Israel continues to commit genocide in Gaza despite a cease-fire agreement, independent U.N.-commissioned experts said in a report Monday, also accusing Israeli forces of crimes against humanity, including torture and rape, in the occupied West Bank.
The Associated Press could not independently corroborate multiple graphic accounts described in the report of sexual assaults by prison guards and soldiers on Palestinian detainees since October 2023. In one, female guards strip-searched a pregnant Palestinian, touching inside her anus and vagina. In another, guards beat a detainee and hurled sexist slurs while denying her access to the toilet and sanitary pads. She bled onto her clothes and interrogation chair.
The findings by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which seeks to document in minute detail the allegations and evidence of crimes to bolster accountability for perpetrators, could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or in other jurisdictions to try to bring justice to victims and their relatives.
The report Monday said Israel was "continuing to commit genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza.”
Much of the harm has come from Israel’s occupation deeper into Gaza during the cease-fire period, the report says. Since October 2025, when the cease-fire was signed, Israeli forces have gone from controlling 53% of Gaza to at least 60%, the commission said.
In that time, Israeli fire across the advancing front has killed at least 196 Palestinians - including 18 women, 32 boys and 11 girls, the commission said.
The report also accused Israeli soldiers and prison guards of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence and persecution against civilians.
The commission said that it had recently documented six cases where Israeli guards were sexually violent toward male detainees from Gaza in the Sde Teiman military prison.
In one case, it says guards raped a Palestinian detainee with a stick, then forced him to put the stick in his mouth until he vomited. It also recalled another episode in which guards instructed a Palestinian man to urinate as they tied a plastic cord around his genitals.
The cease-fire scaled down a devastating war started by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel responded with a genocidal campaign that has killed over 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
