GENEVA (The Thursday Times) — Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza after the US-brokered ceasefire of October 2025, a United Nations commission of inquiry has found, and has committed crimes against humanity including extermination and torture in the occupied West Bank.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, said Israeli authorities had kept committing “genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza”. Its report to the UN General Assembly covers the period from the start of the war on October 7, 2023, to September this year.
A report by the same commission in September 2025 found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that senior officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited it. Israel called those findings scandalous.
‘A de facto border’
The commission said Israeli forces kept using heavy munitions, drones, quadcopters, artillery and sniper fire in densely populated areas during the ceasefire. The “Yellow Line”, presented as a temporary ceasefire boundary, was pushing further into Gaza and becoming a de facto border, which the report said reflected Israel’s expanding control of the territory.
Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people.
West Bank
In the West Bank, the number of Palestinians killed in airstrikes rose from six between 2008 and October 6, 2023, to 254 between October 7, 2023, and September 30 this year, the report said. Israeli military operations and sustained settler violence formed “a widespread and systematic attack” on the civilian population, it said, and military operations since January 2025 had caused the largest displacement of Palestinians there since 1967, with 34,176 still displaced in August.
“The Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and forces have committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the West Bank,” the report said, as well as persecution. Commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said the killing of civilians and destruction of homes there formed part of a broader strategy to exterminate and displace Palestinians. The commission also criticised the Palestinian Authority for targeting dissenters, and said journalists and rights defenders had been killed and injured.
Israel rejects report
Israel’s mission in Geneva called the report part of a misinformation campaign to demonise the country. “The attempt to destroy the Jewish state … continues today through efforts by actors such as the UN Commission of Inquiry to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and deny its fundamental right to exist and defend itself,” Ambassador Daniel Meron said, urging the international community to repudiate the findings.
The report came as Israelis voted in a general election that will decide whether Netanyahu stays in power.
