Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s health-care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, and used sexual violence as a war strategy, United Nations experts say in a new report.
In its report released Thursday, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said the use of heavy explosives in civilian areas and Israeli attacks on hospitals and health facilities.
It said all three led to “disproportionate violence against women and children.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the report’s findings, saying they were biased and antisemitic.
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization … the United Nations once again chooses to attack the state of Israel with false accusations,” he said in a statement.
Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February.
“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” said the UN commission’s report.
Those actions, in addition to a surge in maternity deaths due to restricted access to medical supplies, amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination, the commission said.
The report accused Israel’s security forces of using forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
The resulting war in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
IDF says policies ‘prohibit such misconduct’
The commission also accused Israeli security forces of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian detainees. Israel denies any systematic abuse of prisoners and says it takes action when there are violations.
Israel has rejected the accusations.
“The IDF [Israeli Defence Force] has concrete directives … and policies which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct,” the permanent mission to the UN in Geneva responded in a statement, adding that its review processes are in line with international standards.
A previous report published by the commission in June 2024 accused Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups of serious rights violations in the 2023 attacks, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
In March last year, a team of United Nations experts said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” sexual violence, including rape, occurred at several locations during the militant group’s assault.
The commission is led by former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay. Its findings can be used as evidence for the International Criminal Court or other bodies that seek to prosecute war crimes.
Palestinian officials say people in Gaza could soon run out of clean drinking water. After Israel cut off the electricity supply to Gaza this weekend, a desalination plant in Deir al-Balah has been running at about 30 per cent capacity on backup generators.
Israel is party to the Genocide Convention and was ordered in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice to take action to prevent acts of genocide during the war against Hamas.
It is not party to the Rome Statute, which gives the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to rule on individual criminal cases involving genocide and crimes against humanity.
South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel’s actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice.