UN demands Israel prevent 'genocide' in Gaza

The United Nations on Monday demanded that Israel take measures to prevent acts of "genocide" in Gaza, warning of "ethnic cleansing" across the Palestinian territory and the occupied West Bank.

A new report from the UN rights office said Israel's actions since October 2023 involved "gross violations" of international law, amounting in many cases to war crimes.

What did the UN report find about Israel's conduct in Gaza?

The UN rights office found that Israel's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023 constitutes "war crimes and other atrocity crimes."

The report covers the period through May 2025 and says a large proportion of killings appear unlawful. It also describes attacks on civilians, journalists and health workers as routine and repeated.

UN rights chief Volker Turk called on Israel to comply with a 2024 International Court of Justice order requiring it to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza.

He said Israel must ensure "with immediate effect" that its military does not engage in acts of genocide. Israel has repeatedly denied all genocide allegations.

Those allegations had previously come from rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as independent UN experts.

Monday's report marks the first time the United Nations itself has directly raised the demand in this form. Israel has forcefully rejected such characterizations at every stage of the conflict.

What did the UN report say about the Hamas attack and hostages?

The report also condemned "serious violations" by Palestinian armed groups during and after the October 7, 2023 attack, which killed 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians.

It highlighted the abuse suffered by hostages seized during that attack, many of whom reported torture and sexual abuse while held in what the report called "inhumane conditions."

"Most hostages who died in Gaza died while held in secret detention, either killed by their captors or by the impacts of the conflict occurring around them," the report stated.

The UN said this coverage of Palestinian armed group conduct was part of a comprehensive accounting of violations by all parties. The Hamas-run health ministry puts the Palestinian death toll at more than 72,000, a figure the UN considers reliable.

How does the UN report describe conditions in Gaza today?

Despite a ceasefire that took effect in October last year, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain displaced and living in tents.

Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the ceasefire had reduced the scale of violence and opened limited humanitarian space.

But he warned that killings and infrastructure destruction have continued on an almost daily basis.

Israel had, according to the report, directed attacks on healthcare facilities, civil defenders and humanitarian workers in a routine fashion. Living conditions across much of Gaza have been rendered "incompatible with Palestinians' continued existence as a group," the report said.

The UN rights office stressed that accountability through credible judicial bodies is essential.

What did the UN say about ethnic cleansing in the West Bank?

The report examined the West Bank separately, finding that violence there has spiraled since the start of the Gaza war.

It said "the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force" had led to hundreds of unlawful killings. "Force displacement on a mass scale" was documented across both territories.

The deliberate destruction of large parts of Gaza, combined with the emptying of refugee camps in the northern West Bank, showed strong indications that Israel intends displacement to be permanent, the report said.

Taken together, these patterns pointed to "collective punishment of Palestinians" and "ethnic cleansing of large parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory." The report also flagged dehumanizing language against Palestinians from Israeli officials, with no accountability observed.

Sunghay closed with a stark warning: "In a context like this, lack of action is not passivity. It is a license."