After Nearly Two Years, The UN Has Declared That Israel Is Committing Genocide In Gaza
The UN has finally announced Israel guilty of committing four of the five genocidal acts in Gaza.
After almost two years, an independent UN commission has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, urging states to act without waiting for an official ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The commission, set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council to investigate and collect evidence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, announced Israel had committed four of the five genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention during a press conference on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
These include:
- Killing members of the group.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Under the Genocide Convention, a group is committing a genocide if it commits any of the five acts, which also includes forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, in whole or part.
This is the first time a UN commission has investigated reproductive violence as part of genocide, finding Israel deliberately destroyed fertility clinics and systematically targeted children in Gaza, threatening the “continuity and future existence of the Palestinian group in Gaza”.
The Commission said while it does not speak for the UN, the investigation is the strongest evidence yet that Israel is carrying out genocide.
It said statements of Israeli officials, including Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant “had incited the commission of genocide”.
While the ICJ and ICC can issue binding legal consequences on Israel, the commission urged governments not to wait.
The commission's head, Navi Pillay, added that all states, regardless of whether they signed the Genocide Convention, have a responsibility to take action and prevent genocide.
She said she hopes the international community will start to call what’s happening in Gaza by its name: a genocide.
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