A UN inquiry on the Israel-Gaza conflict concluded that both Israel and Hamas are equally responsible because they engaged in war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war. However, Israel's actions also amounted to crimes against humanity because they resulted in a significant number of civilian casualties.
The findings have been drawn from two different reports: one analyzed the incident of Hamas attack on October 7, and the second one studied Israel’s counterattack. The reports were published by the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI), which reserved unusual rights to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel claimed an anti-Israel bias in the report and rebuked the commission. The COI stated that Israel was not cooperative while carrying out their mission to collect data; it barred the investigators from entering both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva rejected the findings. “The COI has once again proven that its actions are all in the service of a narrow-led political agenda against Israel,” said Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva.
Hamas did not promptly reply to a comment request. On October 7, the day the military operation started, Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 250 hostage. A cross-border attack initiated by Israel as a military retaliation in Gaza claimed over 37,000 people's lives, according to Palestinian tallies.
The reports, which cover the conflict through the end of December, found that both sides committed war crimes, including torture, murder, outrages upon personal dignity, and inhuman or cruel treatment.
The report observed that Israel also committed additional war crimes by limiting humanitarian aids and supplies to the war-torn region of Gaza. It highlights that Israel used starvation as a method of warfare by denying access to essential and basic goods like food, water, shelter, and medicine to Gazans but “acted to prevent the supply of those necessities by anyone else.”
“The immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a strategy undertaken with intent to cause maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality, and adequate precautions,” the COI statement said.
Sometimes, the evidence gathered by such UN-mandated bodies has formed the basis for war crimes prosecutions and could be drawn upon by the International Criminal Court.
Mass killings, sexual violence, and humiliation:
The COI gathered information through victim and witness interviews, numerous submissions, satellite imagery, medical reports, and verified open-source data. In the 59-page report concerning the October 7 attacks, the commission confirmed four instances of mass killings in public shelters, indicating that militants likely had specific operational directives. It also noted a recurring pattern of sexual violence by Palestinian armed groups but was unable to independently corroborate reports of rape.
The longer 126-page Gaza report stated that Israel's use of weapons like MK84 guided bombs with significant destructive capabilities in urban areas violated international humanitarian law, as they cannot effectively distinguish between military targets and civilian objects. This was condemned by both Israel and some of its supporters. some of its supporters.