UN investigators say Israel committing genocide in Gaza
UN investigators have determined that Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza since October 2023, with the “intent to destroy the Palestinians” in the territory.
“We came to the conclusion that genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur, and the responsibility lies with the State of Israel,” Navi Pillay, head of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP. More details soon…
Key events
Netanyahu condemned for saying Muslim immigration in Europe is contributing to Israel’s increasing isolation on world stage
Julian Borger is the Guardian’s senior international correspondent
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is being widely criticised in Israel this morning for remarks admitting Israel’s increasing isolation but blaming it on Muslim immigration in Europe, as well as social media influence backed by Qatar and China.
In a speech which led to a dip on the Tel Aviv stock market on Monday, Netanyahu warned that the country would have to become a “super Sparta” with “some signs of an autarky”, conjuring up the prospect of a militarised, self-reliant future, with less trade with the rest of the world.
A United Nations commission of inquiry concluded on Tuesday that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had incited these acts. More than 64,000 Palestinians, the overwhelmingly majority civilians, have been killed so far.
Netanyahu’s government has denied the genocide charge which is also being weighed by the International Court of Justice. Netanyahu has escalated the conflict further by ordering an offensive on Gaza City. After a night of intense bombardment, there were reports of a ground attack on Tuesday.
Netanyahu, however, blamed foreigners for Israel’s increasing diplomatic isolation, which he referred to as “a siege that is organised by a few states”.
“One is China, and the other is Qatar. And they are organising an attack on Israel, legitimacy, in the social media of the western world and the United States,” Netanyahu said.
“The second thing is something that they can do uniquely in western Europe. Western Europe has large Islamist minorities. They’re vocal. Many of them are politically motivated. They align with Hamas, they align with Iran,” the prime minister said.
“They pressure the governments of western Europe, many of whom are kindly disposed to Israel, but they see that they are being overtaken, really, by campaigns of violent protest and constant intimidation.”
His remarks seemed to be a reference to UK, France and Belgium who are set to recognise Palestine at the UN general assembly and have been increasingly critical of Israel over the Gaza war.
Netanyahu’s rhetoric about isolation was denounced in the Israeli press on Tuesday as a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy. Writing in the Ma’ariv newspaper, the veteran commentator, Ben Caspit, said: “Even in Netanyahu’s terms, a man who has already said all of the most reckless things imaginable, this statement was exceptional in its recklessness, absurdity and madness.”
“The man has completely lost his checks, balances and connection to reality,” Caspit wrote.
Gaza City ‘a dangerous combat zone’, says IDF spokesman as residents told to evacuate
The IDF Arabic-language spokesperson, Col Avichay Adraee, has issued this warning on social media to Gaza City residents.
The IDF has begun dismantling Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza City.
Gaza City is a dangerous combat zone. Remaining in the city endangers you.
For your safety, evacuate as quickly as possible to the published safe areas, by vehicle or on foot, via the Al-Rashid corridor, south of Wadi Gaza.
Join the over 40% of the city’s residents who have already evacuated to protect their own safety and that of their loved ones.
The UN investigators cited examples of the scale of the Israeli killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding.
The 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such”. To count as genocide, at least one of five acts must have occurred.
The UN commission found that Israel had committed four of them: killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
It cited as evidence interviews with victims, witnesses, doctors, verified open-source documents and satellite imagery analysis compiled since the war began two years ago.
Israel is fighting allegations at the world’s top court, the international court of justice, of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel has denied the claims.
UN investigators say Israel committing genocide in Gaza
UN investigators have determined that Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza since October 2023, with the “intent to destroy the Palestinians” in the territory.
“We came to the conclusion that genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur, and the responsibility lies with the State of Israel,” Navi Pillay, head of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP. More details soon…
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, has been told by medical sources that at least 38 Palestinian people, including women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces since dawn today.
As well as facing relentless bombardments, Gaza City, the biggest built-up area of the territory, is being gripped by a famine caused by Israel’s restrictions on aid.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a globally recognised organisation that classifies the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition, declared last month that an “entirely man-made” famine was taking place in Gaza City and its surrounding area.
“If a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and basic health, nutrition and [sanitation and water] services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially,” the IPC report said.
The UN and other organisations face massive logistical obstacles including widespread looting, ongoing Israeli bombardments, Israel’s administrative restrictions and bureaucracy and damaged infrastructure within Gaza.
Charities have warned tha Palestinian residents in Gaza City face an impossible choice: either stay and risk being killed by Israeli forces (or die from starvation) or flee and risk death while travelling on road to overcrowded displacement areas in the south which have also been targets of Israeli attacks.
Most people in Gaza City have already been displaced several times over the course of the war and may be too weak, old, or sick to flee this time around.
Israeli tanks in Gaza City – reports
The Israeli public broadcaster, Kan, is citing Palestinian reports as saying there are Israeli tanks on the streets of Gaza City.
CNN is reporting that Israel has begun a ground incursion into the city, citing two Israeli officials.
It quoted one of the officials as saying the incursion would be “phased and gradual” at the beginning.
