Gaza genocide: will UN ruling change anything?

A United Nations commission of inquiry’s finding that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza has been described as a landmark moment, after at least 64,964 people have been killed in the occupied Palestinian territories in almost two years of war.

The commission cited statements by Israeli leaders, and the pattern of conduct by Israeli forces, as evidence of genocidal intent, and said its latest report on the war was “the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date”.

Israel firmly denies accusations of genocide and insists it’s conducting the war in Gaza in self-defence and in accordance with international law.

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What did the commentators say?

The findings will have a “profound impact”, said Paul Nuki in The Telegraph, because they will “make it harder” for governments to argue that sanctions are not needed when lawyers can point to the report of an independent UN commission.

The British government has previously said it hasn’t concluded that Israel is acting with genocidal intent, but that position will now “almost certainly be challenged” in the UK courts.

Although the reports are “not formally binding” for the work of international courts, they have a “strong persuasive value”, Professor Triestino Mariniello, an international law expert, told the Palestine Chronicle.

The International Court of Justice, which is currently hearing a case of genocide brought against Israel by South Africa, “cannot ignore” what the commissioners have said. And the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court “should expand the scope” of its investigations and “finally cover the crime of genocide”. This gives “unprecedented legal and political weight to the charge of genocide in Gaza”.

The findings will “feed into the growing international condemnation” of Israel’s conduct, said Jeremy Bowen on the BBC, as it also comes from Israel’s “traditional Western allies” and the “Gulf Arab monarchies which normalised relations with Israel in the Abraham Accords”.

“Legally, it is hard to prove the crime of genocide,” but as the war in Gaza is “continuing and perhaps escalating further”, the report is “going to deepen international divisions”.

Many Western countries, including the UK, have said that only a court can rule on whether genocide has been committed, said Bel Trew in The Independent, but it may “take a decade” for the International Court of Justice to rule. By then, there “won’t be much of Gaza – or its residents – left”.

What next?

As Israel launches its ground offensive in Gaza City, the report is “validation” for Palestinians, said Malak Benslama-Dabdoub, a lecturer in law at Royal Holloway University of London, on The Conversation. “For international law, it is a test.”

The verdict will either trigger “real accountability”, including sanctions, embargoes and prosecutions, “or it exposes the gap between lofty promises and political reality”.