Filed with 60.13 Wars · Related: 60.23 History · 60.3.1 - Foreign Policy

Perpetrator and wider history: Islamic State (ISIS) · Parent context: 60.13 Wars

Fact Check: Yazidi Genocide Claims

The core event is real and well-documented: beginning 3 August 2014, ISIS attacked the Yazidis (an ethnoreligious minority) in the Sinjar region of Iraq in what the UN, the US, the UK, Germany, and many others have formally recognized as genocide. The claims below are mostly directionally correct, but several numbers are mislabeled and the institutional claims need heavy qualification.

Verdict at a glance Two figures are solid (~7,000 kidnapped; ~2,600 still missing). Two are off or mislabeled (“500K” and especially “10K killed”). The “convert or die” framing is only half the story. The UN and ICC claims are misleading rather than true.

Claim-by-claim

1. “A Jew without military, it’s the Yezidis” — Rhetorical analogy, not a factual claim. This is a paraphrase of a saying that circulates online (“A Jew without an army is a Yazidi”), used to argue that both are small, stateless religious minorities subjected to repeated historical persecution, but that the Yazidis lack a protective state. It’s an opinion/analogy, not something attributable to an official source or verifiable as fact.

2. “500K Yezidis faced genocide” — Roughly right, but the standard figure is ~400,000. The total Yazidi population living in Sinjar at the time of the ISIS attack was estimated at roughly 400,000 by the United Nations and Kurdish officials. The global Yazidi population is larger, so 500K isn’t wildly off, but the commonly cited number for those directly caught in the Sinjar assault is 400,000.

3. “For refusing to convert to Islam” — Half accurate. ISIS executed men and older boys who refused to convert to Islam. But the campaign targeted the whole group regardless of individual choice: women were given no choice — they were taken captive, sold, sexually enslaved, and forced to convert. So “refusing to convert” explains the killing of men, not the fate of women and children.

4. “10K were killed” — Inaccurate as stated. This is the killed-AND-kidnapped total, not deaths. The ~10,000 figure combines both. Around 9,900 Yazidis were either killed or kidnapped over the course of a few days in August 2014 — an estimated 3,100 killed and 6,800 kidnapped. The UN’s separate estimate put killings at about 5,000. Deaths alone are estimated in the ~3,000–5,500 range, not 10,000.

5. “7K women kidnapped and raped” — Roughly accurate (with one caveat). Estimates cluster near this: nearly 7,000 Yazidi women and children were kidnapped and enslaved, and on the first day alone ISIS kidnapped 6,417 Yazidis, selling 3,548 women and girls into sexual slavery. Caveat: it was women and children (boys were taken as child soldiers), and while sexual violence was systematic, “all 7K raped” overstates a precise figure.

6. “2,599 Yezidis still missing” — Plausible and within the documented range. Sources vary by date and who’s counting: the Free Yezidi Foundation cited more than 2,528 unaccounted for, the US State Department cited at least 2,763, and Amnesty International cited an estimated 2,600 still missing as of 2024. A 2,599 figure fits squarely in this band.

The two institutional claims are misleading “UN refused to act” and “ICC ignored Yezidis” are the weakest parts of the post. Both describe real gaps in justice but frame them inaccurately.

7. “UN refused to act” — Misleading. The UN did act in several concrete ways: a Human Rights Council commission declared the atrocities genocide, the UN created UNITAD (an investigative team) that by May 2021 had identified 1,444 potential perpetrators of attacks against the Yazidis, and survivor Nadia Murad became a UN Goodwill Ambassador. What’s true is narrower: the UN Security Council never referred the case to the ICC.

8. “ICC ignored Yezidis” — Misleading — it’s a jurisdiction problem, not willful neglect. Neither Syria nor Iraq is subject to ICC jurisdiction, because they are not parties to the Rome Statute; the UN Security Council can refer cases directly, but this is rare. A referral would likely have been blocked anyway — a 2014 UNSC draft to investigate Syria war crimes was vetoed by Russia and China. Justice has instead moved through national courts under universal jurisdiction: in 2021 a German court convicted an Iraqi ISIS member, Taha al-Jumailly, of genocide against the Yazidis — the first conviction of its kind.

