https://arab.news/p2bwg
The conclusion of the UN commission of inquiry, which on Tuesday confirmed the existence of genocide in Gaza, comes after exhaustive research into both Israel’s actions and its intent. The commission’s declaration follows similar conclusions made by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations based on research in the Occupied Territories, including the Gaza Strip.
According to its conclusion, the UN commission of inquiry conducted its research between October 2023 and July 2025. During the latter months of this period, we saw conclusive images of how Gaza was suffering famine conditions — as was confirmed in August by the World Health Organization.
The UN commission correctly combined the facts and research into the one-sided attack on the civilians of Gaza: women, children, the elderly and the disabled. It included medical workers, journalists, educators and workers in food kitchens.
The factual research covered attacks on physical properties, including infrastructure and structures of humanitarian need, such as bakeries, hospitals, houses of worship and educational facilities, as well as water and other such institutions. Commission chair Navi Pillay wrote in a New York Times article that “starvation has been used as a weapon of war and that the medical system has been deliberately destroyed. Maternal healthcare has been severely undermined. Children have been starved, shot and buried under rubble.”
According to UNICEF, one child dies in Gaza every hour. These are not accidents of war. They are acts calculated to bring about the destruction of a people. The use of the term “genocide” was confirmed by the UN commission due to the Israeli leaders’ repeated deliberate efforts to dehumanize Palestinians, as reflected in their statements comparing Palestinians to animals. Such genocidal statements have not been limited to lower-ranking officials but, according to the report, included top officials, such as the country’s military and political leaders. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister at the time of the Oct. 7 attacks, said, “We are fighting human animals,” while President Isaac Herzog proclaimed that the entire Palestinian nation was responsible.
The importance of this confirmation of genocide lies with the obligations that member states of the UN are now bound to honor. Pillay stated that international law explicitly requires member states to work on preventing genocide in real time. She wrote: “The obligation to prevent genocide arises the moment a serious risk is evident.” Pillay argued that the threshold was crossed in January 2024, when the International Court of Justice put all states on notice that there was a serious risk that genocide was being committed in Gaza. Since then, the evidence has only grown and the killing multiplied.
How does all this translate into the issue of responsibility? The obligations in this case are not optional, as every single UN member state must do its utmost to stop genocide when it occurs. That requires action: halting the transfer of weapons and military support used in genocidal acts, ensuring unimpeded humanitarian assistance, stopping the mass displacement and destruction, and using all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the killing.
To do nothing is not neutrality. Those countries that fail to do anything become complicit and bear equal responsibility for the crimes committed by the nation actually carrying out the genocide. Already, some Western countries have reacted both to these conclusions and the constant demands of their own people and local civil society organizations, who are demanding that their governments act decisively.
However, the efforts of the international community have so far failed to slow down or stop the Israeli genocide, which has instead been escalating in recent weeks with the attempt to occupy Gaza City, the biggest city in the Strip. Once again, we are seeing Israeli officials celebrating the destruction of high-rise buildings. Such destruction is not a legitimate act of war, nor does it fit the laws of war. Israeli military engineers enter such buildings and, after ordering civilian residents to leave, spend plenty of time wiring them with explosives, which means that the building and its civilian noncombatant inhabitants are clearly not legitimate military targets.
Those countries that fail to do anything become complicit and bear equal responsibility for the crimes committed.
Daoud Kuttab
The failure to stop the genocide rests largely on the shoulders of the US and some of its allies, which refuse to act to stop it. In fact, they are publicly supporting Israel’s actions and continue to supply their ally with the weapons and ammunition necessary to continue its genocidal actions.
Arab and Muslim leaders, meeting in an emergency summit in Doha, called on the world to suspend the supply, transfer or transit of weapons, ammunition and military materials — including dual-use items — to Israel, while reviewing diplomatic and economic relations and initiating legal proceedings against Tel Aviv. Article 16 of the Doha communique also talks about the suspension of Israel’s membership of the UN.
It is unlikely that Washington and other Israeli allies will heed the call of the 60 UN member states that attended the Doha summit. The question that remains is whether these countries will have the courage and political will to meet their commitments and carry out their threats to suspend all relations with a country accused of genocide.
- Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. He is the author of “State of Palestine Now: Practical and Logical Arguments for the Best Way to Bring Peace to the Middle East.” X: @daoudkuttab