UKLFI Charitable Trust (UKLFI) and UN Watch have published a response exposing fundamental flaws in the latest report of the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.

The analysis concludes that the Commission’s findings are undermined by a recurring pattern of selective quotations, unsupported assertions, repeated allegations presented as corroborated evidence, omissions of material facts and misrepresentations of the law.

The response examines the Commission’s report in forensic detail, testing its allegations against the sources cited in its footnotes, the evidence relied upon and the requirements of international law.

The Commission’s report makes some of the gravest accusations possible under international law. It maintains that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and crimes against humanity, including extermination and persecution, in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). It also recommends further action by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

UKLFI and UN Watch conclude that the report does not establish these allegations and that its findings should not be treated as anything other than partisan advocacy.

The primary author of the response is Dr Naama Omri JSD (Yale) of UKLFI, assisted by Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor of UNWatch.

Forensic examination reveals fundamental evidential deficiencies

The response scrutinises the Commission’s methodology and the standard of proof it applies to its findings.

The Commission relies on a standard of “reasonable grounds”, but does not expressly identify that standard in the report itself. The joint response explains that this is the threshold used by the ICC when deciding whether to issue an arrest warrant against an individual, rather than the standard required to establish criminal guilt or the international responsibility of a State.

The analysis further shows that the Commission has failed to demonstrate that its findings satisfy even its own stated standard. Its terms of reference require particular attention to corroboration, ordinarily through independent and reliable sources. Yet the response identifies 72 statements in the report that have no source cited, including 40 statements on which findings depend.

The report also fails, according to the analysis, to demonstrate adequately how its evidence has been independently corroborated. The response traces instances in which allegations made in earlier Commission publications are repeated in subsequent reports, with qualifications disappearing along the way. Repetition, the authors point out, cannot turn an unverified allegation into independent corroboration.

Particular attention is given to the Commission’s finding of genocide. The response identifies a fundamental tension between the Commission’s reliance on “reasonable grounds” and the requirement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of fully conclusive evidence to establish a State’s responsibility for genocide. It also examines the legal requirement that, where genocidal intent is inferred from a pattern of conduct, that intent must be the only reasonable inference available.

The authors point out that the Commission has not properly excluded alternative explanations for the conduct it examines, including Israel’s stated objective of fighting Hamas and other armed groups following the attacks of 7 October 2023 and recovering the hostages.

Israeli officials’ words quoted selectively

A central section of the response examines the Commission’s treatment of statements by Israeli political and military figures.

The analysis identifies multiple examples in which quotations have been truncated or removed from their context, changing their apparent meaning. Statements concerning military objectives, pressure on Hamas and the conduct of operations are presentedfalsely as evidence of territorial ambition or an intention to kill Palestinians.

The authors contend that these are not isolated errors. They identify a recurring pattern in which the omitted context would materially affect the interpretation of the statement.

The response also challenges the Commission’s historical account of the conflict. It notes that the report’s discussion of the 1948 war omits essential context, including the Arab rejection of the UN partition plan and the invasion by five Arab armies. It further criticises the Commission for using this historical narrative to explain present-day Israeli conduct, despite acknowledging that its investigation of the earlier period would be addressed in subsequent reports.

The joint analysis concludes that the Commission’s treatment of history is not a neutral account of the evidence but a narrative that prejudges issues supposedly under investigation.

Sources cited by the Commission undermine its findings

One of the most significant features of the response is its examination of the Commission’s footnotes and underlying sources.

UKLFI and UN Watch identify instances in which the cited material, when read in full, does not support the proposition for which it is cited and, in some cases, contradicts it. The response examines allegations concerning killings in Gaza, events following the October 2025 ceasefire, warnings near the “Yellow Line”, Israeli military operations in the West Bank and alleged impunity.

The authors observe that these examples raise serious questions about whether the Commission has properly examined the evidence on which it relies or has omitted material that should qualify its conclusions.

The response also challenges the Commission’s treatment of casualty figures. It examines how an estimate adopted by the Commission, that 83% of those killed in Gaza were civilians, was based on a press report that Israeli intelligence had identified by name some 8,900 members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as dead or probably dead by May 2025 and an assumption that all other Palestinians who had died were civilians.

