UN commission says genocide continued in Gaza during ceasefire

A United Nations commission says Israel continued committing genocide in Gaza after the ceasefire that began last October.² The conclusion carries forward an earlier determination: a report issued last September had already said Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, before the US-brokered ceasefire.³ The latest report therefore places the commission’s finding in the period after the truce began, rather than presenting the genocide conclusion as new to this report.²³ The commission also attributed crimes against humanity and war crimes to Israeli forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.³ Its listed findings include extermination, persecution, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence.³

The report places the latest findings against the Hamas-led attacks in 2023, which its account says killed 1,200 people and led to 251 people being taken hostage.³ It also records the scale of Israel’s response using figures from the health ministry: more than 74,000 Palestinians killed and nearly all Gaza’s population displaced.³ The two measures describe different effects: one counts deaths, while the other describes displacement across the population.³ The report’s earlier genocide finding came in September, before the ceasefire; the new finding says the commission considers the conduct to have continued after that change in conditions.²³ The commission’s earlier work was chaired by Navi Pillay, whom RNZ described as a 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.²

In June, the commission issued a separate report accusing Israel of deliberately targeting and killing children in Gaza.³ Israel condemned that report, according to the account of its release.³ The latest report turns attention to the West Bank as well, describing its situation as having deteriorated gravely since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.² It says sustained settler violence there formed part of an attack against Palestinians that was widespread and systematic.² The commission also said sexual violence was used to force Palestinians from their homes and accused Israeli forces of intentionally killing and injuring children in the West Bank.³

The report gives a comparison of deaths from West Bank air strikes: 254 Palestinians were killed between October 7, 2023 and the end of September that year, against six deaths between 2008 and the October 7 attacks.²³ Those counts cover different periods, and the commission’s comparison sets the shorter interval around the 2023 attacks against the earlier span beginning in 2008.²³ Military operations in the West Bank since January last year had displaced more than 34,000 Palestinians by August, according to the commission.² The commission characterized that as the largest displacement there since 1967, making the figure a comparison with earlier displacement in the West Bank rather than a count of all Palestinians affected by the conflict.² Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said the West Bank actions belonged to a broader strategy aimed at exterminating and displacing Palestinians.³

The commission’s account also describes the ceasefire boundary in Gaza as changing over time.³ It says the Yellow Line shifted from a temporary marker into a de facto border that continued to advance.³ When the ceasefire was declared in October 2025, the Israeli military held roughly 51 per cent of Gaza’s territory, while the commission later put Israeli-controlled areas at at least 60 per cent.³ The commission’s description thus presents control as extending across a larger share during the truce, rather than remaining at a fixed line.³ The two percentages refer to territory held or controlled, not to the share of Gaza’s population counted as displaced.³

From the signing of the ceasefire until early April, the commission counted at least 196 Palestinians killed near the Yellow Line, including 43 children.³ That figure is specific to people killed near the line during the stated interval; it is not the report’s overall death toll for Gaza.³ The commission reported that Israeli forces used heavy munitions, drones, quadcopters, artillery and sniper fire in densely populated places during the truce.² The report’s account therefore pairs a changing territorial boundary with continued military activity and deaths near that line.²³ These findings concern the ceasefire period, while the commission’s separate comparisons of West Bank deaths and displacement cover their own specified time windows.²³

The report also criticized the Palestinian Authority, linking it to killings after it targeted Palestinians who expressed dissent, including journalists and human rights defenders.³ Muralidhar said the authority had not properly investigated those deaths.³ He also noted that the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force had risen since the October 7 attacks.³ These criticisms address the Palestinian Authority’s actions and investigations; the report’s findings about Israeli forces and settlers are distinct claims in the same account.²³ The report’s treatment of responsibility therefore includes allegations concerning more than one actor, without making the findings interchangeable.³

Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the latest report, describing it as propaganda detached from reality and accusing the commission of seeking to delegitimize Israel.² Israel’s mission in Geneva separately called the report part of a misinformation effort intended to demonize the country.³ The account of the report’s release says it came the day before Israel’s general election.² Another account says the national election was scheduled for October 27, with Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot close in polls cited by NPR.⁵ Danny Citrinowicz said Netanyahu’s election-season security message presented him as Israel’s protector who would respond harshly.⁵

A separate West Bank operation followed the killing of two soldiers near Hebron by Palestinian gunmen, and municipal authorities said it displaced more than 3,000 people.³ The Israeli military said that operation would run for several days and reach dozens of other West Bank areas.⁶ Homes near the shooting location were being bulldozed on Friday afternoon, according to the report.⁵ The Israeli High Court then temporarily stopped demolitions after a lawyer filed a petition for two factory owners.⁴ The sources present the operation as both a response to a deadly attack and an action occurring just before an election, while reporting that analysts linked its scale to electoral politics.³⁵

Separate counts of violence against agriculture also describe different periods and categories.⁴⁶ The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission recorded 409 attacks by Israeli forces or settlers against farmers and agricultural property during October to date.⁶ OCHA counted 199 settler attacks connected to the olive harvest between September 1 and October 12, with one Palestinian killed, 124 injured and more than 2,500 trees and saplings damaged.⁴ The 409 and 199 totals cannot be read as competing counts of the same set: their stated time ranges and definitions differ.⁴⁶ Together, the reports describe findings in Gaza, West Bank displacement and violence, and attacks affecting Palestinian agriculture, while keeping their counts tied to separate places, periods and measures.²³⁴⁶