A United Nations panel that has long denounced the Jewish state—the so-called Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel—did so again in a new 19-page report.
The panel accuses Israel of “war crimes and the crimes against humanity of extermination, persecution, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence” and of “intentionally targeting Palestinian civilians as it continues to commit genocide in Gaza.”
The U.N. commission also said in the report, which was released on Monday, that Israel is guilty of crimes in Judea and Samaria.
It said that the Palestinian Authority “has targeted Palestinians, who voice dissenting views,” and “journalists and human rights defenders have been killed and injured, resulting in an increasingly diminished civic space.”
The report mentions “Hamas” in passing twice, but neither reference faults the U.S.-designated terror group for leading the Oct. 7 attacks.
The report is “yet another manifestation of its misinformation campaign to demonize the state of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal,” the Israeli mission to the U.N. in Geneva stated.
The commission’s work has come under scrutiny this month after revelations by one of its panelists that the commission accused Israel of “genocide” without independently verifying facts and amid clear evidence the commissioners drew conclusions based on assumptions.
“Reflecting the institutional bias of this mechanism, the report fundamentally distorts history, recasting Israel’s defensive war for survival following the invasion by five Arab armies in May 1948 as a colonial ‘expulsion’ policy,” the Israeli mission said on Monday.
“The attempt to destroy the Jewish state did not end in 1948,” stated Daniel Meron, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
“It continues today through efforts by actors such as the U.N. Commission of Inquiry to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and deny its fundamental right to exist and defend itself,” he stated.
“Substantial U.N. resources are being squandered on spreading misinformation, historical revisionism and extremist ideologies,” he added. “The international community must reject these distortions, repudiate the commission’s findings and demand its immediate dissolution.”
