UN experts accuse Israel of genocidal acts and sexual violence in Gaza

Israel carried out "genocidal acts" against Palestinians by systematically destroying women's healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza, and used sexual violence as a war strategy, United Nations experts said in a report on Thursday.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the report's findings, saying they were biased and antisemitic.

"Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization...the United Nations once again chooses to attack the state of Israel with false accusations," he said in a statement.

Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February.

"Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention," said the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Those actions, in addition to a surge in maternity deaths due to restricted access to medical supplies, amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination, the commission said.

The report accused Israel's security forces of using forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.

During a series of hearings held by the commission this week in Geneva, a Gaza nurse identified only as Said for his protection, said that Israeli forces had kidnapped him and made him publicly strip down to his underwear. During his captivity, he was beaten in the genitals, he said.

"This is physical abuse, but it's also psychological abuse. It's designed to humiliate," said Chris Sidoti, one of three members of a commission of inquiry into abuses committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

ISRAEL SAYS POLICIES PROHIBIT SUCH MISCONDUCT

Israel has rejected the accusations.

"The IDF (Israeli Defence Force) has concrete directives ... and policies which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct", the permanent mission to the UN in Geneva responded in a statement, adding that its review processes are in line with international standards.

A previous report published by the Commission in June 2024 accused Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups of serious rights violations in the October 7, 2023 attack. In March last year a team of United Nations experts said there were "reasonable grounds, opens new tab to believe" sexual violence, including rape, occurred at several locations during the militant group's assault.

Israel is party to the Genocide Convention and was ordered in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice to take action to prevent acts of genocide during the war against Hamas.

It is not party to the Rome Statute, which gives the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to rule on individual criminal cases involving genocide and crimes against humanity.

South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel's actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice.

Hamas carried out a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering a devastating war in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.