NEW YORK CITY/LONDON: The UN secretary-general condemned on Tuesday the “systematic destruction” of Gaza City, but insisted it was for the international courts to determine whether Israel is committing genocide.
Taking questions at UN headquarters, Antonio Guterres said it was not his role to make a legal determination of genocide after a team of experts commissioned by the UN’s Human Rights Council concluded that Israel is doing just that in Gaza.
UN agencies, global bodies and governments face mounting pressure to say that Israel’s conduct in the Palestinian territory since is began military operations in October 2023 amounts to genocide.
Asked whether he believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Guterres said: “As I’ve said, time and time again, in these and different, similar circumstances, it is not in the attributions that the secretary-general to do the legal determination of genocide.
“That belongs to the adequate judicial entities, namely the International Court of Justice.”
Guterres nevertheless said that what is happening in Gaza is “horrendous.”
“We are seeing massive destruction of neighborhoods, now the systematic destruction of Gaza City, we are seeing massive killing of civilians in a way that I do not remember in any conflict since I (became) secretary-general,” he said.
“With the consequences that the Palestinian people are suffering a horrendous situation, famine, with no access to any kind of support, and with continued displacement and imminent risk of losing their lives at any moment.”
He added: “The truth is that this is something that is morally, politically and legally intolerable.”
Guterres’s comments came in response to a damning 72-page report by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel published on Tuesday.
Not only did the findings say that Israel has, since October 2023, committed and continues to commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, it found the incitement to do so came from the highest political and military figures of the Israeli state.
These included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
“The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and a legal emergency,” Navi Pillay, head of the three-member commission of inquiry and a former International Criminal Court judge, told a press briefing in Geneva.
“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.”
The report is based on a meticulous study of factual and legal findings in relation to attacks in Gaza by Israeli forces and the conduct of Israeli authorities.
The panel found Israel had committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by a 1948 international treaty known as the “Genocide Convention.”
The four acts are: Killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
The timing of the report’s release could not have been more pertinent, coming shortly after Israel announced a full-scale ground assault on Gaza City — the territory’s largest urban center.
While the conclusions may not come as a surprise to many, the significance of its findings could have global repercussions.
The commission itself is not a legal body, but the report could be incorporated into cases by prosecutors at the ICJ and the ICC.
The ICJ is examining a case brought by South Africa accusing Israeli forces of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for both Netanyahu and Gallant for the war crime of starvation and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and “other inhumane acts.”
The report was immediately attacked by Israel, but was widely welcomed by Palestinians and their supporters.
The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the occupied West Bank, said the report had “unequivocally proven” that Israel had committed the crime of genocide in Gaza “through a deliberate and widespread policy aimed at the systematic destruction of the Palestinian people.”
The ministry called on the international community to take steps to protect the Palestinian people and “halt all forms of military and political support for Israel.”
The report does not represent the UN’s official position on whether acts of genocide have been carried out in Gaza, but it will increase pressure on UN agencies and governments to use the word.
Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, also said it was up to the courts to decide “whether it’s genocide or not” but that the evidence was mounting.
“We see the piling up of war crime after war crime or crime against humanity, and potentially even more,” he said.
In the UK, where the government has come under increasing pressure to take a tougher stance against Israel, a Foreign Office spokesperson told Arab News that any formal determination as to whether genocide has occurred “should be made following a judgment by a competent national or international court.”
“What is happening in Gaza is appalling and we continue to call on Israel to change course immediately by halting its ground offensive and letting in a surge of humanitarian aid without delay,” the spokesperson said.
In a letter earlier this month, the former Foreign Secretary David Lammy wrote that the government “had not concluded that Israel is acting with genocidal intent.”
A joint statement from civil society organizations, including the British Palestinian Committee and Palestine Solidarity Campaign said that the commission of inquiry’s findings confirmed that Lammy was not only “wrong” but showed the extent of UK complicity in Israel’s crimes.
“This government has been playing a linguistic and legal game with MPs, the British public, and the lives of Palestinians,” the statement said. “Rather than doing everything in its power to protect an occupied people, the UK government has opted to back a state committing war crimes.”
