Genocide in Gaza: On Israel and UN Commission of Inquiry finding Politics & News

The UN Commission of Inquiry, after a multi-year investigation, has concluded that Israeli authorities have committed genocide in Gaza. The finding is hardly surprising as the world’s leading rights organisations, including two Israeli groups, and genocide scholars, had already accused Israel of committing what is one of the gravest crimes in international law. Yet, the finding would lend weight to such reports and resonate before the International Court of Justice, which is hearing genocide charges against Israel, and the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UN Commission found “reasonable grounds” to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts — killing members of a community, serious bodily and mental harm, actions aimed at destroying the group, and preventing births — have been carried out since the war began following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. Israel, which denies allegations of genocide and war crimes, has killed at least 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza in 23 months, many of them women and children. “The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” says the panel’s leader, Navi Pillay.

It is tragically ironic that Israel, a nation built by the survivors of the Shoah, is committing genocide against Palestinians. On the day the UN Commission released its report, Israel launched yet another ground offensive in the famine-stricken Gaza City. Israel’s responses to reports of war crimes and mass killings have invariably been further escalations, killing and displacing even more Palestinians. The war, prolonged by Mr. Netanyahu for his political survival, has left a stain on Israel’s national compass and deepened its global isolation. In the weeks ahead, France, the U.K. and several other countries are expected to recognise Palestinian sovereignty, while the European Commission has proposed to suspend trade concessions with Israel and sanction extremist Ministers. Yet, Israel, shielded by the U.S., shows little concern. The Trump administration is unlikely to turn up the heat on its closest ally. But Europe should start treating Israel as what it has become — a rogue state with genocidal intent and actions. India, once a champion of the Palestinian cause, has so far refrained from directly criticising the Jewish nation. But it should realise that an uncontrollable, expansionist Israel, blowing international law to smithereens, is not in India’s national or regional interests. New Delhi should speak up against the genocide and use its leverage to help bring the war to an end.