UN-Mandated Inquiry Finds Crimes Against Humanity in West Bank
A three-member commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council has reported that Israeli authorities and forces have committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the occupied West Bank. Israel’s mission in Geneva rejects the findings and demands the commission’s dissolution.
Two points of precision matter here. The commission does not speak for the United Nations itself — it was mandated by the Human Rights Council in 2021 — and its remit covers harm caused by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces since October 2023, so this is not a one-sided inquiry. Its finding is that military operations, reinforced by sustained settler violence, amount to a “widespread and systematic attack” against civilians, with persecution “based on intersecting discriminatory grounds, with nationality, race and ethnicity at its core”, and that the authorities intended to collectively punish West Bank civilians. The report lands the day before Israel votes. Israel’s mission calls it part of a “misinformation campaign to demonise the State of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal”. The same commission found genocide in Gaza in September last year, a finding Israel also rejects. For scale, UN humanitarian figures record 1,143 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the three years to 9 October, at least 250 of them children.