UN Report: Israel Expanding Genocidal War to the West Bank

The following story is co-published with Joe Cirincione’s Substack.

There is a lot going on right now, most of it involving elections around the world. Most of the news is positive — if you favor democracy, accountability and human rights. Israeli elections are part of that good news. The Israeli public on Tuesday soundly rejected Bibi Netanyahu’s extremism.

“Israelis have turned out in historically high numbers to deliver a powerful verdict on the current disastrous, radical right-wing government,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a pro-Israel U.S. advocacy group.

But none of this yet changes the horrific daily conditions in Israel’s occupied territories. It remains to be seen if the new government in Israel — which will almost certainly exclude the hard-line Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich — will change these policies.

On Monday, the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory issued a devastating report. You may not have seen it in the flood of news. I read it. It is shocking.

In brief, Israel is taking its goal of destroying Gaza to the West Bank. The situation in this occupied territory is closer to war than occupation.

Here are a few of its key findings. Each is a direct quote from the report or the summary. You can read the official summary of the report here. You can read the entire 19-page report, here.

Summary: “The intentional killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians and destruction of homes in the West Bank combined with Israel’s persistent denial of responsibility form part of a broader strategy to exterminate and displace Palestinians and impose conditions of life that are unliveable,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission. “Meanwhile, Israel’s expansion of territorial control in Gaza continues to result in the killing and harming of Palestinian civilians who approach or cross the Yellow Line.”

Key findings:

• The number of Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank has significantly increased since 2022, peaking in 2023 and 2024 with almost 500 Palestinians killed each year — the highest number since OCHA data collection on this topic began in 2005. Between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2026, 1,080 Palestinians (including at least 784 men, 237 boys, 22 women and seven girls) were killed and 10,940 were injured by Israeli forces in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
• The rules of engagement of Israeli forces in the West Bank were reportedly broadened after 7 October 2023, resulting in more Palestinian civilians killed and injured. Israeli forces have increasingly broad discretion to use lethal force against a perceived threat, regardless of whether the target objectively poses an imminent and real danger. The commanding officer of the Army’s Central Command, Major General Avi Bluth, reportedly stated in May 2026 that Israeli soldiers are “killing like we haven’t since 1967.”
• An illustrative case of this is the killing of a Turkish-American woman, Ayşenur Eygi, on 6 September 2024, in conjunction with a protest in Beita against the outpost of Evyatar. The victim was peacefully observing the protest when she was shot in the head at an approximately 200-metre range. While clashes erupted at the protest, the victim was shot after the clashes had largely subsided about 20 minutes prior. The victim was the only person directly shot. The responsible Israeli soldier reportedly raised a fist to a colleague, signaling success.
• Airstrikes have been increasingly used by Israeli forces since Operation Iron Wall began on 21 January 2025, mainly targeting refugee camps and areas in Jenin, Tulkarm, Tubas and Nablus. Operation Iron Wall marks a strategic shift in Israeli military operations in the West Bank, towards widespread destruction of Palestinian housing and infrastructure, and “clearing” of refugee camps. Israeli forces have indicated that the change is intended to dismantle “terrorist infrastructure and restor[e] the operational freedom of action for IDF forces”, while reconstruction of the infrastructure is considered to be “endangering the citizens of the State of Israel and the military forces”.
• The change reflects the import of the Gaza strategy of total destruction into West Bank operations. As a result, Palestinian residents in camps, have been killed or displaced, and large areas have been made uninhabitable. Military operations since January 2025 have led to the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967; with 34,176 Palestinians remaining displaced as of August 2026.
• The Commission is not aware of any effective investigations, disciplinary or judicial measures undertaken by the Israeli authorities or military in any of the cases it investigated.
• Since the publication of its March 2025 report on Israel’s systemic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence, the Commission has verified four additional cases of sexual violence in detention by Israeli forces, including gang rape, genital violence, groping of breasts and threats of sexual violence, forced nudity and cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification. Two of the victims were from the West Bank. In one case from 2025 which occurred at Meggido prison during interrogation, a male victim was blindfolded, forced to remove his lower garments and bend over on his knees exposing his genitals to male and female prison guards. He was then gang raped multiple times with objects while prison guards mocked and photographed him, squeezed his penis threatening him it would be cut off until he screamed in pain. He was also threatened that family members and colleagues would be raped. The victim sustained serious injuries, including bleeding from the rectum, for which he did not receive any medical treatment.

