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Israel accused again of the crime against humanity of extermination as governments and MSM fail

A blistering report from UN experts has determined that Israel is committing:

the crime against humanity of extermination.

The report is a summary of “factual and legal findings” by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. It wouldn’t be outlandish to consider that this statement may well reverberate around the inevitable denials, detractions, and outright lies from Israelis defending their genocide.

Extermination in a legal sense has a precise application, and is used to denote “intentional and massive homicide of an entire group of persons.”

Journalist Assal Rad called out the lack of coverage from mainstream media of what should be a landmark moment in global legal understanding of Israel’s genocide:

Israel attacks

The report outlines in meticulous detail how Israel have destroyed numerous education facilities. And, importantly:

The Commission could not identify any military objective for the demolitions of educational facilities.

Between 7 October 2023 and 25 February 2025:

  • 403 of a total 564 schools were directly hit by Israeli bombs
  • approximately 1 million displaced people have been sheltering in clearly marked UNWRA shelters in Gaza since October 2023, and at least 742 people have been killed and at least 2406 injured by Israeli attacks
  • more than 57 university buildings completely destroyed
  • 612 staff reported killed, and 2769 injured, along with 190 academic staff reported killed

Not only have Israel systematically destroyed schools and universities, they have made efforts to raze them to the ground. And, whilst sending terrified Palestinians running for shelter from their attacks, have even bombed schools and hospitals being used as places of shelter from bombs.

Religious attacks

The report also examined Israel’s attacks on religious and cultural sites in Palestine. As of November 2024, UNESCO has confirmed damage to 75 religious and cultural sites in Gaza. The World Bank assesses this damage of up to $120 million. In comparison to the damage caused to such sites in 2014, the report found that:

This represents a 100-fold increase in the estimated cost of damage, mirroring the unparalleled rise in attacks on cultural and religious sites in Gaza since October 2023.

The report also notes allegations against Israeli security forces who are accused of looting Palestinian heritage and culture sites. As with their attacks on schools being used to shelter people, the commission outlines how Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked people sheltering in mosques from bombing. Israeli settlers are also known to have attacked religious sites, including graffitiing slurs on religious sites and burning mosques. The report finds a pattern of Israeli impunity:

The Commission has documented many incidents in which Israeli officials have: seized or allowed settlers to seize cultural heritage sites; excavated, developed and expanded such sites for tourism purposes, including those containing artefacts representing various cultures and periods in history, while excluding non-Jewish history.

Israeli authorities have also allowed – and some would argue enabled – Israeli settlers to take over historically Palestinian areas:

Israel has also increasingly taken steps to seize, expand and develop for tourism purposes sites that have Jewish and non-Jewish historical significance in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, including in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

The report found that:

The purported need to protect heritage sites has been used for decades as justification for the displacement of Palestinians.

Palestinians are restricted from entering their own religious and cultural sites:

Palestinians worshippers wishing to enter the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount site have been subjected to increased security checks, checkpoints, harassment and assault, and criteria, linked to age, gender and place of residence, have been applied by Israeli authorities to restrict which Palestinians are allowed to enter.

Genocide

The report concludes that:

The destruction of the education system in Gaza is one element on a continuum of harm to educational facilities and personnel across the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The education system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has suffered from increasing military operations by Israeli security forces, harassment of students, checkpoints, demolitions and settler attacks, affecting more than 806,000 students.

As many UN reports before this one has found, Israel is violating – with total impunity – established international legal norms.

The Commission finds that the increased military operations by Israel in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the acquiescence of Israel in settler violence there, are a violation of the obligation of Israel to ensure the safety of the occupied population.

And, crucially, this latest report establishes Israel’s purposeful destruction of Palestinian religious and cultural sites:

Since October 2023, Israeli security forces have caused damage to more than half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip as part of their wider campaign of devastation of civilian targets and infrastructure.

After detailing Israeli attacks at the Ihya al-Sunna Mosque and the Saad al-Ghafari Mosque, the commission finds that:

the conduct of the Israeli security forces that caused the death of civilians at the two aforementioned mosques was part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Gaza since 7 October 2023 and that Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination.

Israel is committing extermination

One particular recommendation that should ring loudly in the ears of Starmer and his ilk is that:

The Commission recommends that all Member States…cease aiding or assisting in the commission of violations; and explore measures to ensure the accountability of perpetrators of international crimes, grave human rights violations and abuses in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Of course, this determination of extermination comes as individual activists have had to take it upon themselves to do what governments and mainstream media won’t: hold Israel to account. The kidnapped crew of the Madleen have continued their protest. One crew member, Thiago Ávila, has begun a hunger strike; his counterpart Greta Thunberg has received international media with accounts of their detention and deportation by Israeli authorities; Rima Hassan is still detained by Israeli authorities.

And, the Maghreb land convoy has departed for Rafah just days ago. Diplomats, activists, and volunteers are travelling from Algeria, through Tunisia, and eventually planning to arrive in Rafah. Middle East Monitor reported that:

The land convoy will include union and political figures, as well as human rights activists, lawyers, doctors, journalists, and members of youth organisations.

Already on its departure from Algeria, the convoy has attracted thousands of supporters to see them off, and even join them. Mainstream media and governments may well ignore both this report and the actual impact of both the Madleen and the Maghreb land convoy but the message is clear: people around the world stand with Palestine and are willing to risk everything while governments remain not only complicit, but guilty.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maryam Jameela

This post was originally published on Canary.