UN confirms Israel genocide in Gaza

All eyes now on Europe, America

NEWS ANALYSIS|  Independent Reporter & Agencies |  Since the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a report on Sept.16 that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, all eyes are now focused on how the U.S. and European will react.

Following that announcement, on Sept. 17, Bernie Sanders became the first U.S. Senator to describe Israel’s assault on Gaza as a “genocide”. Several members of the House of Representatives have previously done so. Sanders also renewed his call for ending Washington’s “complicity in the slaughter of the Palestinian people”.

“The intent is clear. The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” said the prominent US senator who is Jewish.

“The United States must not continue sending many billions of dollars and weapons to Netanyahu’s genocidal government,” he said.

“Having named it a genocide, we must use every ounce of our leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, a massive surge of humanitarian aid facilitated by the UN, and initial steps to provide Palestinians with a state of their own.”

He also warned that the atrocities unfolding in Gaza go beyond the region.

“The challenge we now face is to prevent the world from descending into barbarism, where horrific crimes against humanity can take place with impunity,” he said.

“If the United States, which played such a major role in the creation of the Genocide Convention and other foundations of international law, continues to be seen as an accomplice to genocide, it will make it all the more difficult to prevent new genocides in the future,” said Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and director of the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of San Francisco.

In its statement on the Israel genocide in Gaza, the UN Commission urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

The Commission also concluded that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement.

“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 said. “The Commission also finds that Israel has failed to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, through failure to investigate genocidal acts and to prosecute alleged perpetrators.”

The Commission said it has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and military leaders and considers that they too should be assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.

The Commission recommended that Member States cease the transfer of arms and other equipment that may be used for the commission of genocidal acts to Israel; ensure individuals and corporations in their territories and within their jurisdiction are not involved in aiding and assisting the commission of genocide or incitement to commit genocide; and take action on accountability through investigations and legal proceedings against individuals or corporations that are involved in the genocide directly or indirectly.

Following the announcement, the world’s leading human rights organization; Amnesty International, in an article entitled: `Confronting the Global Political Economy Enabling Israel’s Genocide, Occupation and Apartheid’ published on Sept.18 warned states, public institutions and companies the world over that are enabling or profiting from Israel’s prolonged violations of international law, including its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, its unlawful occupation of the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and its cruel system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls, through their complicity, support or self-imposed paralysis.

“It is beyond time for states, public institutions, companies, universities and other private actors to end their lethal addiction to economic gains and profits at all costs,” it said, ““This must stop. Human dignity is not a commodity.”

Amnesty International identified 15 profiteering companies including US multinationals Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Israeli arms companies Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the Chinese company Hikvision, the Spanish manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), the South Korean conglomerate HD Hyundai, the US software company Palantir Technologies, the Israeli technology firm Corsight, and the Israeli state-owned water company Mekorot. But it said there are more.

Amnesty International was concerned that most UN member states have done next to nothing to press the Israeli government into complying with resolutions of the international body regarding Israel atrocities in Gaza.

“They must end their indefensible, self-imposed inertia and immediately suspend all activities that contribute to Israel’s violations of international law – or risk complicity in the crime against humanity of apartheid, genocide, and other crimes under international law,” said Agnès Callamard, the Secretary General of Amnesty International.

No room for silence

“The international community cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. When clear signs and evidence of genocide emerge, the absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity,” said Pillay. “Every day of inaction costs lives and erodes the credibility of the international community. All States are under a legal obligation to use all means that are reasonably available to them to stop the genocide in Gaza,” she added.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) noted that accusations of genocide were “plausible” and, by a 15-2 vote, enacted “provisional measures” — which are binding under international law — requiring Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch has also previously issued a detailed report noting that Israel’s “pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.”

Despite these proclamations, the U.S. and European governments have avoided using the term “Genocide” because the states wish to avoid the responsibilities to “prevent and punish” Israel that the U.N. Genocide Convention imposes on signatories. Those government would also have to admit their part in abetting the genocide.

Just this September, the deputy prime minister of the UK’s Labour party, David Lammy who is a former foreign secretary, wrote a letter to the chair of the international development committee, Sarah Champion, declaring that “the government has carefully considered the risk of genocide”, and “has not concluded that Israel is acting with genocidal intent”.

This despite earlier admission by Israeli Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also quoted to have boasted that Israel is “destroying more and more houses in Gaza, and Palestinians have nowhere to return”.

According to a columnist in the UK Guardian newspaper, “the British government has not come to a conclusion on genocide, because if it was to, it would have to face up to its complicity”.

The UK’s trade with Israel has been valued at £6 billion a year. But crucially, the UK takes foreign and military policy cues from its powerful ally, the U.S. which in turn is Israel’s strongest ally. As a result, the UK supplies Israel with crucial components for the F-35 jets used to bomb Palestinians. The UK government also allows Israeli planes to refuel, share with Israel intelligence it gathers from surveillance flights over Gaza. The UK has allowed an official visit to Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who is wanted by the ICC for his alleged role in the Israel genocide in Gaza.

Experts say the scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without this continued flow of weapons from the U.S.

