A United Nations investigative committee has found that Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza, citing the deliberate destruction of reproductive health facilities and the systematic prevention of births among Palestinians as key elements of this crime.
According to the committee’s findings, Israeli forces intentionally targeted and destroyed Gaza’s primary fertility centre, while simultaneously imposing a siege that restricted essential medical aid, including critical medications for pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal care. The report highlights that these actions amount to an attempt to partially destroy the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza, meeting the legal threshold for genocide under the UN Genocide Convention.
The Genocide Convention, which defines the crime as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, outlines five specific acts that constitute genocide. The UN committee has determined that Israeli authorities have committed at least two of these: deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
The findings detail the systematic targeting of maternity hospitals, birthing units, and fertility clinics. One of the most striking examples is the bombing of the Basma Centre for Fertility and IVF in December 2023, which resulted in the destruction of approximately 4,000 embryos and left thousands of Palestinian patients deprived of essential reproductive healthcare. The report concludes that this attack was deliberate, stating that Israeli forces directly targeted the clinic and destroyed all stored reproductive materials essential for future pregnancies in Gaza.
Beyond the destruction of medical facilities, the report also highlights the disproportionate and deliberate harm inflicted upon pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as new mothers, on a scale described as unprecedented. The committee determined that such actions constitute crimes against humanity and are part of a wider effort to dismantle the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The findings further assert that Israeli forces systematically targeted civilian women and girls, in acts that amount to both crimes against humanity and war crimes. The destruction of maternal healthcare infrastructure, combined with severe restrictions on medical aid, has directly resulted in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths, which the committee concludes are acts of genocide under international law.
The UN’s findings categorically refute Israeli claims that such destruction is merely “collateral damage”. Instead, the report establishes that these are calculated efforts to undermine the demographic survival of Palestinians in Gaza. The targeting of the most vulnerable members of society—pregnant women and newborns—represents a deliberate act of cruelty that demands immediate international action.
The committee calls for urgent intervention, urging the international community to hold Israeli officials accountable for these crimes and to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians and their fundamental rights to life, dignity, and medical care. As the situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, the report emphasises the need for immediate measures to prevent further atrocities and to guarantee justice for the victims of these grave violations of international law.
