UN Urges Israel to Prevent Gaza Genocide, Warns of Ethnic Cleansing

United Nations urged Israel on Monday to prevent “acts of genocide” in Gaza and expressed concerns over “ethnic cleansing” in the Palestinian territory and the occupied West Bank.

A new UN Human Rights Office report investigating Israel’s military conduct in the war on Gaza through May 2025 concluded that Israel committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law,” which in many cases “may have amounted to war crimes and other atrocity crimes.”

Multiple investigations, including by the UN and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, found that Israel’s war on the enclave amounted to genocide. The Gaza Ministry of Health reported nearly 73,000 people killed.

The report stated that while the Israeli military sought the return of hostages and some attacks targeted military objectives, many killings were “unlawful.”

The war began after Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage. A ceasefire in October halted major combat, but the Israeli military maintains a strict security regime and hundreds more have been killed in the past seven months.

Conflict monitors warn that Israeli bombardment of Gaza has accelerated since a ceasefire with Iran last month. Violent raids by settlers and the military in the West Bank have also increased.

The UN report warned that Israel’s “concerted and accelerating practice of undermining the fabric of Palestinian life while consolidating the annexation of large parts” of occupied territories marks a deeply troubling trajectory.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called on Israel to “prevent the commission of acts of genocide,” ensure displaced Palestinians can return home, and “end its unlawful presence in the Palestinian territory.”

The report also condemned Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups for “abuses of international human rights … unlawful killing” and called for them to “cease firing indiscriminate projectiles.”

Ajith Sunghay, head of UN Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said at a Monday press briefing that the ceasefire has not brought “meaningful accountability” or “any fundamental reckoning with the underlying driver – the protracted occupation.”

Regarding West Bank violence, Sunghay said: “Israeli military and police forces and settlers are killing more and more Palestinians with impunity, often together.”

“Impunity only fuels recurrence,” Sunghay noted. “Most of the horrors documented here, and those documented for decades before, have gone unpunished, with no prospect of justice for the victims.”