Israel has committed genocidal acts in Gaza since ceasefire, says UN Human Rights Committee

A United Nations commission of human rights experts said Monday that Israel is committing acts of genocide against Palestinian civilians in Gaza despite a ceasefire agreement and is committing crimes against humanity in the West Bank.

The report of the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry, released on the eve of Israel’s first general elections since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, aims to examine the drivers of violence from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the commission said. He said Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian children and using torture, rape and sexual violence as part of a broader attack to displace and enslave the Palestinian population.

Israel immediately rejected these claims.

The report, delivered to the United Nations General Assembly, notes that between the ceasefire announced on October 10, 2025 and the end of September 2026, Israeli airstrikes, artillery and gunfire killed 1,431 Palestinians in Gaza, including 300 children. The report rejected a claim made in May by President Trump’s Peace Council that the ceasefire was “largely holding.”

The combined findings of the UN commission, an independent group of three human rights experts who have already published several reports, represent the most authoritative legal analysis of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, pending a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on a genocide allegation filed by South Africa.

“The intentional killings and injuries of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of homes in the West Bank, combined with Israel’s continued denial of any responsibility, are part of a broader strategy to exterminate and displace Palestinians and impose living conditions that are unlivable,” Srinivasan Muralidhar, an Indian lawyer who chairs the committee, said in a statement accompanying the report.

The commission also includes Chris Sidoti, an Australian expert in international human rights law who has been with the panel since its inception in 2021; and Florence Mumba, a Zambian judge who served on international criminal tribunals investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.