Sources (copy-pasteable)

• PLOS Medicine (Cetorelli et al., 2017) — killed/kidnapped estimates: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1002297
• Foreign Affairs — “ISIS’ Yazidi Genocide”: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2017-06-08/isis-yazidi-genocide
• UK House of Commons Library — Atrocities against the Yazidi religious community: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2022-0027/
• Amnesty International (2024) — Yezidis missing / Al-Hol: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/syria-yezidi-survivors-of-islamic-state-atrocities-abandoned-to-indefinite-detention-in-north-east-syria/
• US State Department — Missing Yezidi Women and Children: https://2021-2025.state.gov/statement-on-missing-yezidi-women-and-children/
• Free Yezidi Foundation — Missing Yezidis: https://freeyezidi.org/missing-yezidis/
• Nadia’s Initiative — The Genocide: https://www.nadiasinitiative.org/the-genocide
• The Conversation — German genocide verdict / ICC jurisdiction: https://theconversation.com/yazidi-genocide-landmark-guilty-verdict-for-is-jihadi-could-transform-how-atrocities-are-brought-to-justice-173043

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Bottom line: the atrocity itself is real, recognized as genocide, and horrific. The post’s emotional thrust is accurate, but if you’re citing it, I’d fix “10K killed” (that’s the killed + kidnapped total; deaths were ~3,000–5,500), soften “500K” to ~400,000 in Sinjar, and rewrite the UN/ICC lines to say the UN Security Council never referred the case to the ICC and that Iraq/Syria are outside ICC jurisdiction — rather than “refused” and “ignored.”

Timeline: The Yazidi Genocide and the Reports That Documented It

How to read this “HR org” marks reports from independent human rights organizations; “UN” marks United Nations bodies. The single most important thread is the move from documentation (2014–2016) to formal genocide findings (2016, 2021) to the still-unfinished work of prosecution.

2014 — The attack and first documentation

3 August 2014 — In the early hours, ISIL fighters launched their assault on the Yazidis of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq. Over the following days, the group executed hundreds of men and took captive thousands of women and children. The community numbered roughly 400,000.

August 2014 — Tens of thousands fled to Mount Sinjar and were besieged there, facing starvation and dehydration; many children died from lack of food, water, and injuries during the siege. Around this time the Kocho massacre and other village-level mass killings occurred.

September 2014 (HR org) — Amnesty International published Ethnic Cleansing on a Historic Scale: Islamic State’s Systematic Targeting of Minorities in Northern Iraq, one of the earliest detailed field-documentation efforts on the abductions and killings. Human Rights Watch also documented the abductions, forced conversions, and sexual violence over 2014–2015.

Late 2014 (UN) — The UN Human Rights Council convened and OHCHR/UNAMI (the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq) began systematically gathering evidence of targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, slavery, and sexual abuse.

2015 — Building the evidentiary record

2015 (HR org / academic) — Human rights groups continued documenting sexual slavery. Fieldwork for the later PLOS Medicine mortality survey was conducted in Iraqi Kurdistan camps between November and December 2015.

2015 (UN) — The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria began signaling that ISIL’s conduct against the Yazidis could constitute genocide, and Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad began addressing the international community, including the UN Security Council in December 2015.

2016 — Formal genocide recognition

17 March 2016 (state) — US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ISIL was committing genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and other minorities.

15–16 June 2016 (UN — landmark) — The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released “They Came to Destroy”: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis. It determined that ISIS had committed the crime of genocide, as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes, against the Yazidis. Chair Paulo Pinheiro stated that “Genocide has occurred and is ongoing.” The report repeated the call for the Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court, or to establish an ad hoc tribunal.

