United Nations investigators on Tuesday accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza in a bid to “destroy the Palestinians,” blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials for incitement.
The report was immediately rejected by Israel as “distorted and false,” with Jerusalem noting its authors’ history of vehemently anti-Israeli positions.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) does not speak on behalf of the UN, and has faced harsh Israeli criticism. While it is not a legal body, its reports can influence diplomatic pressure and serve to gather evidence for later use by courts.
The commission announced it had concluded that Israel has carried out four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: “Killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”
The UN itself has not labeled the situation in Gaza a genocide, although the body’s aid chief urged world leaders in May to “act decisively to prevent genocide,” while its rights chief last week denounced Israel’s “genocidal rhetoric.”
Tuesday’s report was published after a two-year investigation by the commission following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror onslaught, to which it only made a fleeting reference, while not including any...
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