Israel's Actions in Gaza ‘Raise Concern’ It May Have Committed Ethnic Cleansing, UN Says

New Delhi: Israel's actions in Gaza, including destroying entire neighbourhoods and denying humanitarian aid, “appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift” in the coastal strip and raise concern that it may have committed ethnic cleansing, the UN's human rights office has said.

Patterns of lethal attacks carried out by its forces in Gaza also raise concern that they intentionally targeted civilians, which would constitute a war crime, a report prepared by the Office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and delivered to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this week said.

Between November 1, 2024 and October 31, 2025 OHCHR found that Israel's “intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza”.

“This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank,” a press release on Thursday (February 19) quoted the report as saying.

According to the report, the pattern of Israeli forces' attacks in Gaza “raised grave concerns” that they deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects as well as launched attacks “knowing civilian harm would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage” – actions that would constitute war crimes.

Instances of Israeli troops' “continued killing and maiming of unprecedented numbers of civilians”, in addition to parts of Gaza slipping into famine and the destruction of much of the battered territory's civilian infrastructure, subjected Palestinians to “conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence” there “as a group”, Thursday's press release also said.

These conditions of famine were a “direct result” of Tel Aviv's actions such as blocking the flow of humanitarian aid, and at least 463 Palestinians including 157 children died of starvation, OHCHR said, noting that if civilians are starved at scale as a means of war with the intention of destroying an ethnic group, that could constitute genocide.

In the Occupied West Bank too it noted the “systematic unlawful use of force by Israeli security forces, the widespread arbitrary detention and torture and other ill-detention-treatment of Palestinians in detention” on top of the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes.

The justice system in Israel has not taken any “meaningful steps” towards ensuring accountability for Israeli forces for human rights violations, to commit which they enjoyed a “pervasive climate of impunity”, the report said.

“Impunity is not abstract – it kills. Accountability is indispensable. It is the prerequisite for a just and durable peace in Palestine and Israel,” high commissioner for human rights Volker Turk was quoted as saying.

OHCHR also noted “concerning incidents of unnecessary or disproportionate use of force by the Palestinian Authority” and referred to public testimonies from released Hamas hostages of the “sexual and gender-based violence, torture, beatings, prolonged underground confinement” as well as nutritional and sanitary deprivation they endured at the hands of the Gazan group.

After Hamas launched a terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023 in which it killed around 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, Tel Aviv launched a brutal military campaign in Gaza that came to a pause four months ago and during which over 68,000 Palestinians were slain and more than 81% of all structures in the strip were damaged or destroyed per one estimate.

The US-brokered ceasefire deal of October 10, 2025 caused the heaviest fighting to subside, but there has been almost daily Israeli fire in Gaza. Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military-held zones, killing more than 600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

Infographics that OHCHR provided alongside its report mention that in the two years after Hamas's terror attack, 20,179 children were killed in Gaza per the strip's health ministry, a figure that the UN office said is “equivalent to a classroom of children killed every day”.

Per its own estimates 2,435 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military while trying to access food between May 27, 2025 and October 8, 2025.

With inputs from AP.

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