August 2016 (UN) — On the second anniversary, the Commission stressed the genocide was ongoing, noting over 3,200 women and children were still held by ISIS. A separate UNAMI/OHCHR report was also issued in August 2016.

2017 — From findings to an investigative mandate

9 May 2017 (academic) — PLOS Medicine published the retrospective household survey estimating that around 9,900 Yazidis were either killed or kidnapped over the course of a few days in August 2014 — the widely cited ~10,000 killed-or-kidnapped figure, with roughly 3,100 killed and 6,800 kidnapped.

21 September 2017 (UN — landmark) — The Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2379, establishing an Investigative Team (UNITAD) to collect and preserve evidence of ISIL war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq. It was created following joint advocacy by Nadia Murad, lawyer Amal Clooney, and the Yazidi NGO Yazda.

2018–2019 — Investigation and the fall of ISIS

20 August 2018 (UN) — UNITAD formally began its work.

October 2018 — Nadia Murad was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy on behalf of survivors.

March 2019 — With the fall of Baghouz, ISIL lost its last territorial hold in Syria. Following IS’s territorial defeat, an estimated 2,600 Yezidis remained missing, according to the Office for Kidnapped Yezidis in Dohuk.

2021 — A second genocide finding and the first conviction

10 May 2021 (UN — landmark) — UNITAD head Karim Khan told the Security Council that based on independent criminal investigations, there was clear and convincing evidence that genocide was committed by ISIL against the Yazidi as a religious group — affirming and expanding the 2016 Commission finding.

30 November 2021 (national court — landmark) — A German court convicted Iraqi ISIL member Taha al-Jumailly of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes — the world’s first conviction for genocide against the Yazidis, achieved under universal jurisdiction because Iraq and Syria are outside ICC jurisdiction.

2021 (Iraq) — Iraq adopted the Yazidi Survivors Law (Law No. 8), providing for reparations and support to survivors.

2024–2026 — Anniversary reckoning and unfinished justice

July–August 2024 (HR org + UN) — Around the 10th anniversary, Amnesty International reported that Yezidi survivors were abandoned to indefinite detention in northeast Syria, with an estimated 2,600 still missing. Save the Children reported about 1,300 Yazidi children still missing. The UN Commission of Inquiry issued a position paper renewing calls for justice and repatriation.

September 2024 (UN) — UNITAD’s mandate concluded, at Iraq’s request, after its final one-year extension — leaving open questions about the custody and future use of the evidence it collected.

2025–2026 (ongoing) — The Kurdistan Regional Government reported roughly 2,600–3,000 Yazidis still unaccounted for (with about 1,215 women and girls specifically named as of mid-2025). Yazidi organizations and legal scholars continue pressing for a dedicated international or hybrid tribunal, which has not yet materialized amid Security Council deadlock.

Sources (copy-pasteable)

• OHCHR — “They Came to Destroy” report / genocide finding (16 June 2016): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2016/06/un-commission-inquiry-syria-isis-committing-genocide-against-yazidis
• OHCHR — Second anniversary statement (Aug 2016): https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2016/08/statement-commission-inquiry-syria-second-anniversary-3-august-2014-attack-isis
• OHCHR — Third anniversary statement (3 Aug 2017): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2017/08/commission-inquiry-syria-calls-justice-occasion-third-anniversary-isils
• UN Security Council press — UNITAD genocide finding (10 May 2021): https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14514.doc.htm
• Cambridge / ILM — UNSC Resolution 2379 establishing UNITAD (21 Sept 2017): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-legal-materials/article/united-nations-security-council-resolution-2379/10BA008DB5199DDBA8130EFA81FAA726
• PLOS Medicine — mortality and kidnapping estimates (9 May 2017): https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1002297
• OHCHR — Ten years after the Yazidi genocide, position paper (2 Aug 2024): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/08/ten-years-after-yazidi-genocide-un-syria-commission-inquiry-calls-justice
• Amnesty International — Yezidi survivors in NE Syria detention (July 2024): https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/syria-yezidi-survivors-of-islamic-state-atrocities-abandoned-to-indefinite-detention-in-north-east-syria/
• Save the Children — ~1,300 children still missing (1 Aug 2024): https://www.savethechildren.net/news/about-1300-yazidi-children-still-missing-10-years-after-genocide
• Kurdistan24 — Over 1,200 women still missing (2025): https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/920895/

