UN Investigators Find 1,143 West Bank Deaths in Three-Year Period

A United Nations investigative panel concluded on Monday that Israeli authorities and forces committed crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank, including extermination, torture, and rape. The report, issued by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, documents a widespread and systematic attack on civilians driven by military operations and settler violence.

The inquiry, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, analyzed harm caused by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces from October 2023 to October 2026. According to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1,143 Palestinians died during that period. At least 250 of the victims were children. The territory includes East Jerusalem.

Commission members stated that the Israeli government intended to collectively punish West Bank residents in response to the Hamas attack that began on October 7, 2023. The panel found that this punitive intent underpinned the military actions and the sustained violence by settlers. The report was released one day before Israel’s general election.

Israel’s mission in Geneva rejected the findings, describing the document as part of a misinformation campaign designed to demonize the state. The mission called for the international community to reject the report and demand the commission’s immediate dissolution.

The release of the report coincided with a military crackdown in Hebron. Israeli forces carried out expulsions and demolitions in the city following a gun attack the previous week. The commission does not speak for the UN as a whole, but its members are mandated by the international body to investigate specific violations.

Navi Pillay, the former South African High Court judge who chaired the investigation until November 2025, received the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month. Her leadership guided the panel through its September 2025 determination that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. The new report extends that line of inquiry to the West Bank, citing specific acts of sexual violence and persecution based on nationality, race, and ethnicity.

The commission’s findings highlight the deterioration of conditions in the occupied territory since late 2023. While the Gaza conflict has displaced nearly the entire population and killed more than 74,500 people according to local health officials, the West Bank report isolates the specific mechanisms of harm inflicted on residents in that separate territory.