Opinion: Why the UN’s Gaza Genocide Report Falls Short

In September 2025, a United Nations commission announced that Israel “has committed genocide” in Gaza. It was among the gravest findings the UN system has ever made against a state, and it was delivered at a press conference in Geneva. In my view, it did not earn the weight it was given. The report infers the one element that matters most, genocidal intent, from statements and patterns of conduct, and it does so from a record that its own authors say was built without Israel’s cooperation. This article sets out why I think the finding is far weaker than its headline suggests.

1. The legal bar is intent, not suffering

Nobody serious disputes that Gaza’s civilians have suffered enormously. The question the commission answered is a narrower one: did Israel intend to destroy Palestinians as a group? That intent, which lawyers call dolus specialis, is the hardest element in international law. Under the ICJ’s rulings in Bosnia v. Serbia and Croatia v. Serbia, intent inferred from a pattern of conduct has to be the only reasonable inference. Legal commentators have described meeting that standard in Gaza as an uphill climb (EJIL: Talk!; The Conversation).

Commission chair Navi Pillay said the panel drew its conclusion on intent from “statements made” by Israeli authorities and the “pattern of conduct” of the army (Swissinfo). Both can point elsewhere. Israel is fighting Hamas, an armed force that attacked it on 7 October 2023, and it points to evacuation warnings, humanitarian corridors and strike-review procedures as evidence of a military rather than annihilating purpose. Critics of the finding argue those facts offer an obvious alternative explanation that the commission did not give enough weight. The commission and its supporters answer that warnings were inadequate and that genocidal intent can sit alongside military goals. That is the real argument, and it is not settled by a UN press conference.

2. A record built without one side

The commission acknowledged it did not have Israeli cooperation. UN Watch, an advocacy group that is itself strongly pro-Israel, argues in its legal analysis that the commission therefore had no access to classified material on military justifications, and that its sources were largely “confidential information” from victims and witnesses, UN reports, unspecified human rights organizations and media (UN Watch). UN Watch also says the report accepts casualty figures and media reporting without testing them and gives too little weight to Hamas’s role as a belligerent (UN Watch rebuttal). We flag UN Watch’s own stance, and we note it is a critic’s analysis, not a neutral audit.

In fairness, Israel’s refusal to cooperate is part of why the record looks lopsided. Commission member Chris Sidoti said he wished Israeli authorities would “address the substance of the report, but they never do” (Swissinfo). My view is that a finding this grave should not rest on a record where one party is absent, whatever the reason.

3. Death tolls tell you scale, not intent

The casualty numbers are the most emotionally powerful part of the case, so precision matters. The Gaza Health Ministry’s counts are treated by many researchers as broadly credible. A Lancet analysis estimated deaths to June 2024 at about 41% above the ministry’s tally (Reuters), and a household survey in The Lancet Global Health estimated roughly 75,200 violent deaths. That survey has since been challenged by Hebrew University demographer Sergio DellaPergola, who points to departures from the sampling protocol and interviewer-level anomalies (EurekAlert). The ministry does not separate fighters from civilians.

The deeper point is legal. As a West Point Lieber Institute analysis puts it, a civilian-to-combatant ratio “does not constitute evidence” of genocide, because genocide is defined by intent and policy, not by casualty comparisons (Lieber Institute). That cuts both ways, and I think it cuts against reports that treat scale as proof.

4. The people behind the findings

Fact-finding bodies live on perceived impartiality. These are the documented episodes that, in my view, damaged it.

• Miloon Kothari, commission member. In a 2022 podcast interview Kothari said social media was “controlled largely by, whether it is the Jewish lobby or it is specific NGOs” trying to discredit the commission. He later apologized, calling the wording “incorrect, inappropriate, and insensitive.” Israel rejected the apology and called for the commission to be disbanded, and the US antisemitism envoy and US ambassador to the Human Rights Council condemned the remark (JTA; Times of Israel). Pillay at the time defended his remarks as taken out of context. A member who makes that remark about a party’s critics is not well placed to lead a genocide finding against that party’s state.
• Navi Pillay, chair. Pillay is a distinguished jurist and former ICC judge, and she rejects accusations of antisemitism (AP). My criticism is of judgment: she announced the finding as “the ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and a legal emergency” (Reuters). That is advocacy language, delivered while a court case was pending and a ground operation was starting in Gaza City.
• Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur. In March 2024 she concluded there were “reasonable grounds” to believe genocide had occurred, and she called for an arms embargo and sanctions (UN report; The National). She did so while the ICJ had expressly left that question undecided. In February 2024 she also wrote on X that those killed on 7 October “were not murdered because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel’s oppression” (Euronews). France’s foreign minister cited posts like that, and her appearance at an Al Jazeera forum alongside Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Iran’s foreign minister, when calling for her resignation. We are not repeating the widely circulated “common enemy of humanity” line, because UN experts and fact-checkers say the clip was edited (France 24). The US sanctioned her in July 2025 over her ICC-related advocacy (Reuters).

All three have defended their independence. The three commissioners resigned together in 2025, effective 3 November, and say the decision was unrelated to outside pressure (Middle East Eye).

5. What the other side says, and why it matters

Many serious people reach the opposite conclusion. Geneva Graduate Institute professor Vincent Chetail called the report “a thorough, factual inquiry” from an official commission (Swissinfo), and Reuters reports that a scholars’ association and rights groups reached the same conclusion. The ICJ has already ordered Israel to prevent acts under the Genocide Convention, though it has not ruled on whether genocide occurred. Israel filed its counter-memorial in March 2026, South Africa’s reply is due in November 2027, and Israel’s rejoinder in May 2029 (ICJ order, via UN). A final judgment is years away.

Bottom line

My view is this. A genocide finding should rest on a balanced record, investigators whose impartiality is beyond question, and proof of intent that excludes the alternative explanations. By those tests, the UN commission’s report falls short, and the way it was announced made things worse. That does not make Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe any less real, and it does not excuse any war crime. It means the word “genocide” should be left to a court that hears both sides.

Related: Lebanon’s Salam demands full Israeli withdrawal, the Gaza and Lebanon news hub and our Investigations hub. Reply or send corrections through our Contact page.