The UN Human Rights experts concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Days earlier, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed Palestinian statehood, with 142 nations in favour. Together, these developments deliver a verdict: the world now formally recognises both the destruction of Gaza as genocidal and the denial of Palestinian sovereignty as untenable. What remains in doubt is whether the institutions that made these declarations have the will — or the power — to act.

Gaza’s devastation

For more than seven decades, Palestinians have endured dispossession, occupation, and repeated military assaults. Since October 2023, the scale of destruction has been intensified. Nearly 65,000 people have been killed, entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, hospitals dismantled, and water and sanitation systems destroyed. Gaza today is not a battlefield but a place deliberately stripped of the conditions needed for survival.

The devastation is measured not only in bombings but in hunger. In August 2025, famine — the gravest category of food insecurity — was officially declared. More than half a million Palestinians are now on the brink of starvation, with another million facing emergency conditions. Famine in Gaza is not a natural disaster but a “man-made” outcome of a deliberate policy.

Genocide in legal terms

International law defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Legal and academic voices describe Gaza in precisely these terms. The International Association of Genocide Scholars has concluded that Israel’s actions meet the criteria of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, citing the systematic destruction of healthcare, education, and humanitarian infrastructure; the killing of thousands of children; and repeated rhetoric by Israeli leaders to “flatten Gaza.” Within Israel itself, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights have echoed these conclusions, with Amnesty International reinforcing........

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