UN-mandated investigators have said Israel committed crimes against humanity, including “extermination”, in the occupied West Bank. The findings were released on Monday.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which does not speak for the UN itself, also said Israel’s government and its forces bear responsibility for other war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence. The report was published as Israeli forces carried out a crackdown in Hebron, involving expulsions and demolitions, after a gun attack there last week.
Commission findings on military operations and settler violence
The three-member team, set up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, concluded that Israeli military operations, backed by ongoing settler attacks, amount to a “widespread and systematic attack” against civilians. It said Israeli authorities and forces had committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the West Bank.
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The report, issued the day before Israel’s general election, focuses on killings and bodily and mental harm caused by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces since October 2023. The commission found the situation in the occupied West Bank had deteriorated gravely since Hamas’s attack from Gaza that month. It also said Israeli authorities “intended to collectively punish” West Bank civilians because of that attack.
Israel rejects the report and recalls earlier Gaza finding
Israel’s mission in Geneva said the report was part of a “misinformation campaign” meant to demonise the state. In a statement, it urged the international community to reject the findings and demand the commission’s immediate dissolution.
The commission had earlier determined, in a September 2025 report, that Israel committed “genocide” in its war on Gaza following Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Israel flatly rejects that finding. Former South African High Court judge Navi Pillay, who chaired the investigation until November 2025, won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month.
Casualty figures from Gaza and the West Bank
Citing Gaza’s Health Ministry, the source material states that Israel’s military offensive has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza and killed more than 74,500 people. Figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs cover the West Bank for the period from October 7, 2023 to October 9, 2026:
- 1,143 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem
- At least 250 of those killed were children
The UN office’s figures are the most recent count cited in the commission’s reporting on the territory.
