World
Israel’s assault on Gaza City. Mass evacuation. US assures Qatar after attack. By Jonathan Pearlman.
UN commission declares Israel committing genocide
UN commission’s genocide finding
A commission established by the United Nations Human Rights Council this week found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, saying Israeli authorities had a “specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza”.
A report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel – which was created by the Human Rights Council in 2021 – said the genocide was “unfolding in real time”. It said Israel had blocked aid, destroyed the healthcare system and targeted civilians, and that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and former defence minister Yoav Gallant had incited genocide.
“The Israeli authorities intended to kill as many Palestinians as possible through its military operations in Gaza since 7 October 2023 and knew that the means and methods of warfare employed would cause mass deaths of Palestinians, including children,” the report said.
Israel, which has long accused the Human Rights Council of anti-Israel bias, refused to cooperate with the three-person commission. Israel’s foreign ministry said
the military tried to avoid harm to civilians, saying in a statement: “The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered
and repeated by others.”
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials, and taking 251 hostages.
Israel’s offensive has killed about 65,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, according to the health ministry in Gaza. Israel said in January it had killed 20,000 Hamas fighters. Hamas does not provide figures on its casualties.
In the past two years, about 90 per cent of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.2 million has been displaced – often multiple times – and much of the enclave has been destroyed.
Israel’s assault on Gaza City
Israel launched a ground offensive in Gaza City this week as heavy air attacks and troop advances marked the start of a campaign that involved a forced evacuation and risks escalating the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.
As many as 400,000 residents have fled Gaza City in recent weeks, following Israel’s orders to evacuate ahead of the offensive, but an estimated 600,000 remain.
On Monday night and Tuesday, Israel escalated air attacks and sent troops and tanks from at least two divisions to areas on the outskirts of the city. Officials in Gaza said at least 91 people were killed on Tuesday.
Essam Abu Amr, a 26-year-old resident of Gaza City, told The Washington Post: “Last night was one of the most terrifying nights. The explosions never stopped: air strikes, artillery fire, drones, helicopters … It felt like the whole city was under fire.”
Israel’s military said it believes 2000 to 3000 Hamas fighters are in Gaza City and the offensive could take about three months. Benjamin Netanyahu said the area was Hamas’s “last important stronghold” and that the campaign would help to free the remaining hostages.
But the campaign has been heavily criticised by the UN, aid groups and international leaders.
António Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, told reporters on Tuesday that Gaza City was facing “systematic destruction”.
Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said on social media the operation “will only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians and endanger the remaining hostages”. France and Germany criticised the operation as “wrong” and lacking in military logic.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who visited the region this week, effectively backed the offensive, saying Hamas needed to be “defanged” either through combat or negotiations.
“There’s no good war, right?” he told reporters. “At some point this has to end and it has to end with Hamas’s defeat.”
Asked about the offensive, US President Donald Trump told reporters: “Well, I have to see – I don’t know too much about it.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said a “business plan” for sharing the proceeds of a “real estate bonanza” in Gaza has been submitted to the Trump administration. Addressing an urban renewal conference in Tel Aviv, he said, “We paid a lot of money for this war, so we need to divide how we make a percentage on the land marketing later in Gaza”.
Mass evacuation
The escalating offensive in Gaza City caused widespread panic this week as residents tried to decide whether to endure the bombardment or flee to crowded areas elsewhere in Gaza that lack food and shelter.
Nivin Imad al-Din, a 38-year-old mother of five, told BBC News on Tuesday that she had fled south, but her husband had refused to leave.
“I couldn’t take my furniture with me because I couldn’t afford the cost of a large truck,” she said. “Leaving everything behind was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”
Gaza City had an estimated 450,000 residents before the war, but its population swelled to more than one million as residents fled from elsewhere in Gaza.
Aid groups have struggled to supply the area, which has faced the worst of the enclave’s starvation crisis. Some aid groups suspended or reduced their work in Gaza City this week as the Israeli ground offensive began.
A group of 22 aid organisations released a statement on Wednesday saying the mass displacement of Gaza City left the enclave “on the precipice of an even deadlier period” and called for the international community to intervene.
Some residents of Gaza City said this week they were forced to sell jewellery and other household items to pay for spiralling prices for tents, rental trucks and accommodation. Others have been forced to walk.
Montaser Bahja, who lives in Gaza City, told The New York Times he was “terrified” by the intensifying bombardments but could not afford to flee.
“I don’t have anywhere to go in southern Gaza, no house, no tent, no car in which to travel,” he said. “They’re not fighting Hamas. They’re fighting all of us civilians.”
US assures Qatar after attack
Marco Rubio this week visited Qatar – a US ally – to affirm ties in the wake of an Israeli attack in Doha that targeted Hamas leaders and upended negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Rubio visited on Tuesday to work on finalising a defence deal with Qatar after it pressed for security assurances following the Israeli strike.
The attack killed six people, including five Hamas officials, though the senior Hamas figures who were targeted reportedly survived.
Netanyahu said on Monday the attack had sent a message that “terrorists should not be given a haven”.
Trump, who has been trying to forge closer ties between Gulf states and Israel, said this week Israel will not strike Qatar again.
Qatar has been trying to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza and accused Israel of seeking to wreck the negotiations.
The US has been promoting plans for a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release the remaining 48 hostages, Israel would release Palestinian prisoners, and talks would be held on a final end to the war. Israel has agreed to the proposal. Hamas had been considering it.
Rubio told reporters on Monday: “If there’s any country in the world that could help end this through a negotiation, it’s Qatar.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 20, 2025 as "UN commission declares Israel committing genocide".
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