The key facts
- The UN commission says that since October 2025 Israel has expanded its control in Gaza from 53% to at least 60% of the territory
- The UN commission claims that since October 2025 Israel has expanded its control in Gaza from 53% to at least 60% of the territory
- According to the commission, fire from Israeli forces along the front line has killed at least 196 Palestinians, including 43 children; the Palestinian health ministry reports more than 1,400 killed in the year of the ceasefire
- According to the commission, Israeli forces' fire along the front line has killed at least 196 Palestinians, including 43 children; the Palestinian Health Ministry reports more than 1,400 deaths over the year of the ceasefire
- Israel rejected the report, calling the commission's work a disinformation campaign
UN commission's findings
The UN's independent international commission of inquiry said on Monday that Israel continues to commit 'genocidal acts' with intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part, despite the ceasefire in place since October 2025, reports The National. The commission also accused the Israeli military of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank.
The situation in Gaza after the ceasefire
According to the commission, since the ceasefire came into force Israeli forces have expanded their territorial control from 53% to at least 60% of Gaza's territory. Fire from Israeli forces along the advancing front line, the report says, has killed at least 196 Palestinians, including 43 children. Commission chair Nisrine... actually, chair Shrinivasan Muralidhar stated that the expansion of Israeli control continues to lead to the killing and injury of Palestinian civilians who approach or cross the 'yellow line' — the boundary between the Israeli military control zone and the rest of the enclave established by the ceasefire agreement. According to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the year since the ceasefire.
The West Bank
The report, presented to the UN General Assembly, also accuses the Israeli authorities of crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including extermination, persecution, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence. In the investigators' view, military operations, reinforced by settler violence, constitute a widespread and systematic attack on Palestinian civilians. The report says that strikes on civilians in different parts of the West Bank point to a high level of coordination and organised planning and are the product of state policy. The commission found that Israeli airstrikes killed 254 Palestinians in the West Bank from October 2023 to September 2026 — compared with six in the period from 2008 to October 2023. The displacement of more than 34,000 Palestinians was also documented, described as the largest displacement in the territory since 1967.
Israel's reaction and the commission's status
The three-member commission was created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international law. Its findings could be used as evidence in future international criminal proceedings, although the commission itself has no power to prosecute suspects. Navi Pillay, the former South African Supreme Court judge who led the investigation until November 2025, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month. Israel rejected the findings: its mission in Geneva called for the commission to be disbanded, accusing it of 'a campaign of disinformation aimed at demonising the State of Israel and portraying its very existence as criminal'. Israel has long disputed the commission's conclusions and has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide in Gaza and of sexual violence by its forces.
Why it matters
The report shows that, according to an international investigation, violence has continued even after the formal ceasefire: the expansion of control to 60% of the territory and the hundreds killed along the 'yellow line' directly affect the fate of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. The practical significance of the findings is that they could serve as an evidentiary basis in future international criminal proceedings, although the commission itself has no prosecutorial powers. The parties' assessments remain diametrically opposed: the commission speaks of state policy, while Israel speaks of a disinformation campaign, and a definitive legal assessment is possible only through judicial proceedings.