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Gaza City as the Israeli military intensifies its bombardment and there are reports thousands of Palestinians are fleeing.
US nearing defence deal with Doha, Rubio says, as he asks Qatar to stay on as mediator in war
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said as he headed to Qatar on Tuesday that he would ask it to stay on as a mediator in Israel’s war on Gaza, a week after Israeli airstrikes against Hamas leaders in Doha.
Rubio expressed pessimism about a ceasefire deal as he flew out from Tel Aviv amid the IDF’s intensified bombardment of Gaza but told reporters that Qatar uniquely could help, Agence France-Presse reports.
“We’re going to ask Qatar to continue to do what they’ve done, and we appreciate very much, and that is, play a constructive role in trying to bring this to an end,” Rubio told reporters at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
“Obviously they have to decide if they want to do that after last week or not, but we want them to know that if there’s any country in the world that could help end this through a negotiation, it’s Qatar.”
A damaged building after an Israeli attack targeting Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, last week. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
Rubio said the US would work with Qatar to finalise a defence agreement soon despite the Israeli military action last week.
“If any country in the world can help mediate it, Qatar is the one. They’re the ones that can do it,” Rubio said while departing Tel Aviv for Doha.
“We have a close partnership with the Qataris. In fact, we have an enhanced defence cooperation agreement, which we’ve been working on, we’re on the verge of finalising,” Rubio said, without elaborating.
President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “won’t be hitting” Qatar again.
Rubio made no such comments in Israel. Speaking next to Netanyahu, Rubio was reticent on praising Qatar, saying only that it was important to look forward after the strike.
The United Nations rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, Francesca Albanese, has said the aim of the Gaza City offensive is to make it uninhabitable.
“This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unliveable,” she said on Monday.
But the Israeli mission to the UN rejected her remarks, blaming Hamas for the destruction, Julian Borger has reported, while Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s tactics. “We’re not bringing down those towers [in Gaza City] to intimidate people,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Those towers are serving as Hamas strongholds.”
The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, is widely reported to have deep misgivings about the Gaza City offensive, arguing it would not destroy Hamas and would be costly in the lives of Israeli soldiers and hostages.
You can read Borger’s report here:
Before today’s Israeli military actions, the Israel Defense Forces have been destroying blocks of flats across Gaza City and ordering its inhabitants to evacuate, drawing international condemnation, as Julian Borger has reported.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City for the south, but most of the estimated million people sheltering in the urban sprawl have opted to stay, either because they are unable to move or because they have nowhere to go.
Humanitarian agencies have said there is nowhere left in Gaza that is safe or suitable for displaced people, the report continues.
The UN relief agency, Unrwa, said 10 of its buildings had been hit by Israeli strikes in the past four days, including seven schools and two clinics.
Palestinian residents have reported heavy strikes across Gaza City.
One overnight strike hit a house in the western side of Gaza City, killing at least five Palestinians including two children, according to the Shifa hospital, which the received the bodies.
Another strike hit at least three houses in the south-western side of the city, the Associated Press reports residents as saying. Medics were searching the rubble for survivors.
“It was a heavy night,” said Radwan Hayder, a Gaza City resident sheltering near the Shifa hospital.
The Israeli military has not responded to questions for hours over whether the expanded offensive has begun.
As just reported, Marco Rubio warned Hamas today that it only has days to accept a ceasefire deal amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City.
“Our number one choice is that this ends through a negotiated settlement where Hamas says, ‘We’re going to demilitarise, we’re no longer going to pose a threat,’” the US secretary of state told reporters as he flew out of Israel to go to Qatar.
“Sometimes when you’re dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, that’s not possible, but we hope it can happen,” Rubio said.
Agence France-Presse also reports that Rubio met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday and gave his support to the Israeli prime minister’s new offensive in Gaza City and its stated goal of eradicating Hamas.
Witnesses later told AFP the city was under heavy bombardment.
Opening summary
Julian Borger
After a night of reports of intense bombardment of Gaza City, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, appears to have declared a new phase in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) offensive against the already devastated urban sprawl where hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering.
“Gaza is burning,” Katz said on Tuesday morning. He added “the IDF is striking terror infrastructure with an iron fist”.
“IDF soldiers are fighting heroically to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Katz said. “We will not relent or turn back until the mission is complete.”
The escalation in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City came immediately in the wake of a visit by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who declared the Trump administration’s “unwavering support” for Israel.
As he left the country, heading for Qatar on Tuesday morning, Rubio told journalists: “The Israelis have begun to take operations there. So we think we have a very short window of time in which a deal can happen. We don’t have months anymore, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks to go.”
A Hamas statement issued in the early hours of Tuesday said the Trump administration “bears direct responsibility” for the conflict’s escalation through its “blatant bias” and it warned the offensive would “threaten the lives of the captured Israeli soldiers”.
There are still 48 hostages in Gaza, abducted by Hamas and allied militants in their attack on 7 October 2023, who have not been returned. Only 20 are thought to be still alive.
Hostage families have called for a protest later on Tuesday morning outside the Jerusalem residence of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to demonstrate against the offensive, and police have closed off the street.
