A UN inquiry finds that Israeli authorities and forces committed crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including extermination, torture, rape and other sexual violence. It also finds that Israel continues to commit genocide in Gaza.
Here are paragraphs 58 to 61 of the report’s conclusions, quoted in full, with the footnote marker omitted:
III. Conclusions
58. Since the 1947-48 war, Israel has continuously striven to expand territorially and displace Palestinians through violence. The intentional killing and harming of Palestinians have clear demographic and ethnic considerations that stem from Israel’s colonising policies: seizing maximum land while minimizing the Palestinian population in relation to size, autonomy and viability. Such policies originate in historical practices and patterns of action and have resulted in the excessive and discriminatory application of lethal force, displacing and killing Palestinians over several generations, causing life-long physical or mental harm and disabilities. The Commission has repeatedly called for an end to the occupation, which has been ruled unlawful under international law, and an end to the cycle of increasing violence. Palestinians must be able to realize their right of self-determination.
59. Israeli state violence has accelerated since October 2023 and has, since the establishment of Israel, never claimed or impacted as many lives in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Over 75,000 Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been killed since 7 October 2023, including at least 21,500 children, and 11,000 women. While Israeli authorities and security forces continue to commit genocide in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated drastically. Israeli military operations, complemented by sustained settler violence, form part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population in the West Bank since 7 October 2023. Accordingly, 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, as well as persecution based on intersecting discriminatory grounds, with nationality, race and ethnicity at its core.
60. Sexual violence as a tactic of war has been used to displace, subjugate and destabilize the Palestinian people by humiliating and punishing on individual and collective levels. It includes the gravest forms, such as rape, reproductive violence and other forms of sexual violence also amounting to torture. People of all genders, ages and sexual orientations have been targeted for being Palestinian or due to their perceived political affiliation and support for the rights of Palestinians. The prevalence of sexual violence has been and continues to be widely reported, and met with almost complete impunity, indicating a tacit support of such practices by the Israeli authorities. Impunity for gender-based crimes against Palestinians indicates unwillingness, rather than inability, to act, underscoring the systematic and structural nature of the discrimination against Palestinians. Those responsible need to be punished to dismantle the permissive policy currently in place to guarantee non-recurrence.
61. Across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israeli forces deliberately killed and caused serious bodily and mental harm to Palestinian children on account of their status as Palestinian children. The Commission concludes that Israeli authorities and forces committed age-based persecution against Palestinian children in the West Bank, as they did in Gaza, which is a crime against humanity. The recurrence and widespread nature of attacks causing grave physical injuries and psychological harm demonstrate that the harm inflicted on children is not incidental or collateral to the broader violence affecting civilian population, but forms part of a pattern of intentional violence directed against Palestinian children. Notably, the absence of accountability has entrenched a discriminatory system in which violations and crimes against Palestinian children are repeatedly committed with impunity, normalized, and left without effective remedy or redress.”
PDF https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coiopt/ga-81-430-auv.pdf
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