The source had itself acknowledged that the number of terrorists killed was likely higher than the number of those which Israeli intelligence had managed to identify by name. Yet the Commission presented this estimate as an established fact, despite the acknowledged (and obvious) limitations of the underlying data.

7 October and Hamas’s conduct largely absent

The response identifies the striking omission from the Commission’s account of the drivers of violence: the conduct and objectives of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

It notes that the report does not mention the word “hostage”, despite the 251 people taken hostage during the 7 October 2023 attacks. The joint response also highlights the report’s failure to give adequate consideration to the killing of more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on 7 October; the UN’s findings concerning sexual violence by Palestinian terrorists; Hamas’s declared intention to kill Jews; and the group’s practice of operating from within civilian areas.

The analysis also draws attention to Hamas’s violence against Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority’s payments to prisoners and the families of attackers.

UKLFI and UN Watch point out that excluding or marginalising these matters fundamentally distorts the context in which Israeli military operations and Palestinian casualties must be assessed. A report purporting to identify the causes of violence cannot do so reliably while omitting evidence central to understanding the conflict.

Serious allegations of legal overreach

The response devotes a substantial section to the legal conclusions drawn from the Commission’s factual findings.

It challenges the finding of extermination on the basis that the Commission does not adequately distinguish combatants from civilians in its analysis. It disputes the inference that alleged settler violence is attributable to the Israeli State in the manner asserted, and demonstrates that the Commission has failed to establish the necessary elements of persecution.

The authors also scrutinise the Commission’s conclusions concerning alleged targeting of children, sexual violence and torture, and its inference of continuing genocidal intent from a limited number of alleged incidents. Individual allegations and incidents are repeatedly used to support much broader claims about State policy without evidential or legal analysis.

The response further criticises the Commission’s recommendations for presenting its own conclusions as though they were requirements imposed by the ICJ and overstating the effect of the ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion.

It also highlights that the ICJ’s 2024 provisional measures orders in the South Africa v Israel proceedings did not constitute a finding that Israel had committed genocide. The authors warn that the Commission’s presentation risks misleading readers about what the ICJ has actually decided and what international law requires.

Conclusion: the Commission’s report is partisan advocacy and should not be mistaken for anything else

The joint response concludes that the deficiencies it identifies cannot be dismissed as isolated mistakes.

Its final assessment is that the repeated truncation of quotations, use of sources that do not support the claims made, lack of demonstrated corroboration, omission of material evidence and leaps from individual incidents to conclusions about State policy collectively undermine the Commission’s credibility.

The report’s allegations are particularly serious because they concern genocide and crimes against humanity. UKLFI and UN Watch consider that the gravity of such accusations makes rigorous evidential standards, fair treatment of competing explanations and accurate statements of the law all the more essential.

The response calls for the Commission’s findings to be examined critically rather than accepted at face value by governments, international institutions, courts and prosecutors.

A spokesperson for UKLFI said:

“This joint response with UN Watch is the product of a painstaking, forensic examination of the Commission’s report, its underlying sources and the legal authorities on which it purports to rely. We have not simply disagreed with its conclusions: we have tested them against the evidence cited in its own footnotes and examined whether the legal requirements for the findings it makes have actually been satisfied.

“What emerges is deeply troubling. We identify quotations stripped of essential context, allegations repeated as though repetition were corroboration, sources that undermine the propositions for which they are cited, and grave legal conclusions drawn without the necessary evidential foundations. We also expose the omission of fundamental facts about Hamas’s atrocities on 7 October, the hostages and the continuing threat posed by Palestinian armed groups.

“These are not minor technical defects in a report making ordinary allegations. The Commission accuses Israel of genocide and other crimes of the utmost gravity. Such accusations demand scrupulous accuracy, impartiality and fidelity to the law.

“The international community must not allow the UN’s reputation to be further debased by adopting findings that do not withstand examination. The seriousness of these allegations makes the need for impartiality and methodological rigour all the more important.”

Commission of Inquiry Report HERE

UKLFI / UNWatch Response HERE

Video with Natasha Hausdorff, UKLFI Legal Director HERE