ECAJ statement on the UN Human Rights Council report on war in Gaza.

The ECAJ has strongly condemned the report of the so-called “Inde­pend­ent Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestini­an Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel”, dis­miss­ing it as lacking any semblance of legal rigour or moral authority.

“The report is a col­lec­tion of alleg­a­tions, reports and opinions that have never been tested in any court of law”, said ECAJ President Daniel Aghion. “No witnesses have been sworn, examined and cross-examined, and no contrary or exculp­at­ory evidence has been con­sidered in any kind of judicial process.”

“Accord­ingly, contrary to the asser­tions made in the report, the evidence of alleged genocidal intent is anything but ‘con­clus­ive’, and is far from the ‘only reas­on­able inference that could be drawn’.”

“Civilian deaths in war, even on a large scale, espe­cially in Gaza where Hamas delib­er­ately uses civilians a human shields, is not “genocide” unless certain other criteria are met. The report refers only to ‘reas­on­able grounds’ for con­clud­ing that those criteria have been satisfied. This is far below the evid­en­tiary standard for a finding of genocide or any other crime, which requires an impartial court to decide that each of the elements of the crime have been proved beyond reas­on­able doubt.”

“There is abundant evidence that, even when it is mil­it­ar­ily dis­ad­vant­age­ous for it to do so, Israel in con­duct­ing a war of self-defence (a fact omitted from the report), has moved Palestini­ans out of harm’s way before an attack, given advance warnings of strikes at specific locations, set up human­it­ari­an corridors, and facil­it­ated the flow of aid in a way that prevents Hamas from stealing it, all of which points in the opposite direction of a genocidal intent”, Mr Aghion said.

“The pre­sump­tion of innocence used to be a bedrock principle of fairness, but the concept that one is innocent until a court has found one guilty has been abrogated as far as Israel is concerned.”

“A legal opinion even from an eminent expert or untested “findings” by human rights organ­isa­tions are not the same thing as a con­clus­ively estab­lished finding by a court after a fair trial.”

“Legal opinions often vary greatly and fre­quently reflect the political or ideo­lo­gic­al views of those giving them. This par­tic­u­lar Com­mis­sion of Inquiry consists of three indi­vidu­als who have a long prior record of antipathy and prejudice towards Israel, and have not even pretended to be impartial.”

“In the case of the current conflict in Gaza, the only genocidal intent that has been openly confessed to has been the genocide of Israelis by Hamas on October 7, 2023: YouTube video; MEMRI video. And see a peer-reviewed analysis here. Yet the UN seems incapable of using the word “genocide” in asso­ci­ation with Hamas.”

“The alleg­a­tion that Israel has committed genocide is currently before the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Justice (ICJ) in the South Africa v. Israel case. The ICJ has not expressed any con­clu­sion, or even any pre­lim­in­ary or pro­vi­sion­al con­clu­sion about this question, let alone a finding beyond reas­on­able doubt, because it has not begun hearing evidence. It has heard sub­mis­sions from lawyers, but sub­mis­sions from lawyers are not evidence.”

“There continue to be reports in the media uncrit­ic­ally repeating the false claim that in its Pro­vi­sion­al Measures interim ruling on 26 January 2024, the ICJ found that Israel had committed ‘plausible genocide’. This falsehood has been firmly debunked by Judge Joan Donoghue who, as ICJ President at the time, delivered the Pro­vi­sion­al Measures ruling in this case. Judge Donoghue said in a BBC interview “I’m cor­rect­ing what’s often said in the media – it [the ICJ] didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible”. Instead, she explained, the ICJ held that it was plausible to claim that Palestini­ans in the Gaza Strip, like all national, ethnic, racial or religious groups, have the right to be protected from acts of genocide.”

(Source: Former head of ICJ explains ruling on genocide case against Israel brought by S Africa (bbc.com), dated 26 April 2024.)

“Judge Donoghue confirmed that the ICJ had made it clear that it was not pre­judging, even on an interim basis, whether any acts have in fact been committed with genocidal intent, and will only consider this question in the trial phase. Until the full trial takes place and a determ­in­a­tion is reached, any alleg­a­tion that the ICJ has made even a pre­lim­in­ary finding that genocide has occurred is com­pletely false.”

(Source: “The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the request for the indic­a­tion of pro­vi­sion­al measures, to establish the existence of breaches of oblig­a­tions under the Genocide Con­ven­tion”, see paragraph 62, page 19, Inter­na­tion­al Court of Justice Pro­vi­sion­al Measures Order, available at: Order of 26 January 2024 (icj-cij.org), dated 26 January 2024; and Brian Doctor KC, Unherd, The flaws in the genocide case against Israel – UnHerd, dated 1 March 2024.)

Mr Aghion also referred to a 311 page study into the war in Gaza released on 2 September 2025 by the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA), an inde­pend­ent non­par­tis­an think-tank in Israel. The study based its findings not on opinions but on stat­ist­ic­al facts via a forensic exam­in­a­tion of IDF tactics, casualty figures, food truck deliv­er­ies and UN reports. The study concluded defin­it­ively that there is no evidence of a sys­tem­at­ic Israeli policy of targeting or mas­sac­ring civilians and no evidence that aerial bombing was a part of a genocidal policy of killing innocent Palestini­ans.

“Although this study is also not a court decision, it should give any fair-minded person pause, and demon­strate why questions of criminal guilt should be decided by impartial courts rather than so-called Com­mis­sions of Inquiry with a barely-disguised political agenda.”

“This flawed report must not be used as a spring­board for intro­du­cing the long list of sanctions against Israel and other actions which it calls for, in an attempt to isolate Israel and effect­ively reward Hamas with victory.”