The left-wing parliamentarian Zarah Sultana said the report confirmed what was already clear: that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
“This is the most documented genocide in history,” she wrote on X. “The government’s position was already morally indefensible. It is now politically untenable.”
Nimer Sultany, an expert in international law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, said the report was a nail in the coffin of a “genocide denial” that has delayed governments from acting against Israel.
He told Channel 4 News that the report was a “damning indictment of the policy of the UK government, of the European Commission, of European states, that have failed to act, that have continued to shield Israel from accountability.”
Israel’s foreign ministry said it “categorically” rejected the report, describing it as “distorted and false.”
The report follows a resolution passed earlier this month by the International Association of Genocide Scholars saying Israel’s conduct meets the legal definition genocide laid out in the 1948 UN convention.
Israel faced further international pressure last week when the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of reviving the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine without involving Hamas.
The “New York Declaration” was presented jointly by and France, with the two countries set to host an international conference on the two-state solution at the UN headquarters on Sept. 22.
The French presidency said on Tuesday that the event was the “only viable solution and option on the table in order to come out of this terrible crisis.”
The “vast mobilization” of international support by and France for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict aims to convince the US that there is an “absolute urgency” to end the war in Gaza, the French presidency said on Tuesday.
The idea for the conference “came as a result of the state visit that President (Emmanuel) Macron paid to ” last year, the Elysee said in a high-level briefing attended by Arab News.
“We were working with in reflecting on what kind of initiative we could jointly take in order to get a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the war and a political solution to the crisis that would lead finally to the creation of two states and bring peace and security to all people in the region.”
A decision was made by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Macron last December to organize and elevate the proposed conference as a mechanism for implementing the two-state solution.
The UN General Assembly later voted to give a mandate to and France to host the conference, which held its first stage at the UN in July.
That event resulted in the New York Declaration, which was hailed by French Ambassador to the UN Jerome Bonnafont as a “single road map to deliver the two-state solution.”
Though the New York Declaration condemns Hamas and seeks to secure its international isolation, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon last week accused the majority of the UNGA of “advancing terror.”
US diplomat Morgan Ortagus told the chamber that the resolution was a “gift to Hamas,” adding: “Far from promoting peace, the conference has already prolonged the war, emboldened Hamas and harmed the prospects of peace in both short and long term.”
The French presidency rebuffed those accusations on Tuesday, warning that the “atrocious humanitarian catastrophe” and “unbearable human toll” in Gaza could only be resolved “on the basis of a political horizon for the two-state solution.”
The New York Declaration lays out “both a timeframe and irreversible step towards the two-state solution that would start with a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and humanitarian aid being offered without constraint to the Palestinian population in Gaza,” the Elysee said.
As part of post-war efforts to stabilize Gaza, a reformed Palestinian Authority must be allowed to operate in the enclave through a UN Security Council mandate, it added.
The French presidency highlighted that “all the Arab countries, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation leaders and the Arab League leaders” accepted the plan, which would see Hamas “have no part” in the administration of post-war Gaza.
The PA’s leader Mahmoud Abbas wrote a letter to Macron and the crown prince on June 9 which, in part, committed to reforming the authority.
As part of the joint international project, a slew of major countries — including Canada, Australia, Belgium and Portugal — have committed to recognizing Palestine at the Sept. 22 conference.
“This is the most significant movement since a long while because, for the very first time, UN Security Council member states but also G7 member states will recognize the state of Palestine,” the Elysee said.
“This will create a way for us to say that the two-state solution cannot be wiped out by the Israeli operation that we see happening on the ground.”
The French presidency expressed its concern over Israel’s recent strikes on Qatar that targeted Hamas leaders.
In the wake of the attack, leaders from the UK, France, Canada, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt held an emergency remote meeting, pledging solidarity with all Gulf states.
“No country should be stricken and the sovereignty of the neighboring countries of Israel should be respected. We managed to get a clear condemnation in the UN Security Council,” the Elysee said.
“But we need this collective mobilization to be crystal clear, and we hope for Sept. 22 to bring light on this international mobilization that needs to move the needle, and needs to convince the US that there is an absolute urgency to end this war.”
