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<\/a><\/p>\nSouth African judge Navi Pillay, former chair of the independent United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel arrives to a press conference in Geneva, on June 18, 2025. (Fabrice Coffrini \/ AFP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In a 72-page report, the three-member panel accused Israel of committing four genocidal acts since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack, including killing Palestinians and creating conditions to cause the \u201cphysical destruction in whole or in part\u201d of the Palestinian people. They cited the destruction of a fertility clinic as evidence that Israel was \u201cimposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The panel accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of inciting genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d the panel\u2019s leader, Navi Pillay, a South African jurist and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The commission had previously issued reports accusing Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The panel has no enforcement powers but may be used by the International Court of Justice as well as the International Criminal Court, which is currently weighing an accusation by South Africa that Israel is committing a genocide.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s critics have seized on the report. Irish President Michael Higgins called it a \u201cvery, very important document\u201d and suggested that Israel and countries who supply Israel with weapons should be excluded from the U.N.<\/p>\n
Israel, meanwhile, called the panel\u2019s findings \u201cdistorted and false.\u201d The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the panel\u2019s members, who announced their resignation in July, of \u201cserving as Hamas proxies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recent finding comes weeks after the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza. The resolution gained widespread coverage as well as revelations that membership in the group required only a nominal fee and no proof of credentials.<\/p>\n
Among those to condemn the IAGS resolution were over 500 genocide, Holocaust and legal scholars who called on the association to retract its ruling, citing both the conclusion and the process used to reach it.<\/p>\n