Geneva, Switzerland – An independent inquiry commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) found that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

According to the report released on Tuesday, four of the five genocidal acts found in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention have been carried out in Gaza.

The report called on the international community to end the genocide and take steps to punish those responsible for it.

The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was created four years ago and is headed by former UN rights chief Navi Pillay.

The commission has documented reported human rights abuses and violations in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and about 250 were taken hostage.

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” Pillay said. “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.”

Pillay said ‘responsibility for the atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons’ over the nearly two-year war.

The commission concluded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had incited the commission of genocide.

To back up the finding, the report cites the scale of the killings in Gaza, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic.

A leading association of genocide scholars and several rights groups have also reached the same conclusion.

Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, statistics that the United Nations considers reliable. International researchers estimate that the true toll is much higher.

DW