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The latest 72-page investigative report from an independent fact-finding mission has issued the most definitive findings to date regarding military operations in the region.

The commission asserts Israel of carrying out genocide, stating that its campaign was waged “with the aim to eradicate, in whole or in part, a racial or community”.

Commission Background

Created several years back by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the commission is composed of three unaffiliated specialists and cannot speak on behalf of the UN as a whole.

Israeli representatives have rejected the report “scandalous” and “fabricated”, asserting it was authored by “supporters of Hamas”.

The Israeli government has refuted the genocide charges, referencing its right to self-defence following the offensive by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to 251 captives.

The ongoing conflict in Gaza has killed over 64,000 individuals, overwhelmingly ordinary residents, and harmed over 160,000 people.

Investigation Outcomes

To qualify as genocide under the 1948 UN genocide convention, one or more of five categories must have taken place. The panel asserts the Israeli military of carrying out four of these.

Evidence consists of interviews with survivors, observers, and healthcare workers, confirmed external reports, media coverage, civil society assessments, and satellite imagery.

Category One: Killing

The panel notes reporting indicating that by recently, a significant proportion of deaths in the strip were females and minors.

Security personnel have used imprecise explosive weapons with a wide margin of error in urban residential areas… The quantity of bombs used following 7 October 2023 is exceptionally high relative to other worldwide hostilities.

Civilians in Gaza were targeted in their homes, at clinics, in refuges (including classrooms and places of worship), during relocations and in supposedly protected locations.

The inquiry also detailed notable cases such as the killing of young victims when their automobile was struck near a gas station in Gaza City.

Additional Finding: Harm Infliction

This includes the mistreatment of detainees and large-scale relocations which led to serious and irreparable bodily and psychological injury.

Category Three: Deliberate Infliction of Destructive Conditions

The document states that a significant portion of the strip has been left virtually uninhabitable, with massive destruction of bakeries, learning centers, historical landmarks, and holy sites.

Taking into account the proof in totality, the Commission has found that Israeli authorities knew of the significant chance that their campaign… would result in the physical destruction of Palestinians… completely or partially.

Category Four: Imposing Measures to Prevent Births

This part centers on the high proportion of minors killed and the attack on an IVF center in last December, which allegedly wiped out a large quantity of reproductive materials.

Intent

Legal scholars frequently emphasize that demonstrating destructive purpose is challenging due to the high standard of substantiation.

The commission determined that comments by Israeli leaders constitute “explicit indication of intent to commit genocide”.

Cited examples include comparisons to historical struggles and public declarations that suggest an aim to eradicate the target group.

The head of the commission, a former jurist who had oversight over an international court for Rwanda, stated that the evidence supports the conclusion of destructive purpose.