Israel guilty of genocide, says UN Commission

Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza strip, an independent United Nations commission has found. 

The report, published Tuesday by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, found that “Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five possible genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” 

The genocidal acts committed by Israel according to the Commission are: 

• 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 
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births.

According to Article II of the Genocide Convention, any of the five acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic or racial group constitute an act of genocide. 

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission, in a press release issued by the Commission on Tuesday. “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.”

The Commission’s findings come as Israel has intensified its ground invasion of Gaza, with Al Jazeera reporting Wednesday that Israeli forces are “relentlessly [bombing] the area.” More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, with a civilian death rate of 83%, in the two-year offensive led by Israel. Estimates by UNICEF indicate that more than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since October 2023.

“The report, and the many reports like it, will need to remain front and center in our fight against injustice, against a fascist Israel and the Western powers that support it,” said Zahi Zalloua, Director of Indigeneity, Race and Ethnicity Studies at Whitman College. 

Zalloua, who has written extensively on the Palestinian struggle, urged that the recent report be considered in the context of Israel’s “unending war” against the Palestinians. 

“The truth of Israel’s genocide will be interpreted in multiple ways,” said Zalloua. “For the political and media class, the damning report will be neutralized: Israel can do better, but ultimately it’s Hamas’s fault (that is, ultimately, the fault of Palestinians—the notion that there are no innocents in Gaza, an Israeli talking point, is uncritically reinforced by Western mainstream media and political leaders).

“For Zionists and the far Right, the UN’s report will be intentionally distorted, couching it as further evidence of the rampant anti-Semitism in the international organization.”

Author, professor and cultural anthropologist Maura Finkelstein expressed doubts at the usefulness of a UN report which, for the people of Gaza, has come two years too late.

Finkelstein is thought to be first tenured professor in the U.S. to be fired for pro-Palestine speech.

“It’s shameful that – almost two years into this live-streamed genocide – the UN is only now saying what most of us have long known,” she said.

Finkelstein, whose 2024 dismissal from Muhlenberg College over anti-Zionist social media posts was found by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to be a violation of academic freedom, emphasized that “we have all failed Gaza.”

“Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza are being murdered everyday – we have all failed Gaza and this UN report doesn’t change that,” said Finkelstein.

Jenna Awadallah, a sophomore physiology neurobiology major at UMD, who is of Palestinian heritage, also expressed frustration at the UN decision. 

“We already knew this,” said Awadallah. “Its a good thing, but it’s taken a long time for them to finally announce that. It’s something that should have been acknowledged months ago.” 

For Awadallah, it’s hard to be hopeful.

“I’m hoping it pushe[s] countries to take action,” Awadallah said. “But it’s hard to be hopeful after seeing how disappointed we’ve been every time that we think there’s a breakthrough… I want to be hopeful, but it’s hard to.” 

Zalloua says failing to truly acknowledge the urgency of the report risks ensuring a continuation of Israel’s settler-colonialism.

“The UN report… must be critically reread in light of the Zionist settler-colonial project and ongoing Nakba,” said Zalloua. “There is no altering our consciousness of Gaza without such a reckoning and reframing of the war.”

“We cannot allow Israel to get away with genocide,” he said.

_{Image credits: Cover photo by Safiyah Fatima/Al-Hikmah Staff.}