UN report exposes continuing genocide in Gaza, crimes against humanity and rape by Israelis
“Similar to Gaza, the Commission finds that, in the West Bank, Palestinian children are deliberately targeted on discriminatory grounds based on their age.”
According to a new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, the Israelis “continue to commit genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza” despite the so-called ceasefire. The report also states that they have “committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the West Bank since 7 October 2023.”
Published on Monday, the report details Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as well as several accounts of rape and sexual violence against Palestinians and flotilla activists. It also concludes that “the targeting of children by the Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank is deliberate.”
Violence in the West Bank
The report reveals that fatalities have “significantly increased” in the West Bank as a consequence of Israeli policies. The Israeli disregard for Palestinian lives and impunity is best summed up by the commanding officer of the Israeli Army’s Central Command, Major General Avi Bluth, who stated in May 2026 that Israeli soldiers are “killing like we haven’t since 1967.”
The Commission noted that, replicating its modus operandi from Gaza, the Israelis have significantly expanded the use of airstrikes in the West Bank. The report states that “six Palestinians were killed by airstrikes in the West Bank; between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2026, 254 Palestinians were killed.” It describes the use of airstrikes as an “import of the Gaza strategy of total destruction into West Bank operations.”
“Military operations since January 2025 have led to the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967; with 34,176 Palestinians remaining displaced as of August 2026,” the report adds.
The Commission investigated “seven cases of killings and acts causing bodily and mental harm” for the report. In all these cases, the victims — including children and an infant — were unarmed and posed no threat. It came to the conclusion that the “Israeli soldiers intentionally killed all the victims.”
The Israeli authorities and military have not initiated inquiries into any of the killings investigated by the Commission, reflecting the impunity enjoyed by Israelis when targeting Palestinians.
Rape and sexual violence
The Commission had extensively documented the systematic nature of rape and the humiliation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a report in March 2025.
It verified four additional cases of sexual violence in detention by Israeli forces, “including gang rape, genital violence, groping of breasts and threats of sexual violence, forced nudity and cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification.”
It has documented several instances of horrific rape and sexual violence perpetrated by the Israelis against Palestinians in captivity:
In one case from 2025 which occurred at Meggido prison during interrogation, a male victim was blindfolded, forced to remove his lower garments and bend over on his knees exposing his genitals to male and female prison guards. He was then gang raped multiple times with objects while prison guards mocked and photographed him, squeezed his penis threatening him it would be cut off until he screamed in pain. He was also threatened that family members and colleagues would be raped. The victim sustained serious injuries, including bleeding from the rectum, for which he did not receive any medical treatment.
In another instance, a pregnant woman was sexually abused and deprived of adequate nutrition, which affected her ability to feed her child:
In a recently investigated case from 2025, a pregnant detainee was subjected to multiple strip searches accompanied by beatings. While in Damon prison, she was made to undress completely while a female guard touched and looked inside her vagina and anus while humiliating her. As a result of inadequate nutrition, compounded by mistreatment in detention, she was unable to produce breastmilk for her infant once released.
Another female detainee was forced to undress in the presence of male guards, sexually humiliated, and beaten:
The Commission received an account of another woman subjected to multiple invasive body searches and forced nudity during her detention and interrogation at Jalma Interrogation Center and Damon prison. On one occasion, she was made to undress, unveil and was searched in the presence of male guards which was particularly humiliating. On another occasion, female soldiers touched her breasts, made her squat naked while they looked inside her vagina and anus. During her interrogation, she was subjected to beatings, denied access to the toilet, inflicted with abusive gender discriminatory slurs and asked, “how she slept with her husband”, and denied sanitary pads, which stained her clothing and interrogation chair.
Continuing genocide in Gaza
The Commission documents the use of “heavy and unguided munitions in densely populated areas, alongside drones, quadcopters and sniper fire, resulting in the systematic destruction of civilian life and objects” in the Gaza Strip.
“These patterns have continued after the so-called October 2025 ceasefire, with sustained air, artillery, drone and gunfire attacks resulting in over 1,431 people being killed, including at least 300 children and 130 women, and 5,026 injured as of 30 September 2026.”
The Israelis have treated the so-called yellow line as a de facto “new border,” ruthlessly killing any Palestinians who venture near it. “Between 10 October 2025 and early April 2026, at least 196 Palestinians were killed near the Yellow Line, including 18 women, 32 boys and 11 girls,” the report adds.
Moreover, the Yellow Line continues to eat up ever more Palestinian land: “By 2 September 2026, Israeli-controlled areas have expanded from 53 percent of Gaza envisaged under the ceasefire agreement to at least 60 percent.”
The report notes that Netanyahu “instructed Israeli forces to seize 70 percent of Gaza, indicating that territorial expansion will continue,” while Eyal Zamir has described the line as Israel’s “new border.”
Sexual violence against flotilla activists
The Israelis have not even spared Global Sumud Flotilla activists from their sexual depravity. The report details several instances of rape and sexual violence against flotilla activists after their detention by Israel.
One activist was raped with a metal detector:
In one case, a victim was forced to undress completely at the infirmary of the detention facility where his genitals were searched with a metal detector. The handle of a metal detector was inserted into his anus multiple times.
Another activist was taunted for his perceived sexual orientation, threatened with rape, and subjected to homophobic insults:
In another case, an HIV positive man was arrested and made to stand in the heat wearing a jacket after which he fainted. He was also denied water and his HIV medication which was destroyed in front of him. He was persistently humiliated, made to stick a sign on his file written “HIV” and was continuously singled out and insulted due to his perceived sexual orientation, appearance and associated illness, slapped in the face, threatened with rape, and a rifle was brushed against his buttocks. He was also subjected to partial forced nudity, and to homophobic and derogatory insults such as “faggot” and his penis being infected.
The Commission also documented more cases of sexual violence and rape against Palestinian detainees in the Israeli rape and torture dungeons:
In one case, a plastic cord was tied around the victim’s genitals during interrogations for a prolonged period of time while he was told to urinate, in another, a victim was raped with a stick and forced to insert it into his mouth, until he vomited.
Conclusions
The report concludes that the Israelis perpetrate sexual violence as part of a broader campaign of collective punishment.
“The Commission finds that sexual and gender-based violence by the Israeli soldiers and settlers is instrumentalised not only as punishment against the individuals, but as part of a pattern of collective punishment to fracture, expel, humiliate and subjugate the Palestinian population in its entirety,” it says.
It adds that sexual violence has the full backing of the Jewish state:
Furthermore, the Commission finds that the Israeli authorities support and encourage such acts. The Commission therefore concludes that the Israeli authorities and security forces have committed the crimes against humanity of torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity against the civilian population.
The report reiterates an earlier UN conclusion that the Israelis, who have killed more than 22,000 children in Gaza alone over the past three years, deliberately target children as part of a broader pattern of attacks on civilians.
“The Commission finds that the targeting of children by the Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank is deliberate,” the report adds. “Similar to cases of sexual violence, the Commission finds that Israeli authorities knew and intended the conduct against children to form part of the attack against the broader civilian population.”
It also reaches the conclusion that the attack on Palestinians is coordinated and part of a well-organised state policy: “The Commission finds that the targeting of Palestinian civilians across different locations in the West Bank indicates a high level of coordination and organised planning and is the product of state policy.”
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