Israel condemns ‘distorted and false’ UN Commission accusation of genocide
The three members of the commission announced their resignations in July to take effect later this year, reportedly to try and avoid US sanctions
The Israeli government has strongly condemned a report from a UN Commission of Inquiry which claims a genocide has been carried out in Gaza, describing it as “distorted and false” and accusing the three members of the commission as “serving as Hamas proxies”.
The commission, which despite being associated with the UN is independent from the organisation and does not speak for it, has claimed that Israel has committed four of the five acts of genocide defined by the 1948 genocide convention, including “Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group in whole or in part”, as well as “imposing measures intended to prevent births”. More births have been recorded in Gaza since 7 October 2023 than deaths in the same period from Israeli strikes.
Critics of the commission’s findings have pointed out that it has relied on the same out-of-context statements previously used by those who have sought to accuse Israel of genocide. For example, the commission cited then-defence Minister Yoav Gallant saying, days after 7 October, that Israel was “fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”, without acknowledging that it was clear from the context of his comments that Gallant was referring to Hamas, rather than Gazans as a whole. Similarly, the Commission cited comments by Isaac Herzog, Israel’s President, who said “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” – failing to acknowledge that in the exact same press conference he made it clear that the targeting of innocents in Gaza would not be countenanced.
The commission’s membership was composed of Navi Pillay, Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti. Kothari has previously publicly questioned why Israel is allowed to be a member-state of the UN and claimed social media is “controlled largely by the Jewish lobby”. Pillay, who defended Kothari’s comments, has previously dismissed antisemitism concerns as a “diversion” and “lies,” and called Israeli security concerns “a fiction.” Chris Sidoti, the third member of the commission, has stated that accusations of antisemitism are “thrown around like rice at a wedding”. In 2024 he claimed that Israel’s killing of children was the “greatest of any conflict in recorded warfare.” As of September 2025, the number of children Hamas has said have died in Gaza is approximately 20,000 – around 1.3% of the number of Jewish children killed in the Holocaust.
In July, all three members of the panel submitted their resignations, effective in November, in what is believed to have been a defensive step to try and avoid sanction by the United States.
Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said the country “categorically rejects the libellous rant published today by this commission of inquiry…throughout the 72 pages of this paper that the COI presented, the COI promotes a narrative serving Hamas and its supporters, in attempting to delegitimise and demonise the State of Israel.
“The report falsely accuses Israel of genocidal intent, an allegation it cannot substantiate, even by its cherry-picked data.”
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