Do Israel's military actions in Gaza since October 7th, 2023 constitute a genocide?

This is one of the most contested questions in international law and politics today, with serious, credentialed voices on multiple sides. Rather than offering a personal verdict, let me lay out the current state of the debate, which continues to evolve.This is one of the most contested legal and political questions of our time, and there's no single settled answer — it depends on which body or expert you ask. Here's where things stand:

Bodies/experts who have concluded it IS genocide

UN Commission of Inquiry (September 2025): The most authoritative formal finding to date. On September 16, 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that there are reasonable grounds that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Its chair, Navi Pillay (a former UN human rights chief who also served as a judge on the Rwanda genocide tribunal), stated directly: "The Commission concluded that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and that it continues to commit this genocide."

The Commission found the convention's five criteria to assess whether genocide has occurred, and under the convention, a genocide determination could be made even if only one of those five criteria is met — the commission said four have been met, with only forcible transfer of children not established. It also found that Netanyahu, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, had incited the commission of genocide. A legal scholar described this as significant because unlike previous reports from NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, it comes from an official commission mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.

Other human rights organizations — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and various international legal scholars — have reached similar conclusions in independent reports over the past two years.

The ICJ — the body with actual legal authority to rule definitively

It has not yet ruled on the merits. This is the key distinction people often miss:

Israel's position

Israel rejects the genocide characterization entirely, arguing it is conducting a war against Hamas (a non-state armed group that carried out the October 7 attack), not a campaign against Palestinians as a group, and that it takes measures to mitigate civilian harm while Hamas embeds itself among civilians. The Court itself noted the triggering context: on 7 October 2023, Hamas and other armed groups present in the Gaza Strip carried out attacks in Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, injuring thousands and abducting 251, some of whom continued to be held hostage for more than two years.

Where governments stand

Most Western governments have avoided using the term, preferring to defer to the ICJ. For example, Australia's position is to respect the independence of international courts and tribunals and their role in upholding international law rather than make its own determination. Others, like Belgium's foreign minister, have expressed it is personally "very close to genocide" while stopping short of an official declaration.

Bottom line

Given this, I can't give you a definitive yes/no that would be intellectually honest — I can only tell you that a major UN investigative body has formally concluded genocide occurred, while the binding legal process to establish that at the highest level remains ongoing. Reasonable, serious people — including international law scholars — land on different sides of this question.