UN inquiry accuses Israel of extermination in West Bank and continuing Gaza genocide despite ceasefire

UN inquiry accuses Israel of extermination in West Bank and continuing Gaza genocide despite ceasefire

Israel has committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, persecution, torture and rape in the occupied West Bank, and is still carrying out a genocide in Gaza despite the ceasefire agreement last year, a UN commission of inquiry said on Monday.

A report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel states that Israeli forces intentionally targeted Palestinian civilians, and that Palestinians in the West Bank were being singled out on the basis of their nationality, ethnicity, gender and age.

The chair of the commission, Srinivasan Muralidhar, is due to present the report to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee this week.

“The intentional killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians and destruction of homes in the West Bank, combined with Israel’s persistent denial of responsibility, form part of a broader strategy to exterminate and displace Palestinians and impose conditions of life that are unlivable,” Muralidhar said.

The report documents a sharp escalation in the use of lethal force in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israel led by Hamas. Six Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by airstrikes between 2008 and Oct. 6, 2023, it said, compared with 254 between Oct. 7, 2023, and Sept. 30 this year.

The commission found that Israel has waged a “widespread and systematic attack” against civilians in the territory through military operations reinforced by sustained settler violence. The conduct of Israeli authorities showed they intended the two to work together as a coordinated assault on Palestinians, it added.

Torture, rape, reproductive violence and other forms of sexual violence formed part of that attack, the report said, and were employed with the intent to displace and subjugate the Palestinian people. Israeli forces have also deliberately killed and maimed children in the West Bank, as they have in Gaza, amounting to age-based persecution, it found.

In Gaza, the commission concluded that Israeli authorities continued to commit genocidal acts after the signing of what it called a “so-called ceasefire” in October last year, with the intent to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part.

“Israel’s expansion of territorial control in Gaza continues to result in the killing and harming of Palestinian civilians who approach or cross the Yellow Line” that separates eastern Gaza, which is under Israeli military control, from the west, where the Palestinian population is confined, Muralidhar said.

The commission traced what it called the root causes of the conflict back to the 1947-48 war, and concluded that Israel had sought ever since to expand its territory and displace Palestinians through violence.

In the West Bank, military operations since January 2025 had caused the largest displacement there since 1967, the report said, with 34,176 Palestinians still displaced as of August.

“Seizing maximum land while minimizing the Palestinian population, in relation to size, autonomy and viability, stems from Israel’s colonizing policies,” Muralidhar said. This had resulted in “the excessive and discriminatory application of lethal force … over generations,” he added.