IDF assault into Gaza City as UN commission asserts Israel has committed genocide

The launch of a ground operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into Gaza City on 16 September 2025 coincided with a UN commission the same day declaring that Israel “has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

Initiation of the ground operation saw IDF armoured units and infantry brigades entering the ruins of the city, preceded by an intense bombing of the area. The IDF’s intentions are to both seek out remaining Hamas fighters in the city and “create the conditions” under which the last remaining hostages taken by Hamas during its 7 October 2023 terrorist attack on Israel can be freed.

Meanwhile, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, which has been investigated events on and since the 7 October 2023 attack, 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”.

The UN report was based on all the commission’s prior investigations, as well as factual and legal findings in relation to attacks in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces, and the conduct and statements of Israeli authorities from 7 October 2023 until 31 July 2025.

“Israel has flagrantly disregarded the orders for provisional measures from the International Court of Justice and warnings from Member States, UN offices, human rights organisations and civil society groups, and continued the strategy of destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the UN commission. Pillay is a South African former UN human rights chief who was president of the international tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide. The commission has two other members: Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer; and Miloon Kothari, an Indian expert on housing and land rights.

The UN commission concluded that “genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference” that could be concluded from the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and military forces in Gaza.

The Israeli administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unsurprisingly rejected the findings of the UN commission, as did the US State Department of the Trump Administration, with both asserting that the 7 October terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel was a genocidal event.

In total, 1,195 people were killed by the Hamas attacks, while 3,400 civilian and IDF soldiers were wounded and 251 taken captive (of whom 74 later died in captivity or were confirmed dead).

Israel’s consequent campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has killed 65,643 Palestinians as of 10 September, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

With the exception of the US Trump Administration, Israel’s Western allies have strongly condemned the IDF’s actions in Gaza. The United Nations, and most European countries that have been erstwhile allies of Israel, have premised their hopes for a lasting peace in the Middle East on a two-state solution that would deliver a homeland to the Palestinians. On 12 September the UN General Assembly again overwhelmingly endorsed that position.

The Netanyahu government, however, has long moved beyond any such considerations. On 13 September Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated on X that the UN two-state declaration was “a diplomatic attack on Israel” and called for Israel to “apply sovereignty to the West Bank.

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin added, “It is time to apply sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley [the biblical names for the Palestinian territories]. This is the appropriate Zionist response!”

It appears that perhaps the only thing holding Israel back from annexing Palestinian territories is the inevitable collapse of the Abraham Accords as a consequence, which could seriously compromise the Trump Administration’s support for Israel.