Justice (Retd) S. Muralidhar rebuts US, Israeli criticism of UN report on Gaza genocide
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Justice (Retd) S. Muralidhar, head of a UN Commission of Inquiry, rebutted US and Israeli criticism of its report accusing Israel of continuing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank despite the October 2025 ceasefire.
Israel’s envoy to the UN dismissed the report as “historical fiction”, while the US called its findings baseless and accused the UN of institutionalised antisemitism.
Responding at the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee on Monday, Muralidhar described the US representative’s remark that Israel was treated as “the Jew among nations” as “a thoughtless and tasteless comment, and maybe even racist”.
“I would strongly resist this attempt by the United States to delegitimise the work of this commission,” he said.
Muralidhar defended the commission’s methodology, saying its conclusions were based on evidence collected under established protocols aligned with those of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. “We don’t arrive at conclusions unless we are completely satisfied,” he said.
He rejected allegations that the commission had ignored Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. He said it had documented the atrocities and submitted a separate report on actions by Palestinian armed groups in June.
The report said more than 72,600 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and over 1,000 in the West Bank between October 7, 2023, and October 9, 2025. After the ceasefire, another 1,431 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 137 in the West Bank between October 10, 2025, and September 30, 2026.
“Israel is acting with impunity, and it is high time for the world community to act, and it should act now,” Muralidhar said.
The commission also documented killings of unarmed Palestinians, sexual violence in detention, displacement and settler violence in the West Bank. It said Israeli military operations and settler violence formed part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population”.
Muralidhar addressed the committee by video after not receiving a visa to travel to the US. The commission said Israel had not responded to two requests for information.