A new report, and a sharply disputed conclusion

A United Nations-mandated Commission of Inquiry says the Gaza ceasefire has not ended what it describes as genocidal acts against Palestinians, renewing international scrutiny of civilian harm and the terms of the truce.

The commission’s report, released on Monday, says Israeli forces continued acts which it concludes were committed with genocidal intent. It also alleges war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. These are findings by an investigative commission, not a judgment by a court.

Israel rejects the genocide allegation and the report’s conclusions. Its mission in Geneva called for the commission to be dissolved, according to the Associated Press. The Israeli government has repeatedly denied that its conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide.

The ceasefire’s unresolved reality

The commission says Israeli forces’ area of control in Gaza expanded from 53 per cent to at least 60 per cent after the ceasefire took effect in October 2025. It also attributes at least 196 Palestinian deaths during that period to Israeli fire along the advancing front. Those figures are the commission’s findings and are reported here as such.

The ceasefire reduced the scale of the war, but the report raises questions about whether it has delivered the protection and withdrawal its terms were meant to provide. The commission says its documentation may inform future accountability efforts; it has no power to prosecute or issue binding judicial rulings.

The report also describes alleged crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank. The AP said it could not independently corroborate several accounts of sexual violence included in the report. Those graphic accounts are not repeated here; they remain allegations documented by the commission and disputed by Israel.

The next test is whether the ceasefire’s monitors, negotiators and international institutions can establish what is happening on the ground and secure compliance. For Palestinians living under the truce, the commission’s central question is immediate: whether the agreement is changing daily conditions, not merely reducing the intensity of fighting.