Also noting the situation in the occupied West Bank, the United Nations rights chief called for Israel to ‘end its unlawful presence in the Palestinian territory’.
Published On 18 May 2026
The United Nations has urged Israel to prevent “acts of genocide” in Gaza and raised concerns over “ethnic cleansing” across the Palestinian territory and the occupied West Bank.
A new report investigating Israeli military conduct in the war on Gaza up until May 2025 and published by the UN Human Rights Office on Monday concluded that Israel has committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law, which in many cases may have amounted to war crimes and other atrocity crimes”.
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Several investigations, including those by the UN and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, have concluded that Israel’s war on the small enclave constituted genocide, with nearly 73,000 people reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health to have been killed.
The UN report said while the Israeli army was seeking the return of “hostages” and some attacks hit military targets, many of these killings were “unlawful”.
The war that Israel launched following the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups – which killed around 1,200 and saw 240 taken captive – was halted by a ceasefire in October. But the Israeli military maintains a strict security regime, and many hundreds more have been killed in the past seven months.
Conflict monitors warn that since the ceasefire with Iran was struck last month, Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip has accelerated. Violent raids by settlers and the military in the West Bank have also been increasing.
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 the occupied territories represents a deeply troubling trajectory.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called upon Israel to “prevent the commission of acts of genocide”, to ensure displaced Palestinians are allowed to return home, and to “end its unlawful presence in the Palestinian territory”.
The report also condemned Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for “abuses of international human rights … unlawful killing” and called for them to “cease firing indiscriminate projectiles”.
Concerning the current situation, Ajith Sunghay, the head of UN Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said at a press briefing on Monday that the ceasefire has not led to “meaningful accountability” or “any fundamental reckoning with the underlying driver – the protracted occupation”.
In regard to the violence in the West Bank, he 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.”
