decrease, that blowing up and flattening Gaza is beautiful, and that land will be handed to settlers,” the human rights group said.
Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images
Since January, the International Court of Justice has ordered provisional measures in South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people. In a separate case, the ICJ declared in July that Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian land is illegal.
Despite the ICJ’s binding orders to take immediate measures to allow basic services and aid into Gaza, Israel continues to restrict and sometimes outright halt humanitarian assistance. It has faced only empty threats from its biggest supporter and primary weapons supplier, the United States.
The decision to liken Israel’s actions to genocide “is something we would unequivocally disagree with” U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Thursday of the U.N. report, which urged all member states to uphold their legal obligations and stop “allowing atrocities to go unchecked.”
Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images
The term “genocide” is rarely used by any body associated with the U.N. to describe Israel’s destruction of Gaza, but Thursday’s report is not the first time it’s been invoked. In March, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories concluded that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Despite facing intense backlash from Israeli officials, the expert, Francesca Albanese, has continued demanding accountability for what she says is settler colonial genocide. She recently released another report pleading with the international community to stop the worsening humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians.
“As the world watches the first live-streamed settler-colonial genocide, only justice can heal the wounds that political expedience has allowed to fester,” Albanese said in her report. “The devastation of so many lives is an outrage to humanity and all that international law stands for.”