Since late October 2023, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began with the fighting after the October 7 attack, has evolved into a full-scale humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Millions of Palestinians—civilians, including women and children—are suffering from destroyed infrastructure, lack of water, food, fuel, medicine, and the means to survive. International law, including the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, obliges states to prevent and halt actions that may constitute genocide.
In its latest high-profile statement, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) concluded by 86% of votes that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.
An independent UN commission of inquiry has concluded that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. This is stated in a report published by the organization.
According to the commission, Israeli authorities carried out four of the five acts defined as genocide under the 1948 Convention. These include the killing of Palestinians, inflicting “serious bodily and mental harm,” “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” These actions, the report asserts, took place after October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and killed more than 1,200 people. Sky News noted that this is the first time such allegations have been made publicly by a UN body.
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The report claims that Israeli leaders “incited genocide,” and that “genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference” to be drawn from the nature of the actions carried out by Israel’s authorities and security forces in Gaza.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the report as a “fabrication” prepared by “three individuals acting as Hamas proxies and known for their openly antisemitic stance.” The ministry said the document was “entirely based on Hamas lies echoed by others,” adding that these claims had been repeatedly refuted, including in independent academic studies that the commission ignored. “Israel categorically rejects this distorted and false report and demands the immediate dissolution of the commission of inquiry,” the ministry’s statement read.