At the United Nations in Geneva on 16 September 2025, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry invoked the heaviest word in the legal vocabulary: genocide. In its conference room paper A/HRC/60/CRP.3, presented during the Human Rights Council’s 60th session, the Commission concluded that Israeli military operations in Gaza since October 2023 meet the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 Convention. Semantics about “proportionality” and “collateral damage” fall away; what remains is the attempt to destroy, in whole or in part, a people.

The arithmetic of destruction

Between 7 October 2023 and 31 July 2025, the Commission records 60,199 Palestinians killed in Gaza — including 18,430 children and 9,735 women. Entire extended families were erased in single strikes. A Lancet analysis estimates Gaza’s life expectancy collapsed from 75.5 to 40.5 years in the first war year — a loss of nearly 35 years — excluding indirect deaths from malnutrition and lack of care.

Method matters. Investigators detail heavy unguided munitions dropped into dense neighbourhoods; tank and sniper fire on evacuation convoys; repeated strikes on hospitals and shelters. In March 2025, during a supposed ceasefire window, air strikes killed 400+ in a single night — more than half women and children — while “safe zones” and aid queues were themselves targeted.

Beyond body counts

Genocide is not only about killing. It also covers deliberately inflicting conditions of life designed to destroy a group. Since October 2023, the siege choked off food, water, electricity, and medicine. Doctors describe mothers dying after routine Caesarean sections for lack of antibiotics; infants starving as incubators fell dark; pregnant women miscarrying; cancer and dialysis patients left untreated. The report documents reproductive harm and starvation as a method of warfare.

Intent: the decisive word

Lawyers call it dolus specialis — the specific intent to destroy a protected group. The Commission grounds intent in both words and patterns: officials calling for “maximum damage” or to “erase” Gaza; rules of engagement urging soldiers to treat “everyone you encounter” as hostile; a consistent campaign of siege, starvation, and destruction of hospitals and shelters. The intent, the report argues, is etched into conduct.

Israel’s defence — and its collapse

Israel frames its operations as lawful self-defence against Hamas and accuses militants of using “human shields.” The Commission counters with scale and selection: by Israel’s own counts, roughly 17% of those killed were fighters — leaving 83% civilians. Families waving white flags were shot; “safe zones” were bombed; medics and aid workers were killed. The pattern, investigators conclude, is intentional.

A crime that binds all states

Genocide is a peremptory norm. Every state has a duty to prevent and punish it the moment a serious risk is known. That threshold, the ICJ ruled on 26 January 2024, was already met — ordering Israel to allow aid. With the Commission’s 16 September 2025 finding, the legal burden on third states intensifies: continued arms transfers risk complicity.

South Africa at the World Court

South Africa’s ICJ case forced a judicial reckoning. The Court’s order of 26 January 2024 recognised a “plausible risk of genocide” and instructed Israel to enable humanitarian relief. The Commission now moves beyond plausibility: genocide is ongoing. If the ICJ ultimately concurs, Israel would be the first state judged responsible for genocide while receiving large-scale Western arms — a contradiction with Suez- or Iraq-level consequences.

The silence of the powerful

Since October 2023, the United States vetoed multiple Security Council drafts; European states balanced statements with export licenses; Arab governments condemned yet sustained quiet coordination. The Genocide Convention (adopted December 1948) shares a birth year with the State of Israel — a symmetry that now reads as fracture: a state founded as refuge from extermination stands accused of exterminatory conduct.

A future on trial

The Commission recommends halting arms transfers, unblocking aid, and pursuing accountability. The larger test is whether the international system still intends its own words. If genocide can be declared, televised, and documented — and continue — then the term is emptied of meaning. The twentieth century’s trials were Nuremberg, Rwanda, Srebrenica. The twenty-first century’s crucible may be Gaza.

As of 16 September 2025, genocide is no longer an activist’s accusation. It is the formal judgment of a UN investigative body. What remains is the world’s answer to whether those seven letters — genocide — still bind states to act.