The United Nations has urged Israel to prevent “acts of genocide” in Gaza and voiced alarm over “ethnic cleansing” across the occupied Palestinian territories and the West Bank.
The new report by the UN Human Rights Office, released on Monday (May 26), investigated Israel’s military conduct in the Gaza war up to May 2025 and concluded that Israel had “committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, in many cases amounting to war crimes and other atrocity crimes.”
Numerous investigations, including those by the UN and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, have concluded that Israel’s war on the tiny enclave amounts to genocide, with nearly 73,000 people killed according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The UN report stated that while the Israeli military sought to rescue “hostages” and some attacks targeted military objectives, many of the killings were “unlawful.”
The war launched by Israel after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on southern Israel – which killed around 1,200 people and took 240 hostages – was paused by a ceasefire last October. However, the Israeli military maintains a strict security regime, and hundreds more have been killed in the past seven months.
Conflict monitors warn that since a ceasefire deal was reached with Iran last month, Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip have increased. Violent settler and military raids in the West Bank have also escalated.
The UN report warned that “Israel’s coordinated and accelerated practice of destroying the fabric of Palestinian life while consolidating annexation of large parts” of the occupied territory represented a deeply worrying trajectory.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called on Israel to “prevent the commission of acts of genocide,” ensure that displaced Palestinians are allowed to return home, and “end its unlawful presence in Palestinian territory.”
The report also condemned Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for “violating international human rights law … unlawful killing” and urged them to “cease indiscriminate fire.”
Regarding the current situation, Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories, told a press briefing on Monday that the ceasefire had not led to “meaningful accountability” or “any fundamental assessment of the core driver – the prolonged occupation.”
On violence in the West Bank, he said: “Israeli military, police forces and settlers are killing ever more Palestinians with impunity, often together.”
“Impunity only fuels recurrence,” Sunghay emphasised. “Most of the horrific acts documented here, and those documented for decades before, have gone unpunished, with no prospect of justice for the victims.”
