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The conclusion of a UN commission of inquiry that Israel has committed genocide in the war in Gaza, and that its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Israeli leaders are responsible for inciting that genocide, changes little in legal terms. The international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague has yet to issue its final ruling in the genocide case that South Africa brought against Israel last year.
Politically, however, this latest report (officially a “conference room paper”, intended to aid discussion of the themes) may prove to be one of the final nails in the coffin of the shameless but still-continuing narrative from Netanyahu and his allies that any talk of Israeli crimes is part of an antisemitic plot – or, to use Netanyahu’s favourite phrase, “a blood libel”.
The commission of inquiry’s findings now stand alongside those of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the respected Israeli groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, who have all published authoritative and detailed reports concluding that Israel is committing genocide in the two years since the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023. UN experts and genocide scholars have reached the same conclusion.
Even when so many have already spoken, however, a UN commission of inquiry brings a particular stamp of authority. The chair of the commission on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel is Navi Pillay, a former president of the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda. When I first met her, she was a respected UN high commissioner for human rights – not exactly a “Hamas proxy”, to quote Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva when he accused the authors of the report of a “libellous rant”.
Keir Starmer’s government has previously said it cannot talk of genocide until “a competent court” (in other words, the ICJ) has given its final judgment. The commission’s findings make clear that line is wholly unsustainable for the prime minister formerly known as a human rights lawyer. “Prevention of genocide” is – as Starmer well knows – a key element of the 1948 genocide convention; the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars is one of many who have pointed out that states are already failing in that regard.
The commission’s conclusions expose the moral failure of states that were rightly proud to create the international criminal court (ICC) in Rome in 1998 but now seek to undermine the rulings of that same court (the ICC investigates and prosecutes individuals, while the ICJ addresses the responsibilities of states, including on genocide). The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has said it would be “absurd” to detain Netanyahu, despite the arrest warrant that judges unanimously approved for the Israeli leader for alleged crimes against humanity. France insisted it would be inappropriate to arrest Netanyahu if he came to Paris (despite applauding the earlier arrest warrant for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin).
The commission of inquiry’s conclusion that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and his government are committing genocide means that governments’ continued refusal to cooperate with the ICC, and refusal to execute its arrest warrants for crimes against humanity, is illogical and dangerous. As part of the Donald Trump-Netanyahu axis of impunity and their shared determination to destroy the ICC, Trump has imposed sanctions on ICC prosecutors, judges and others – including, most recently, on Al-Haq and other respected Palestinian human rights groups whose only crime is to have documented the crimes committed by others.
An experienced former British military prosecutor was eventually forced to resign from his post as principal trial lawyer at the ICC after death threats and more, saying this had been “the worst few months of my life”. Investigations by the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine, the Guardian and others have revealed the extraordinary lengths that Netanyahu has been ready to go to, including alleged phone taps and attempted blackmail, in order to sabotage the court’s work.
The crimes against humanity that Netanyahu stands accused of at the ICC should in any case not be seen as a lesser crime than genocide. Crimes against humanity – which include apartheid, extermination and forcible transfer of population – differ from genocide not by being less serious but only because of the “special intent” that forms part of genocide.
Britain, France, Canada and others are all due to recognise Palestinian statehood next week, following 147 countries which have already done so. Together with the latest genocide findings, that will add to the pressure on Netanyahu, who admits how isolated his country has now become.
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But the recognition of Palestine by a handful more countries is not enough. There must be consequences for the crimes committed, too – no matter whether those accused of committing the crimes are considered friend or foe. Starmer and other European leaders have rightly been ready to face Trump down in the context of the US president’s dangerous love-in with Putin. But the destruction of the ICC would have incalculable consequences. Once crushed, the court could never be put back together again. Starmer needs to confront Trump directly on these themes this week; the trampling of justice can’t be left to one side, any more than Trump’s earlier humiliation of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, could be ignored.
To quote Tom Fletcher, the former UK ambassador to Beirut and now UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, events in Gaza are a “21st-century atrocity to which we bear daily witness”. Echoing the earlier words of the international court of justice, Fletcher called on governments to “prevent genocide”. So far, there is little sign of that.
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Steve Crawshaw is the author of Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice. He is a former chief foreign correspondent at the Independent and former UK director at Human Rights Watch
