Human rights experts join rising chorus that accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza

GENEVA (AP) — A team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council has concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, issuing a report Tuesday that calls on the international community to end the genocide and take steps to punish those responsible for it.

The deeply-documented findings by the three-member team are the latest accusations of genocide against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government by rights advocates as Israeli carries on with its war against Hamas in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people. Israel rejected what it called a “distorted and false” report.

The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which was created four years ago, has repeatedly documented alleged human rights abuses and violations both in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel led by Hamas, and other Palestinian areas.

While neither the commission nor the 47-member-country council that it works for within the U.N. system can take action against a country, the findings could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or the U.N.’s International Court of Justice.

The report also amounts to a final message from the team headed by former U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay. All three of its members announced in July that they would resign, citing personal reasons and a need for change.

The team was commissioned by the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s top human rights body, but it does not speak for the United Nations.

Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission and has accused it and HRC of anti-Israel bias. Earlier this year, the Trump administration, a key Israeli ally, pulled the United States out of the council, which is the U.N.’s top human rights body.

After a painstaking legal analysis, the commission said Israel had committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined under an international convention adopted in 1948 known colloquially as the “Genocide Convention,” three years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Pillay, the commission chair. “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.”

Pillay, a former U.N. human rights chief, said “responsibility for the atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons” over the nearly two-year war.

Her commission concluded that Netanyahu, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, had incited the commission of genocide. It hasn’t assessed whether other Israeli leaders had done so too.

Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued an angry response Tuesday, saying it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report.”

“Three individuals serving as Hamas proxies, notorious for their openly antisemitic positions — and whose horrific statements about Jews have been condemned worldwide — released today another fake ‘report’ about Gaza,” it said.

Genocide accusations are especially sensitive in Israel, which was founded as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust and where memories of the Holocaust still play an important role in the country’s national identity.

In coming to its conclusion of genocide, the commission said it pored over the conduct of Israeli security forces and “explicit statements” by Israeli civilian and military authorities, among other criteria.

In particular, the experts cited as factors the death toll, Israel’s “total siege” of Gaza and blockade of humanitarian aid that has led to starvation, a policy of “systematically destroying” the health care system, and direct targeting of children.

The commission urged other countries to halt weapons transfers to Israel and block individuals or companies from actions that could contribute to genocide in Gaza.

“The international community cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Pillay, who is a South African jurist. “When clear signs and evidence of genocide emerge, the absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity.”

The current U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, has decried Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and spoken out forcefully against alleged crimes, but has not accused Israel of carrying out genocide.

His office, alluding to international law, has argued that only an international court can make a final, formal determination of genocide. Critics counter that could take years and insist that thousands of people, many of them civilians, are being systematically killed in Gaza in the meantime.

The International Court of Justice is hearing a genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.