Israel commits crimes against humanity in occupied West Bank: UN | News from the occupied West Bank

Israel committed crimes against humanity, including “extermination”, in the occupied West Bank, United Nations-mandated investigators have reported.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said Monday that the Israeli government and its forces are also responsible for other war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Palestinian territory, including torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence.

The release of the report comes as Israeli forces carry out crackdowns, including evictions and house demolitions, in Hebron following a gun attack last week.

The commission, which does not speak for the UN itself, first determined in a September 2025 report that Israel had committed “genocide” in its war on Gaza. This follows Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – Israel categorically rejects this conclusion.

In its new report, released the day before Israel’s general elections, the commission found that in the West Bank – which Israel has occupied since 1967 – Israeli military operations, reinforced by sustained settler violence, constitute a “widespread and systematic attack” against civilians.

“Israeli authorities and forces have committed crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the West Bank, as well as persecution based on intersecting discriminatory grounds, focusing on nationality, race and ethnicity,” he said.

The Israeli mission in Geneva said the report was part of the investigation’s “disinformation campaign aimed at demonizing the State of Israel and portraying its very existence as criminal.”

“The international community must reject these distortions, repudiate the findings of the commission and demand its immediate dissolution,” the mission said in a statement.

Peace Prize

The three-member UN investigative team was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021.

Former South African High Court judge Navi Pillay, who chaired the inquiry until last November, won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month.

The commission’s new report focuses on killings and bodily and mental harm caused by Israeli and Palestinian security forces since October 2023.

He noted that the situation in the occupied West Bank has seriously deteriorated since the attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas from Gaza that month.

The commission found that Israeli authorities “intended to collectively punish” West Bank civilians because of the Hamas attack.

The Israeli military offensive on Gaza has displaced almost the entire population of Gaza and killed at least 74,500 people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between October 7, 2023 and October 9 of this year, 1,143 Palestinians – including at least 250 children – were killed in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

Ethnic cleansing

Later on Monday, UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk condemned the ongoing Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Hebron, saying threats to empty and erase neighborhoods raised “serious concerns of ethnic cleansing.”

Israeli forces imposed a lockdown on Hebron on Friday following the shooting attack near the city, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to lock down the entire West Bank.

Turk’s statement noted that the lockdown has already resulted in the forced displacement of more than 2,000 Palestinians, the demolition of homes and the prevention of residents from moving freely.

“The radical measures taken raise serious concerns about the unnecessary and disproportionate use of force – which must stop,” he said.

“The Israeli lockdown confines many people to their homes and immediate neighborhoods. Statements by senior Israeli government officials indicate that the measures implemented are punitive in nature and designed to sow fear. This is unacceptable,” Turk added.

Israeli ministers have already called for ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said last month in an interview with media outlet Ynet News that Israel should “go to war” in the occupied territory and repeat what it “did in Gaza.”

He added that Israeli forces had “emptied” Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank.

Since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza, arrest campaigns have increased in the West Bank, with settler pogroms also continuing. The government is encouraging the expansion of settlements, which are illegal under international law, despite negative reactions from some Western officials.

Turk insisted that those displaced by the crackdown must be allowed to return home and that “Israel must provide compensation and reparation for illegal evictions and demolitions.”

“Collective punishments constitute a serious violation of international law,” he said.