In a new report published on Monday, October 26, 2026, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, accuses Israel of committing numerous crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including extermination, and of continuing to commit acts of genocide in Gaza despite the October 2025 ceasefire. Established in May 2021 by the United Nations Human Rights Council, this standing commission comprises three independent experts and is currently chaired by former Indian judge Srinivasan Muralidhar. Its mission is to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights committed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, regardless of the perpetrators, and to analyze their root causes. It is not a court: it establishes facts and proposes legal classifications, based on the level of evidence required by UN investigations (the «reasonable grounds to believe»), which is less demanding than that of a criminal conviction. However, the evidence it gathers and preserves can then be used by the International Criminal Court and national courts.
This is what the 19-page report says, covering the period from October 7, 2023 to September 30, 2026. According to the Commission, Israeli state violence has never claimed so many victims in the occupied Palestinian territory: more than 75,000 Palestinians killed since October 7, 2023, including at least 21,500 children and 11,000 women.
1. West Bank: crimes against humanity, including extermination
This is the report's main contribution: the Commission concludes that the violence committed in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, constitutes crimes against humanity, foremost among them extermination. The report notes:
- 1,080 Palestinians killed and 10,940 wounded by Israeli forces between October 2023 and September 2026
- Air strikes have killed 254 people since October 2023, compared to 6 between 2008 and 2023, especially after Operation «Iron Wall» launched in January 2025 in the northern refugee camps
- the largest population displacement since 1967 (34,176 displaced persons in August 2026)
- Expanded rules of engagement apply only to Palestinians: soldiers are not allowed to use lethal force in the same way against Jewish Israelis.
- Six cases were studied in detail, including the death of a 7-month-old baby in Hebron (shot in the head even though his father had stopped the car and raised his hands) and that of the Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Eygi (both victims were unarmed and posed no threat). Also included is the case of an eight-month pregnant woman, killed in February 2025 by at least two bullets to the back and pelvis while fleeing the Nur Shams refugee camp: the Israeli army justified its actions by claiming that she was «looking at the ground suspiciously.».
- extrajudicial executions, particularly of people who had surrendered with their hands up
- New cases of torture and sexual violence in detention
- Impunity: no effective investigation or reparations in the cases examined. For the Commission, impunity for sexual violence reflects a lack of will rather than an inability to act, which are precisely the criteria that, according to Article 17 of the Rome Statute, allow the ICC to try a case in place of national courts.
By integrating these elements into the continuum of violence and crimes already revealed in its previous reports, the Commission considers that the military operations, reinforced by settler violence, constitute a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, carried out in accordance with state policy. It judges that the Israeli authorities intended settler violence to be part of this attack, with the aim of collectively punishing the Palestinian population for the attack of 7 October 2023.
It is worth recalling that, according to Article 7 of the Rome Statute and the Elements of Crimes of the ICC, extermination consists of the mass killing of members of a civilian population, including by intentionally imposing living conditions «calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population.» Like all crimes against humanity, it must be part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. In the West Bank, the Commission bases its assessment primarily on large-scale killings: it takes into account the number of victims, the methods used (live ammunition, airstrikes), their concentration in densely populated areas, and statements by Israeli officials.
On this basis, the Commission concludes:
- extermination and other inhumane acts
- persecution based on nationality, race, and ethnicity, combined with gender and age; children are deliberately targeted
- torture, rape and other sexual violence
- war crimes, including intentional homicide.
2. Gaza: The continuation of a genocide
In September 2025, the Commission had already concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. This new report states that genocidal acts continued after the October 2025 ceasefire, with the same intent to destroy all or part of the Palestinian population in Gaza. It does not reiterate the full demonstration of genocidal intent established in its 2025 report; it simply observes that the acts continued.
The Commission emphasizes the «yellow line»: presented during the ceasefire as a provisional demarcation, it has become a de facto border that continues to advance. The area under Israeli control has thus increased from 53% to at least 60% of Gaza, with at least nine new military bases (Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly even ordered, in May 2026, the capture of 70%), and at least 196 people were killed while approaching it between October 2025 and April 2026. According to the Commission, the vast majority of recent deaths stem directly from this territorial expansion. It also documents more than 1,431 deaths since the truce, including at least 300 children and 130 women, in addition to new cases of torture and rape in detention, including against participants in the Global Sumud flotilla.
3. Causes of the conflict, artificial intelligence and the Palestinian Authority
Three other points deserve to be highlighted:
- The Commission revisits the causes of the conflict. It traces it back to the 1947-1948 war and describes a consistent policy that it summarizes with the formula «maximum land, minimum population,» echoed in a statement by Minister Bezalel Smotrich in 2025. According to the Commission, presenting a Palestinian state as an existential threat to Israel blocks any realization of the Palestinians' right to self-determination.
- The Commission notes that the Israeli army uses artificial intelligence-based targeting tools in Gaza («Lavender», «Gospel», «Where’s Daddy»). It emphasizes that those who control these systems and make the decisions remain responsible.
- The report accuses the Palestinian Authority of suppressing dissenting voices and failing to seriously investigate violence committed by its security forces, and concludes that the State of Palestine has violated the right to life and security.
4. The Commission's recommendations
To Israel:
- End the unlawful occupation and withdraw settlers and settlements, in accordance with the ICJ advisory opinion of July 2024
- Stop the genocide in Gaza and respect the ICJ's 2024 orders
- Align Israel's rules of engagement with international law
- Investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of violations and compensate victims
- Return confiscated lands
To the State of Palestine:
- Investigate the abuses of its forces
- Compensating the victims
- Stop targeting human rights defenders
To all states:
- To use all means reasonably at their disposal to prevent and punish genocide
- Prosecute suspects in their own courts, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
- Recognize neither the occupation nor the colonies, and provide them with no assistance.
- Regulating the military use of AI
- Supporting the ICC in the face of the sanctions against it
To the Prosecutor of the ICC:
To investigate these crimes in order to supplement existing arrest warrants or request new ones.
Israel rejects the report: its mission to the UN in Geneva sees it as a «disinformation campaign» aimed at demonizing the State of Israel and demands the immediate dissolution of the Commission. Furthermore, Israel has not responded to the Commission's requests for information, which has therefore been unable to consider its version of events.
5. And now?
Presented at the end of October to the United Nations General Assembly, this report does not condemn anyone: that is not its role. But it no longer allows any state to claim ignorance. Since the ruling Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia According to the International Court of Justice (2007), the obligation to prevent genocide applies to every State Party to the 1948 Convention as soon as it becomes aware of a serious risk, and France is no exception. The evidence gathered by the Commission may also inform the ICC Prosecutor's investigation and the prosecutions that national courts, including French courts, may initiate under the principle of universal jurisdiction. It remains for States to draw the necessary conclusions.
Link to the report: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coiopt/ga-81-430-auv.pdf