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A couple of the earliest-2014 items (the exact Amnesty and HRW publication dates, and the UN Human Rights Council’s September 2014 special session) I’ve placed by month rather than exact day, since I anchored the timeline on the reports I could date precisely. If you want, I can dig up the precise dates and document numbers for those 2014 reports to tighten the front end.

UN First Calls for Action: Yazidis (2014) vs. Gaza War (2023)

Part 1 — First UN urging on the Yazidis

The triggering attack was 3 August 2014. The first UN call for the international community to act came about nine days later.

On 12 August 2014, a group of UN human rights experts (special rapporteurs on minority issues, religious freedom, summary executions, and others) issued a public appeal warning that all possible measures had to be taken urgently to avoid a mass atrocity and potential genocide within days or hours, and that civilians needed to be protected on the ground. Around the same time, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was profoundly dismayed by ISIL’s acts and that he hoped the international community would “do all that we can” to rescue those trapped on Mount Sinjar.

Note that concrete protective action actually preceded the formal UN experts’ statement in this case: at the Iraqi government’s request, US airdrops and coalition airstrikes to break the Mount Sinjar siege began on 7 August 2014 — outside the UN framework.

Part 2 — First UN urging after the October 2023 war

The triggering event was Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, followed by Israel’s bombardment and ground operation in Gaza. From 7 October onward, Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the Hamas attack, called for the release of hostages, and urged all parties to respect international humanitarian law and allow humanitarian access.

His first call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire came on 18 October 2023 — about eleven days after the attack. On 25 October he repeated the ceasefire call in the remarks where he said the Hamas attacks “did not happen in a vacuum,” which drew sharp criticism from Israel. The escalating UN steps that followed:

• 27 October 2023 — The General Assembly adopted Resolution ES-10/21, calling for an immediate, durable humanitarian truce; it condemned all violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Vote: 121 to 14, with 44 abstentions.
• 15 November 2023 — Security Council Resolution 2712, its first on the war, called for humanitarian pauses (after four earlier failed attempts blocked by vetoes).
• 6 December 2023 — Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time in his tenure, formally pressing the Security Council to act to avert catastrophe.
• Later — South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice on 29 December 2023; the ICJ ordered provisional measures on 26 January 2024.

The comparison

The core finding Measured from the triggering attack to the UN’s first public call for international action, the two responses were strikingly similar in speed: roughly 9 days for the Yazidis (UN experts, 12 August 2014) and roughly 11 days for Gaza (Secretary-General’s first ceasefire call, 18 October 2023). If the expectation was that one case saw a dramatically faster or slower first response than the other, the timeline doesn’t support that. Both drew an initial UN reaction inside two weeks.

Where the two diverge is not the speed of the first appeal but the nature of the situations and what “action” meant — which is why a clean apples-to-apples comparison is difficult:

Who the action targeted. In 2014 the UN was urging protection of Yazidis from ISIL, a non-state terrorist group that no state defended. There was no member state whose conduct was in question, so calls for action were relatively uncontroversial. In 2023 the UN’s calls addressed a war involving a member state (Israel) responding to a mass terrorist attack by another non-state actor (Hamas). That made every UN statement politically contested and subject to Security Council vetoes from different directions.

What “action” meant. For the Yazidis it meant physical rescue (airdrops, airstrikes, humanitarian corridors) and, later, evidence-gathering and prosecution. For Gaza it meant ceasefire, humanitarian access, and later judicial proceedings at the ICJ. These are different instruments, so “the UN urged action” doesn’t describe the same thing in each case.

