Amid Gaza takeover final push, UN probe panel concludes Israel's actions are genocide
The report comes at a time when Israel has announced the start of a ground operation in Gaza City. Tel Aviv has refuted it, calling it ‘scandalous’ and ‘fake’
A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts.
The inquiry report comes at a time when Israel has announced the start of a ground operation in Gaza City. Israel has refuted the report and termed it "scandalous" and "fake".
"Today we witness in real time how the promise of 'never again' is broken and tested in the eyes of the world. The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and a legal emergency," Navi Pillay, head of the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and a former International Criminal Court judge, said at a press briefing in Geneva, according to Reuters.
"The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza," Pillay added.
The commission's 72-page legal analysis is the most authoritative UN finding on the war in Gaza. However, the body is independent and does not represent the United Nations as a whole. As reported by Reuters, the UN has yet to use the term “genocide” but is coming under growing pressure to do so.
Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza was triggered by the deadly attack on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 251 hostages.
Also Read | ‘Disgrace’: Israel on Spanish PM after Pro-Palestine protests halt cycling race
The subsequent war in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, while a global hunger monitor says part of the territory is suffering from famine.
What does the report say?
The commission in its report has cited examples of the scale of the killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding.
It has concluded that statements by Netanyahu and other officials are "direct evidence of genocidal intent." For this it has cited Netanyahu's letter to Israeli soldiers in November 2023 comparing the Gaza operation to what the commission describes as a "holy war of total annihilation" in the Hebrew Bible. The report also names former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Also Read | India, 141 others vote in favour of Hamas-free Palestinian state in UNGA
According to Reuters, at least one of five acts must be present to qualify as genocide. The UN commission determined that Israel had committed four of these acts: killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life aimed at destroying the Palestinians, in whole or in part and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
Israel dismisses report
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who was also named in the report, has condemned its findings.
"While Israel defends its people and seeks the return of hostages, this morally bankrupt Commission obsesses over blaming the Jewish state, whitewashing Hamas’s atrocities, and turning victims of one of the worst massacres of modern times into the accused," he said, according to Reuters.
Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, has called the report "scandalous" and "fake", saying it had been authored by "Hamas proxies".
"Israel categorically rejects the libellous rant published today by this commission of inquiry," Meron told journalists, according to the news agency.
Israel is already fighting a genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It has rejected such accusations, citing its right to self-defence.
(Inputs from Reuters)
