The UN’s latest report on Gaza confuses the tragedies of war with the crime of genocide — and in doing so, undermines both justice and truth.
The United Nations has now accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. It is the gravest of all charges under international law, and yet the report released last week by the UN Commission of Inquiry is not a serious legal document. It is a politicised tract that confuses the tragedies of war with the deliberate crime of genocide — and in doing so, undermines both truth and justice.
Genocide has a very precise definition. It requires not only mass killing, but proof of intent — the “dolus specialis” — to destroy a people in whole or in part. Without intent, there may be war crimes, even terrible ones, but not genocide. The Commission has failed to show that Israel’s campaign in Gaza is aimed at exterminating Palestinians. Instead, it equates high civilian casualties, the destruction of infrastructure, and harsh rhetoric with genocidal purpose. By stretching the definition beyond recognition, the UN risks making genocide mean nothing at all.
What the report ignores is just as telling. Its timeframe begins on October 7, 2023 — the day Hamas massacred more than 1,200 Israelis, abducted over 250 hostages, and declared its open aim to annihilate Jews “from the river to the sea.” If genocide intent exists in this conflict, it was Hamas who demonstrated it on that day, not Israel. Yet the Commission’s report treats October 7 merely as a backdrop, not as the central fact that precipitated Israel’s military response.
It is also selective in its use of evidence. Casualty figures provided by Hamas-run agencies are cited as authoritative, while Israeli data and independent analyses are dismissed. Civilian deaths are listed without acknowledging that Hamas embeds its fighters and weapons in schools, mosques, hospitals, and densely populated neighbourhoods precisely to maximise civilian suffering. Hamas has built an entire war strategy on turning Gazans into human shields — a war crime the UN’s report barely acknowledges.
Israel’s actions, by contrast, are presented as if they occur in a vacuum. The Commission downplays Israel’s extensive measures to mitigate civilian harm: advance evacuation warnings, humanitarian corridors, operational pauses, and facilitation of aid deliveries. These are not the actions of a state bent on genocide. They are the actions of a military grappling with the grim realities of urban combat against a terrorist army hiding among civilians.
Here lies the central problem: the UN has confused cause with effect. Israel did not initiate this war. Hamas did, with genocidal intent. Israel is fighting to dismantle the very organisation that perpetrated October 7 and still holds hostages in Gaza. The terrible suffering of civilians is the tragic by-product of Hamas’s strategy, not the purpose of Israel’s campaign. To claim otherwise is to invert reality.
The consequences of this distortion are grave. First, it fuels antisemitic conspiracy theories by portraying Jews as perpetrators of the very crime that sought to annihilate them in the Holocaust. Second, it erodes the credibility of international law. If every destructive war becomes “genocide,” the term ceases to carry weight when real genocides — Rwanda, Darfur, Yazidis under ISIS — demand urgent recognition and action. Third, it undermines genuine accountability. War crimes, proportionality, and civilian protection are serious matters that must be investigated. But by leaping to “genocide,” the UN Commission poisons the possibility of honest debate and polarises the international community.
This is not the first time UN bodies have singled out Israel with disproportionate scrutiny. The Commission of Inquiry is a permanent, open-ended mandate directed solely at Israel, chaired by individuals with a record of anti-Israel bias. It has long since abandoned even the appearance of neutrality. When its latest report declares Israel guilty of genocide, it is not speaking as a court of law but as a political actor.
New Zealanders should see this report for what it is: an assault on the principles of fairness, evidence, and due process. As Lev Topor recently wrote, the UN has “confused tragedy with intent” — and in so doing, has discredited itself. If Israel were truly bent on exterminating Palestinians, it would not have allowed fuel, food, and medicine into Gaza throughout the war, or refrained from targeting Judea and Samaria (the so-called “West Bank”) where millions of Palestinians live under the Palestinian Authority. The facts do not align with the accusation.
The suffering in Gaza is real, but it will not end by distorting international law or by demonising Israel. It will end when Hamas releases the hostages, lays down its arms, and ceases to use its people as human shields. Until then, Israel will continue to defend itself — not with the intent to destroy a people, but with the intent to ensure that October 7 never happens again.
Genocide is the crime of crimes. Misusing it for political ends is itself a crime against truth.