The framing “against Israel.” It’s worth flagging that the UN’s post-October-2023 position wasn’t purely directed against Israel. The General Assembly resolution condemned violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians, and the Secretary-General repeatedly condemned Hamas’s 7 October attack and demanded hostage releases. Characterizing the UN response solely as “action against Israel” captures one part of a more mixed posture — which is itself one of the contested aspects of how different observers read the UN’s role.

A shared feature: blocked follow-through. In both cases, the UN’s binding action was hamstrung by Security Council divisions. Justice for the Yazidis was never referred to the ICC partly because a 2014 Syria referral was vetoed by Russia and China; multiple Gaza resolutions were delayed or vetoed by the US and, separately, by Russia and China. So in both, early rhetorical urgings ran ahead of what the Council would actually enforce.

Sources (copy-pasteable)

• UN News — UN rights experts urge action on Yazidis (12 Aug 2014): https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/08/474982
• UN Press — Ban Ki-moon press conference on Iraq/Sinjar (Aug 2014): https://press.un.org/en/2014/sgsm16083.doc.htm
• Al Jazeera — Guterres calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire since 18 October (7 Dec 2023): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/7/un-secretary-general-invokes-article-99-on-gaza
• Wikipedia — UN General Assembly Resolution ES-10/21 (27 Oct 2023): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_ES-10/21
• UN News — Guterres invokes Article 99 (6 Dec 2023): https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144447
• UN Press — Guterres urges Security Council to call for ceasefire (8 Dec 2023): https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15518.doc.htm

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UN Actions Compared: Yazidi Case (2014) vs. Gaza War (post-7 October 2023)

A note on framing The right-hand column covers the UN’s response to the war that began with Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. That response was not solely directed “against Israel” — it also condemned the Hamas attack and demanded hostage releases — so the table records the full posture rather than one side of it.

What the table shows The two cases match closely on one point — the UN’s first public appeal came within roughly nine to eleven days in both. They diverge on almost everything downstream: the Yazidi track produced formal genocide findings and a dedicated evidence body but no international court jurisdiction, while the Gaza track produced faster and more numerous Security Council and General Assembly resolutions plus active ICJ and ICC proceedings, but no UN genocide determination. In both, binding enforcement was constrained by Security Council vetoes from different members.

Sources (copy-pasteable)

• UN News — UN experts urge action on Yazidis (12 Aug 2014): https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/08/474982
• OHCHR — “They Came to Destroy” genocide finding (16 Jun 2016): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2016/06/un-commission-inquiry-syria-isis-committing-genocide-against-yazidis
• UN Press — UNITAD “clear and convincing evidence” of genocide (10 May 2021): https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14514.doc.htm
• Cambridge/ILM — UNSC Resolution 2379 establishing UNITAD (2017): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-legal-materials/article/united-nations-security-council-resolution-2379/10BA008DB5199DDBA8130EFA81FAA726
• Al Jazeera — Guterres ceasefire calls / Article 99 (7 Dec 2023): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/7/un-secretary-general-invokes-article-99-on-gaza
• Wikipedia — GA Resolution ES-10/21 (27 Oct 2023): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_ES-10/21
• UN News — Guterres invokes Article 99 (6 Dec 2023): https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144447

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One flag on the ICC/ICJ row, since it’s the most contested: the ICC arrest warrants and the ICJ provisional-measures order are matters of public record, but neither represents a final legal conclusion on the merits, and both remain politically disputed. If you’re using this in a piece, I’d keep that distinction explicit. Want me to add a row for the specific dates of each failed/passed Security Council vote in the Gaza column?

