Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has announced.
The commission called on Israel and all states to fulfill their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible.
After a two-year investigation into the events of October 7, 2023, the commission concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces committed, as they allege, four of the five acts of genocide defined in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: murder, causing serious bodily or mental harm, intentionally inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people, and measures aimed at preventing births.
“The explicit statements of the Israeli civil and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces demonstrate that the genocidal acts were committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” the report states.
According to Navi Pillay, the chairwoman of the Commission, responsibility for the crimes lies with “the highest-level Israeli authorities who have been orchestrating a genocidal campaign for almost two years with the specific intention of destroying the Palestinian group in Gaza”.
Pillay stressed that Israel has “blatantly ignored interim measures orders from the International Court of Justice, as well as warnings from member states, UN bodies, human rights organizations and civil society”, and that “the authorities have shown no intention of changing their course of action”.
The Israeli army has continued its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which almost 65,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, with experts declaring a famine.
18 killed in new Israeli airstrikes in Gaza
At least 18 people were killed and more than 40 injured today when Israeli warplanes targeted several areas in Gaza City and the central part of the enclave, medical sources told Anadolu Agency.
Eight Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded when Israeli aircraft hit houses near the General Security Crossing northwest of Gaza City.
Three more people, including two children, were killed when Israeli warplanes targeted two inhabited houses in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City. Dozens are missing under the rubble.
Four Palestinians were also killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a house in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza City.
In central Gaza, an Israeli strike on a house west of Deir al-Balah killed a couple and their daughter.