However, the U.S. government transfer of weapons to Israel are a heavily guarded secret as leaders of both states try to avoid public scrutiny and prevent oversight by American legislators.

But it is no secret that the U.S. has ratcheted up its arms supply to Israel since October 07, 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel. Israel says 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the attack and 251 taken hostage.

By December 2023, Israel had received more than 10,000 tons of weapons in 244 cargo planes and 20 ships from the U.S, including 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month and a half. Between October and the beginning of March, the U.S. approved more than 100 military sales to Israel, but publicly disclosed only two sales.

The U.S. administration of then-president Joe Biden gave Israel over $14 billion to buy more weapons on top of the $3.8 billion the U.S. gives the Israeli military annually to buy U.S.-made weapons. The U.S. largest weapons manufacturers, like Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics benefit together with Caterpillar, Ford, and Toyota.

Nothing new

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council on 27 May 2021 to “investigate, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021.” Resolution A/HRC/RES/S-30/1 further requested the commission of inquiry to “investigate all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.”

Martin Shaw, the author of `What is Genocide?’ and `The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges After Gaza’, argues that the idea of “genocide” has long been present in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

In the terminology of genocide scholars, he says the Gaza war is one of asymmetrical counter-genocide with Hamas’ killings of Israeli civilians constituting a wave of “genocidal massacres” and Israel’s expressed determination to “totally” eliminate Hamas, destroy the conditions of life for Gazan society as genocidal.

He says some scholars have argued that “genocide” is a serious socio-historical concept and a powerful, if flawed, tool of international law” but one that has not been defined properly. Some scholars say the U.N. Genocide Convention is “internally incoherent in defining genocide”.

But Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and director of the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of San Francisco, says “Genocide is one of those unusual words whose legal definition is actually broader than the popular definition”.

“Legally, it does not just include the attempted systematic extermination of an entire people, such as those of European Jews targeted by Nazi Germany or Tutsis targeted by the Rwandan government, but other acts of violence.”

The convention states: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

According Zunes, the U.S. has a history of denying, downplaying, and rationalising atrocities by its allies.

Stephen Zunes makes this point in article entitled `By Rejecting Evidence of Genocide in Gaza, the US Is Following a Familiar Pattern”.

He said it happened in 1971 when Bangladeshis launched a war of independence against the Pakistani, in East Timor in 2001, between 102,800 and 183,000 civilians died as a result of Indonesia’s occupation between 1975 and 1999, in the Guatemalan civil war (1960-1996) there were approximately 200,000 deaths and disappearances, the vast majority of them civilians, in Myanmar by the regime against the Rohingya and in Ukraine by the state against Russian-speakers.

He says history shows that American leaders, notwithstanding their idealistic rhetoric about freedom, human rights and the rule of law, are guided mostly by narrow geopolitical calculations, even when presented with evidence of genocide.

“Those of us who seek to end U.S. complicity in atrocities must recognise that the problem is far deeper,” he says.

The UN Commission has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.

Details of investigations

The report is based on all the Commission’s prior investigations, as well as factual and legal findings in relation to attacks in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces, and the conduct and statements of Israeli authorities from 7 October 2023 until 31 July 2025. The Commission’s findings are based on a comprehensive examination of the underlying acts of genocide (actus reus) and genocidal intent (dolus specialis).

In establishing the genocidal acts, the Commission examined the Israeli military operations in Gaza, including killing and seriously harming unprecedented numbers of Palestinians; imposing a total siege, including blocking humanitarian aid leading to starvation; systematically destroying the healthcare and education systems in Gaza; committing systematic acts of sexual and gender based violence; directly targeting children; carrying out systematic and widespread attacks on religious and cultural sites; and disregarding the orders of the International Court of Justice.

In establishing genocidal intent, the Commission applied the “only reasonable inference” standard set forth by the International Court of Justice in the case of Bosnia v. Serbia. The Commission analysed statements made by Israeli authorities and concluded that those statements are direct evidence of genocidal intent. The Commission also analysed the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces in Gaza, including imposing starvation and inhumane conditions of life for Palestinians in Gaza, and found that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be concluded from the nature of their operations.

“Israel has flagrantly disregarded the orders for provisional measures from the International Court of Justice and warnings from Member States, UN offices, human rights organisations and civil society groups, and continued the strategy of destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza,” said Pillay.

“The Commission finds that the Israeli authorities had no intention to change their course of actions. On the contrary, Israeli authorities have persisted and continued with their genocidal campaign in Gaza for almost two years now. Israel must immediately end the genocide in Gaza and comply fully with the orders for provisional measures of the International Court of Justice,” she added.

The acts of Israeli political and military leaders are attributable to the State of Israel. The Commission therefore concluded that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish the perpetrators of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Commission urges the Government of Israel to comply immediately with its international legal obligations, including to end the genocide in the Gaza Strip and fully implement the provisional measures orders of the International Court of Justice.

Israel must end its policy of starvation, lift the siege and facilitate and ensure the unimpeded access of humanitarian aid at scale and unhindered access of all United Nations staff, including UNRWA and OHCHR international staff, and all recognized international humanitarian agencies delivering and coordinating aid. The Commission calls on Israel to immediately end the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.