On Gaza:

• Since 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have used heavy and unguided munitions in densely populated areas, alongside drones, quadcopters and sniper fire, resulting in the systematic destruction of civilian life and objects. These patterns have continued after the so-called October 2025 ceasefire, with sustained air, artillery, drone and gunfire attacks resulting in over 1,431 people being killed, including at least 300 children and 130 women, and 5,026 injured as of 30 September 2026.
• The Commission investigated two incidents of Palestinians being killed in theproximity of the Yellow Line. In one case, Israeli forces attacked a car, killing 11 persons, including two women, five boys and two girls, on 17 October 2025. The car was targeted outside the area directly controlled by Israel, about 120 meters away from the unmarked Yellow Line. Access to the site was restricted by Israel until the next morning. Evidence suggests that at least one of the victims did not die immediately and could have been saved if access had been granted sooner.

Conclusions

• The Commission considered (i) the large number of victims killed; (ii) the methods used by the Israeli forces to target the civilian population (through the firing of live ammunition and airstrikes); (iii) the locations of the killings (densely populated areas); and (iv) the remarks and statements of the Israeli authorities, and finds that the cases it investigated and documented show a pattern where civilians in the West Bank were intentionally and directly targeted and killed by the Israeli soldiers on a mass scale since 7 October 2023.
• The Commission finds that, together with the mass killings by the Israeli forces, settler violence constitutes a component of the attack against this civilian population. Conduct of Israeli authorities indicate that they knew and intended settler violence to be part of the attack. The Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and security forces have committed the crime against humanity of extermination against the civilian population in the West Bank since 7 October 2023.
• The Commission finds that investigated cases of torture, reproductive violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity were not isolated incidents. Rather, these acts form part of the broader attack directed against the civilian population. Furthermore, the Commission finds that the Israeli authorities support and encourage such acts.
• Considering the factual and legal findings above, the Commission concludes that the Israeli forces intended to seriously harm and kill civilians in all the investigated cases (paragraphs 21-24 and 29). These acts amount to the war crimes of willful killing and willfully causing serious injury to body.
• In relation to Ayşenur Eygi, the Commission notes that the Israeli soldier responsible for her death would have had a clear line of sight and would have known that she was unarmed and not posing any imminent threat. The Commission finds that the Israeli soldier deliberately targeted the victim, with the intent to kill her. The Commission finds that this conduct amounts to the war crime of willful killing.
• As the occupying power, Israel has failed to ensure that the Palestinian population enjoys the respect for their persons, honour and family, and to ensure that persons protected in law are protected in fact and treated humanely. The Commission finds that Israel consistently — and unlawfully — applies the conduct of hostilities paradigm to law enforcement operations in the West Bank in violation of its obligation under international human rights law. Israel’s conduct violates its obligations to protect Palestinians under international human rights law.
• Israeli state violence has accelerated since October 2023 and has, since the establishment of Israel, never claimed or impacted as many lives in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Over 75,000 Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been killed since 7 October 2023, including at least 21,500 children, and 11,000 women. While Israeli authorities and security forces continue to commit genocide in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated drastically.
• Israeli military operations, complemented by sustained settler violence, form part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population in the West Bank since 7 October 2023. Accordingly, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and forces have committed the 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, with nationality, race and ethnicity at its core.

Addendum: An alarming report on AI killer drones

• The Commission has previously reported on the Israeli forces’ use of artificial intelligence tools and autonomous weapons systems in Gaza such as ‘Gospel’ [Habsora in Hebrew] and ‘Lavender’, expressing its concern about these weapons’ compliance with international law. The Commission is also aware of the use of ‘Where’s Daddy’, an artificial intelligence assisted tracking system that monitors the location of targeted individuals and alerts operators when a target enters a designated location.
• The Secretary General of the United Nations and the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross have urged states to adopt new international rules on autonomous weapon systems to regulate this rapidly advancing technology. The risks brought on by these systems continue to increase with advances in weapon technology, and as the weapons probabilistic outputs, speed, and automated bias conflict with core legal duties to protect civilians.

This is tough reading. If you have gotten this far, thank you. There is much more in the commission report, but I suspect this is more than most care to read.

We have to hope that the new Israeli government will end this genocidal war in Gaza and the West Bank, particularly if it is a coalition government that includes the 17 or 18 Palestinians elected to the Knesset on Tuesday from Ra’am and the Joint List (a historic high).

This war must end.