Human Rights Council / Inquiry — Gaza war (post-7 October 2023), with dates

• 27 May 2021 — The standing Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was established by the Human Rights Council at its 30th special session (resolution A/HRC/RES/S-30/1). This open-ended commission already existed when the war began.
• 10 October 2023 — Three days after the Hamas attack, the Commission stated it was already collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes committed by all sides since 7 October 2023, and urged both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups to comply with international law.
• 5 April 2024 — The Human Rights Council adopted resolutions directing the Commission to report on arms transfers to Israel (A/HRC/RES/55/28) and on settler violence (A/HRC/RES/55/32).
• 19 June 2024 — The Commission presented its first in-depth report on the war to the Council’s 56th session (A/HRC/56/26), covering 7 October to 31 December 2023, finding that both Hamas/Palestinian armed groups and Israel committed war crimes, and that Israel’s conduct also amounted to crimes against humanity.
• 16 September 2025 — The Commission issued its report concluding that Israel committed genocide in Gaza (examining evidence from 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025).

Important caveat on the genocide finding This Commission is set up by the Human Rights Council but is described as independent and does not officially represent the UN as a whole. Its September 2025 genocide conclusion is a finding by that body, not a ruling by a court. It is separate from, and does not have the legal status of, the ICJ proceedings, which have not decided the merits. Israel has rejected the Commission’s findings and disputes its impartiality. This is a contested area, so the finding is best cited as “the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded” rather than “the UN determined.”

For the parallel Yazidi cell, the dates were: Commission of Inquiry on Syria documented the crimes and issued “They Came to Destroy” on 16 June 2016, with UNITAD later affirming genocide on 10 May 2021.

Sources (copy-pasteable)

• OHCHR — Commission collecting evidence of war crimes by all sides (10 Oct 2023): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/commission-inquiry-collecting-evidence-war-crimes-committed-all-sides-israel
• OHCHR — Commission of Inquiry on OPT, mandate and documentation (establishment 27 May 2021; resolutions 5 Apr 2024): https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-israel/index
• Wikipedia — Commission of Inquiry on the OPT (19 Jun 2024 report; report history): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_International_Commission_of_Inquiry_on_the_Occupied_Palestinian_Territory
• OHCHR — Commission finds Israel committed genocide (16 Sep 2025): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds

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War Crimes Cited in the Commission’s 10 October 2023 Statement

Read this as preliminary, not a verdict This was a three-day-in statement of concern, not a formal legal finding. The Commission said there was already clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed and that all who targeted civilians must be held accountable. Its formal, detailed findings came later, in the 19 June 2024 report. The acts below are what it flagged at this early stage.

Attributed to Palestinian armed groups (the 7 October attack)

The Commission framed these in definite terms:

• Gunning down hundreds of unarmed civilians — it called reports of this abhorrent and intolerable.
• Taking civilian hostages — stated plainly as a war crime.
• Using civilians as human shields — also stated plainly as a war crime.

Attributed to Israel (the response and siege)

The Commission framed this as grave concern rather than a settled label at that point:

• Israel’s latest attack on Gaza.
• Israel’s announced complete siege of Gaza, involving the withholding of essentials such as water and food (the announced siege also cut electricity and fuel) — raising collective-punishment and starvation-of-civilians concerns.

The through-line

The Commission’s stated position was even-handed in form: it said those who violated international law and targeted civilians on any side must be held accountable, and it urged both Israeli security forces and Palestinian armed groups to comply strictly with international humanitarian and human rights law. Note the asymmetry in wording, though — the Palestinian-side acts (hostage-taking, human shields) were labeled outright as war crimes, while the Israeli-side conduct (the siege) was expressed as a matter the Commission was gravely concerned about. That distinction reflects the early, evidence-gathering nature of the statement.

Source (copy-pasteable)

• OHCHR — Commission collecting evidence of war crimes committed by all sides since 7 October 2023 (10 Oct 2023): https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/commission-inquiry-collecting-evidence-war-crimes-committed-all-sides-israel

Palestinian Territories since 7 October 2023

“The Commission is gravely concerned with Israel’s latest attack on Gaza and Israel’s announcement of a complete siege on Gaza involving the withholding of water, food, electricity and fuel which will undoubtfully cost civilian lives and constitutes collective punishment.”

“Commission emphasises that the only path towards ending violence and achieving sustainable peace is through addressing the root causes of the conflict including through ending the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and recognising the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”