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UN Commission of Inquiry finds “reasonable grounds” that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
Report cites mass killings, famine, destruction of healthcare and systemic targeting of civilians.
Over 60,000 Palestinians killed since October 2023, including 18,430 children and 9,735 women.
Israeli leaders Herzog, Netanyahu and Gallant named as responsible for incitement and intent.
Israel rejects findings as “libellous,” insists its actions are self-defence after October 7 attacks.
Israeli authorities and security forces have committed and continue to commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, detailed a new conference room paper released September 16, 2025 by a United Nations-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI). The report named Israel’s top three officials President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as responsible for inciting genocide.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1948, declares genocide as a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the UN and condemned by the civilized world.
The COI report, titled Legal analysis of the conduct of Israel in Gaza pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, was presented to the Human Rights Council’s sixtieth session. It stated that the events in Gaza since October 7, 2023 have not occurred in isolation, but were preceded by decades of “unlawful” occupation and repression. The Commission’s findings are based on a legal analysis of Israel's conduct since the start of its military offensive in Gaza.
The COI is set up by the UN, however, it doesn’t speak on its behalf. It is staffed by three independent experts, former UN human rights chief and head of COI Navanethem Pillay, former UN Special Rapporteur Miloon Kothari and international human rights consultant Chris Sidoti. The report only examined the violations committed in Gaza since October 2023 till July 31, 2025 within the framework of state responsibility for genocide.
Israel’s military offensive has intensified in Gaza City since August 2025 under a new campaign named Operation Gideon’s Chariots II. The operation began with preliminary troop movements in mid-August, after the Israeli security cabinet approved the plan on August 8, 2025. On August 20, Israel announced that it had formally entered the “first stages” of a ground offensive, with tanks and troops pushing into neighbourhoods such as Sabra.
This has escalated into a full-scale ground invasion at present. Since dawn on September 17, 2025, dozens of Palestinians have been killed across the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces advanced on the outskirts of Gaza City.
In a press conference on September 16, 2025, Pillay told reporters that “genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur”, reported British daily The Guardian.
When clear signs and evidence of genocide emerge, the absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity. All states are under a legal obligation to use all means that are reasonably available to them to stop the genocide in Gaza
COI head Navanethem Pillay
The report’s conclusions are based on four categories of acts listed in the Genocide Convention: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction; and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
From October 7, 2023, to July 31, 2025, 60,199 Palestinians were killed, including 18,430 children and 9,735 women, the COI noted. Eighty-three per cent of those killed were civilians and more than half were women, children and the elderly. The report attributed these deaths to the use of heavy unguided munitions in densely populated areas, direct targeting of civilians in “safe zones” and evacuation routes and attacks on healthcare facilities.
The report described Israel's military strategy in Gaza as “total war” that, while stated as “self-defense”, appears to have motivations of vengeance and collective punishment. The military used an “extraordinary” number of bombs, even in comparison to other world conflicts, the COI noted. The forces focused on “what causes maximum damage”, targeting civilian infrastructure, the paper found.
The panel concluded that Israeli forces have intentionally inflicted serious harm on Palestinians. This included torture, sexual violence and inhumane treatment of detainees, as well as the profound emotional trauma suffered by those who have lost or been separated from family members.
Israel’s “total siege” on Gaza was also highlighted by the COI, which it described as the instrumentalisation of basic necessities — food, medicine, water, fuel and electricity — to hold the population hostage. The Guardian report noted that famine had already been declared in parts of Gaza by a global hunger monitoring group.
The destruction of clinics, deemed an act of “reproductive violence,” was calculated to prevent Palestinian births, the paper found. It said that attacks on the healthcare system were part of an intent to destroy the group by preventing its capacity to heal and live.
The report stated that Herzog, Netanyahu and Gallant’s remarks, such as the prime minister’s 2023 letter to Israeli soldiers comparing the Gaza operation to a “holy war of total annihilation” in the Hebrew Bible, were acted upon by Israeli forces and serve as “direct evidence of dolus specialis,” or genocidal intent.
COI also cited a statement from a former head of Israel's Military Intelligence: “The fact that 50,000 have already been killed in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations … for every Israeli killed on October 7, 2023, 50 Palestinians should die.”
Israel’s foreign ministry categorically rejected the report, calling for the Commission to be abolished. Its UN ambassador in Geneva, Daniel Meron, dismissed it as a “libellous rant” authored by “Hamas proxies” . Israel has refused to cooperate with the Commission, saying it has a political agenda and maintains it is acting in self-defence following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken.
UN insiders told The Guardian the report would influence governments and actors within the organisation but was unlikely to be “adopted by the UN in any collective way.” The UN itself has not formally declared Israel’s actions as genocide, though Volker Türk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, said evidence was mounting.
The Commission urged Israel to immediately cease military operations inconsistent with the Genocide Convention, comply with all International Court of Justice orders and make reparations to Palestinians as a group. It also called on third-party states to intervene in the ICJ proceedings and cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s investigation.
Pillay said the international community “cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza”.
In October 2023, Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, warned that Israel would use the “war against Hamas” to acquire Palestinian land and further displace Palestinians.
“What Israel is doing in occupied Palestine today has strong echoes of the 1947-1949 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa,” Albanese had said. In March 2025, Albanese warned that Palestinians face serious risk of mass ethnic cleansing as Israel advances its long-held plan to take Palestinian lands and evacuate them of Palestinians under the fog of war.