On March 22, Al Mayadeen English detailed the findings of a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on “Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023.” This investigation focused primarily on the hideous, industrial scale rape and sexual abuse of male and female Palestinian detainees in Zionist Occupation Force (ZOF) prisons, a phenomenon so pervasive it can only be dedicated, determined policy, signed off upon and directed by the highest levels of the Israeli government.

Reinforcing that horrifying conclusion, buried within the Commission’s report are bombshell passages unequivocally charging the Zionist entity with deliberately committing “genocidal acts” in Gaza, consciously and intentionally “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group.” The details provided are irresistibly persuasive, and point to "Israel" being in flagrant breach of both the Rome Statute, and Genocide Convention. In a truly just world, the mainstream media’s mass omertà on this landmark ruling would in itself be a criminal act.

Ever since October 7^th 2023, it has been inarguably clear that the Zionist entity is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Within days of Tel Aviv’s unconscionable assault on the open air concentration camp erupting, Israeli historian Raz Segal, an endowed professor in the study of modern genocide, branded the ZOF’s campaign “a textbook case of genocide”. Mainstream rights groups have repeatedly levelled the accusation. Even elements of the media, which have overwhelmingly whitewashed Tel Aviv’s 21st-century Holocaust, acknowledge this reality.

However, no major international organization has hitherto formally inculpated the Zionist entity of genocide. While an October 31, 2024, UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People meeting featured several “experts” who decisively declared "Israel’s" actions in Gaza to be genocidal, the organization did not officially endorse their sentiments. Meanwhile, a case brought against Tel Aviv by South Africa in the International Court of Justice in December the previous year has produced mixed results.

On January 26th 2024, the ICJ issued a provisional ruling, ordering the Zionist entity to undertake all measures to prevent any acts contrary to the Genocide Convention, but did not demand a ceasefire. On May 20 that year, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan announced he was seeking international arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, for “crimes against humanity” committed in Gaza since “at least” October 8^th 2023.

Netanyahu has freely travelled internationally and met with foreign government leaders ever since, despite ICC demands for local authorities to arrest the Israeli premier and render him to The Hague. Multiple Western officials have openly stated they won’t abide by the Court’s warrant. Now that the UN has openly accused the Zionist entity of genocide though, such intransigence may crumble. The Genocide Convention imposes a duty to prevent genocide on all signatories, including via extradition of suspects. Those failing to comply themselves become legally culpable.

‘Only Inference’

The sections of the UN Commission’s report making an explicit charge of genocide against the Zionist entity document the ZOF’s December 2023 shelling of the Basma IVF Centre, “Gaza’s largest fertility clinic.” The strike destroyed around 4,000 embryos, as well as 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilized eggs. This amounted to “all the reproductive material stored in the laboratory.” The ZOF’s assault also deprived the facility of liquid nitrogen, vital for keeping storage tanks cold and preserving their contents for future use.

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The Commission “determined through visual analysis of pictures from the scene that the extensive damage to the building’s exterior and interior was caused by a large calibre projectile.” This was “most probably” a shell fired from a ZOF tank. The clinic was a standalone building, with its name “clearly marked,” and there was no evidence “this IVF clinic was a legitimate military target.” The Commission thus found the ZOF “intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic…the main fertility centre in Gaza”:

“The Commission concludes that the destruction of the Basma IVF clinic was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act under the Rome Statute and Genocide Convention. The Commission also concludes that this was done with the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, in whole or in part, and that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question.”

The determination that "Israel" is committing genocide in Gaza is reiterated in areas of the Commission report discussing how the Basma IVF Centre’s destruction was no one-off, or the result of an indiscriminate blitzkrieg. The ZOF was found to have “intentionally and systematically attacked and destroyed reproductive and maternal health facilities across Gaza, including maternity hospitals and maternity wings of hospitals.” These “direct attacks on reproductive and maternal health…resulted in killings and caused serious bodily and mental harm to Palestinians.”

The Commission declares, “the only inference that could reasonably be drawn” from the ZOF’s deliberate devastation of “reproductive health care, infrastructure and facilities that provide essential services for the population of Gaza to survive and reproduce exhibits the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part” - genocide, in other words. Elsewhere, the Zionist entity was further found to have violated “the norm of customary international humanitarian law that affords special protection to women and children in armed conflicts” with such conduct.

‘All Means’

The Commission frames the ZOF’s genocidal acts as part of a wider, concerted campaign specifically intended to inflict “unimaginable misery” upon “pregnant women, new mothers and newborns.” They were particularly impacted by Israel’s siege of Gaza, under which “the entry, content and amounts of humanitarian assistance” permitted is tightly controlled by Tel Aviv. This includes “necessary medications and equipment to ensure safe pregnancies, deliveries and neonatal care,” but also basic essentials indispensable to human survival, including “food, water, medicine and shelter.” 

Meanwhile, Zionist entity authorities have routinely denied Palestinians in urgent need of medical care - “including patients with gynecological cancer” - approval to leave Gaza and seek treatment elsewhere. Pregnant women thus “suffered from a multitude of issues, including avoidable complications and no access to reproductive health services.” They “were forced to undergo unsafe deliveries due to not reaching hospitals and painful deliveries without access to adequate pain relief and medication,” resulting in “reproductive harms” and “prolonged physical and mental suffering”:

“Reproductive harms to pregnant, post-partum and lactating women amount to…the war crime of willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health…The harm for pregnant, lactating and new mothers is of an unprecedented scale in Gaza. Furthermore, lack of access to sexual and reproductive healthcare has caused immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls that will have irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and the physical reproductive and fertility prospects of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group.”

Given these findings, the overwhelming majority of governments the world over now have a clear legal obligation to do anything and everything in their power to halt the Zionist entity’s obliteration of Gaza and its people. Presently, 153 countries are parties to the Genocide Convention, and multiple international precedents state signatories must “employ all means reasonably available” to them to prevent genocide from occurring. This duty depends on a state’s “capacity to influence effectively the action of persons likely to commit, or already committing genocide.”

Failing to stop providing aid or assistance to a state or entity committing genocide could violate a country’s responsibilities under Article I of the Genocide Convention, so too failing to help hold accountable and punish all those responsible for perpetrating genocide. This includes investigating, extraditing, and prosecuting suspects, both independently and in tandem with other parties. The Rome Statute similarly compels signatories to assist in prosecuting suspects via the ICC. Governments could of course opt to follow Hungary’s lead, simply withdrawing from the ICC outright.

Yet, with incontrovertible evidence of the Zionist entity’s genocidal intent and actions in Gaza gravely multiplying daily, and the UN now having overtly accused Tel Aviv of genocide, the international freedom of movement hitherto enjoyed by Israeli officials may have constricted further. Moreover, a proverbial gauntlet has been thrown down at the feet of many states which claim to hold international law so dear. In turn, long-overdue justice for Palestinians could be inching closer.