Human Rights Council Sixty-first session
23 February–2 April 2026
Report issued March 2026

“In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 examines the systematic use by Israel of torture against Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory since 7 October 2023, encompassing custodial and non-custodial practices that meet the threshold for genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. She documents how torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and the destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering. A continuous, territorially pervasive regime of psychological terror is being imposed, designed to break bodies, deprive a people of their dignity and force them from their land. This is not incidental violence. It is the architecture of settler-colonialism, built on a foundation of dehumanization and maintained by a policy of cruelty and collective torture.”

Read the full report here.

Geneva
16 September 2025

“Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a newreporttoday. The Commission urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.

The Commission has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

You can read the full report here.

The latest report from Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, from October 2025, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime”.

“The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel. Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this livestreamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation. It has exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest. The world now stands on a knife-edge between the collapse of the international rule of law and hope for renewal. Renewal is only possible if complicity is confronted, responsibilities are met and justice is upheld.”

You can read the full report here.

5 December 2024
This report documents Israel’s actions during its offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip from 7 October 2023. It examines the killing of civilians, damage to and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcible displacement, the obstruction or denial of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, and the restriction of power supplies. It analyses Israel’s intent through this pattern of conduct and statements by Israeli decision-makers. It concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Read the full report here.

14 November 2024
Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there, the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices* said in a new report released today.

“Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel,” the Committee said. “These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.”

Covering the period from October 2023 to July 2024, the report examines developments across the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan but focuses on the catastrophic impact of the current war in Gaza on the rights of Palestinians.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the Committee said.

The report documents how Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza has decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe that will have lasting health impacts. By early 2024, over 25,000 tons of explosives—equivalent to two nuclear bombs—had been dropped on Gaza, causing massive destruction and the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation, and toxic pollution.

Read the report here.

December 19, 2024
Gaza death trap: MSF report exposes Israel’s campaign of total destruction. Amid continued attacks, siege, and blockade, Israel is destroying conditions of life in Gaza. Repeated Israeli military attacks on Palestinian civilians over the last 14 months, the dismantling of the health care system and other essential infrastructure, the suffocating siege, and the systematic denial of humanitarian assistance are destroying the conditions of life in Gaza, according to a new Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report, "Gaza: Life in a Death Trap." 

The international medical humanitarian organization is urgently calling on all parties, once again, for an immediate ceasefire to save lives and enable the flow of humanitarian aid. Israel must stop its targeted and indiscriminate attacks against civilians, and its allies must act without delay to protect the lives of Palestinians and uphold the rules of war.

"People in Gaza are struggling to survive apocalyptic conditions, but nowhere is safe, no one is spared, and there is no exit from this shattered enclave," said Christopher Lockyear, MSF secretary general, who visited Gaza earlier this year.

“What our medical teams have witnessed on the ground throughout this conflict is consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”

Read the full report here.

13 March 2025
Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, according to a new report issued today by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.    

The release of the report was accompanied by two days of public hearings held in Geneva on 11-12 March, during which the Commission heard from victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as representatives from civil society, academics, lawyers and medical experts. 

Read the full report here.

19 December 2024
Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. 

In the 179-page report, “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water,” Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival. Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies.

Read the full report here.

From the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, June 13, 2022. “The Commission of Inquiry’s vital new report documenting Israeli forces’ systematic destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including educational, religious, and cultural sites, and war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, underscores the long overdue need for concrete actions to stop the Israeli government’s atrocities and hold perpetrators to account. […] Words are not enough. Without clear action from world leaders and all states, Israeli authorities show no signs of ceasing their campaign to exterminate and expel more and more Palestinians. History will judge all governments for what they do at this critical juncture.”

You can read the full oral report here.

“Ahead of the “High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution” (the “Conference”), scheduled for July 28-29 at the United Nations (UN) in New York, Amnesty International is issuing the following recommendations.

The conference must build a platform for immediate and effective application of international law, including the erga omnes obligations to prevent and punish genocide, the erga omnes obligations to prevent and punish apartheid and the implementation of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of July 2024 to bring to an end Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory once and for all. This conference’s success can only be measured by the extent to which states are prepared to step up their pressure on Israel and take concrete action. These actions and commitments must match the gravity of the situation amidst a staggering loss of Palestinian lives, the irreparable damage caused to Palestinians, including through extreme dehumanization and continuous violations of international law with impunity, and repeated attacks against the universal values and international obligations that are the foundations of the international community. “

You can read the full report here.

