A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli bulldozers demolish an apartment building belonging to the Salhab family near the Israeli settlement of Hagai, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. AFP
The report comes amid ongoing proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel over a plausible charge of committing genocide in Gaza. The court has ordered it to take all measures within its power to prevent such acts under the Genocide Convention.
In a 72-page report released on September 16, 2025, an Independent International Commission of Inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, finding reasonable grounds that Israeli authorities and security forces carried out acts with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part.
Since the outbreak of Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed 72,051 Palestinians and wounded 171,706 others, most of them women and children.
The report released Thursday, covering November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025, said the cumulative impact of Israel's military conduct during the war in Gaza, along with its blockade of the territory, had inflicted living conditions “increasingly incompatible with Palestinians' continued existence as a group in Gaza”.
“Intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza”, the office said.
“This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.”
In Gaza, the report condemned the continued killing and maiming of “unprecedented numbers of civilians”, the spread of famine, and destruction of the “remaining civilian infrastructure”.
During the 12 months covered in the report, at least 463 Palestinians, including 157 children, starved to death in Gaza, it said.
“Palestinians faced the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risking being killed while trying to get food,” the report said.
“The situation of famine and malnutrition was the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government,” with the deaths and suffering from hunger “foreseeable and repeatedly foretold”.
“Any use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of war constitutes a war crime, such conduct may also constitute crimes against humanity if committed as part of a systematic or widespread attack against a civilian population.”
“And, if carried out with intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group in whole or in part, may also constitute genocide.”
In the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem, the report said the “systematic use of unlawful force” by Israeli security forces, “widespread” arbitrary detention and the “extensive unlawful demolition” of Palestinian homes was being carried out to “systematically discriminate, oppress, control and dominate the Palestinian people”.
“These violations were "altering the character, status and demographic composition of the occupied West Bank, raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing", it said.
The report concluded that considered together, Israeli practices “indicated a concerted and accelerating effort to consolidate annexation of large parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to deny Palestinians' right to self-determination”.
It also said there was a pervasive climate of impunity for serious violations of international law by the Israeli authorities in the Palestinian territories.
Last week, UN rights chief Volker Turk warned that the world was witnessing “rapid steps to change permanently the demography of the occupied Palestinian territory”.
On Tuesday, Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to encourage “emigration” from the Palestinian territories.
And on Wednesday, UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo warned the Security Council that steps by Israel to tighten control of areas of the West Bank administered by the Palestinian Authority amount to “gradual de facto annexation”.
“Impunity is not abstract -- it kills. Accountability is indispensable. It is the prerequisite for a just and durable peace in Palestine and Israel,” Turk said in a statement.
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