“Since October 2023, Israel has fundamentally changed its policy toward the Palestinians. Following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, Israel launched an intensive military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which is still underway more than 20 months later. Israel's onslaught on Gaza includes mass killing, both in direct attacks and through creating catastrophic living conditions that continue to raise the massive death toll; serious bodily or mental harm to the entire population of the Strip; large-scale destruction of infrastructure; destruction of the social fabric, including educational institutions and Palestinian cultural sites; mass arrests and abuse of detainees in Israeli prisons, which have effectively become torture camps for thousands of Palestinians held without trial; mass forced displacement, including attempts at ethnic cleansing and making the latter an official war goal; and an assault on Palestinian identity through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The outcome of this comprehensive assault on the Gaza Strip is severe, and at least in part, irreparable, harm to more than 2 million people living in the Gaza Strip, as part of the Palestinian people. An examination of Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

You can read the full report: https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide

“Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) is an Israel-based human rights organization working to advance the right to health for all under Israel's control, including Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, individuals without legal status in Israel, people held in Israeli incarceration facilities, and residents of Israel's social and geographic periphery. For over 37 years, PHRI has documented Israel's human rights violations and exposed the ways in which occupation and apartheid structurally undermine Palestinian health and dignity. The following position paper was authored by PHRI, with legal consultation from Prof. Itamar Mann. We dedicate this paper to Gaza's healthcare providers, medical workers, humanitarian teams, and all those who continue to care for others under fire, while risking their lives and enduring the genocide alongside their loved ones.”

You can read the full report here.

March 24, 2024
After five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 13,000 children. Over 12,000 are presumed dead and 71,000 injured, many with life-changing mutilations. Seventy percent of residential areas have been destroyed. Eighty percent of the whole population has been forcibly displaced. Thousands of families have lost loved ones or have been wiped out. Many could not bury and mourn their relatives, forced instead to leave their bodies decomposing in homes, in the street or under the rubble. Thousands have been detained and systematically subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. The incalculable collective trauma will be experienced for generations to come.

By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.

Read the full report here.

Human Rights Council
Fifty-ninth session
16 June–11 July 2025
Agenda item 7

“From economy of occupation to economy of genocide” - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese.

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 investigates the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. While political leaders and Governments shirk their obligations, far too many corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide. The complicity exposed by the report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility – each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people’s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.

Read the full report here.

The FRC finds the analysis team’s classifications plausible for the period (1 July – 15 August 2025), indicating Famine (IPC Phase 5) for Gaza Governorate and IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) for Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. The FRC finds the severity of conditions in North Gaza similar or worse than in Gaza Governorate. However, due to limited evidence on the population status in this area the FRC recommends not to classify North Gaza Governorate. Urgent steps should be taken to allow for a full humanitarian assessment in this governorate. The FRC also considers the analysis team’s classifications for the projection period (16 August – 30 September 2025) of Famine (IPC Phase 5), to be plausible for Gaza, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis governorates. The FRC also notes with grave concern the continued and large-scale killing of civilians while trying to access food deliveries and the inadequate planning, implementation, and monitoring of the privatized food distributions conducted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The FRC notes that food distributions conducted by the GHF do not meet the criteria to be classified as humanitarian assistance by the IPC. However, the shipments made by the GHF have been taken into full account during the review and classification process. Based on these conclusions the FRC again calls for urgent, comprehensive, and sustained action to end the swiftly deteriorating and ever-expanding humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.”
You can find the full report here.

“As of 15 August 2025, Famine (IPC Phase 5)—with reasonable evidence—is confirmed in Gaza Governorate. After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death. Another 1.07 million people (54 percent) are in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20 percent) are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3).

Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with Famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58 percent). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly.

Through June 2026, at least 132,000 children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition—double the IPC estimates from May 2025. This includes over 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death. Nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women will also require an urgent nutrition response.

Despite limited data, conditions in North Gaza Governorate are estimated to be as severe—or worse—than in Gaza Governorate.”
For the full article, please head here.

Responding to the European Commission’s review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement which found ‘indications’ that Israel is breaching its human rights obligations, Eve Geddie the Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office said:

“Despite its timid wording, the European Commission finally states the obvious: Israel is breaching its human rights obligations under the Agreement. This is an indisputable fact that Amnesty International, international courts, UN bodies, independent experts, prominent Palestinian, Israeli and international NGOs, scholars, commentators and former diplomats have been saying for years.

“It is unforgivable that it took the EU so long to launch this review and disturbing to see the EU fail to set out any measures it plans to take against Israel. Every day the EU delays meaningful action, is a greenlight for Israel to continue its genocide in the Gaza Strip and unlawful occupation of the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

“The EU and its member states have an obligation to ban trade and investment that could contribute to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and other grave violations of international law, including the crime against humanity of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.

“Now that they have determined there are ‘indications’ that Israel is breaching human rights, there is no excuse for inaction or delays. Every deal that EU member states do with Israel in the meantime, leaves them at risk of being complicit in Israel’s grave violations of international law, including genocide.

“Member states in favour of suspending the agreement must use all their diplomatic weight to ensure that opponents of the suspension, including Germany, fully understand the risk of complicity and the cruel toll on Palestinian lives of continued EU inaction. If the EU fails to live up to these obligations as a bloc, and seeks to shield itself from its clear legal obligations, its member states must unilaterally suspend all forms of cooperation that may contribute to violations of international law.”

Read the full press release here.