UN Report Exposes Israel’s Genocidal Intent in Gaza: A Call for Global Action to Save Palestinian Lives
By.
Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia
Special consultative status in ECOSOC
United Nations
In a damning indictment that shakes the foundations of international conscience, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Israeli authorities have committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The report, released on September 16, 2025, reveals that Israel’s military operations were designed with the explicit intent to kill as many Palestinians as possible, employing methods of warfare that foreseeably led to mass deaths, including among children. This is not mere tragedy; it is a calculated assault on an entire people, demanding urgent intervention from the global community.
The Commission’s findings, based on two years of rigorous investigation including witness testimonies, satellite imagery, and analysis of Israeli officials’ statements, affirm that Israel has perpetrated four of the five acts defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, and imposing measures to prevent births.
Explicit rhetoric from Israeli leaders—such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s invocation of biblical “total annihilation,” President Isaac Herzog’s claim that “an entire nation” bears responsibility, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s reference to Palestinians as “human animals”—serves as direct evidence of genocidal intent. The pattern of conduct, from indiscriminate bombings in densely populated areas to the systematic destruction of hospitals, schools, and fertility clinics, leaves no room for doubt: this is not self-defense, but erasure.
As educators and advocates for human dignity at Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia, we are horrified by the scale of this atrocity. The war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages, has spiraled into an unparalleled catastrophe for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
Official figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry report over 64,000 Palestinians killed and 161,000 injured as of early September 2025. However, independent analyses incorporating indirect deaths from starvation, disease, and collapsed infrastructure paint an even graver picture.
Researchers Dr. Richard Hil and Dr. Gideon Polya, in their September 2025 study “Skewering History: The Odious Politics of Counting Gaza’s Dead,” estimate the true toll at over 680,000 Palestinians— a figure that includes the devastating impact of famine, dehydration, lack of medical care, and trauma-induced mortality. Among these, an estimated 380,000 are infants under five years old, and 99,000 are children over five, totaling 479,000 young lives extinguished.
These numbers are not abstract statistics; they represent stolen futures, shattered families, and a generation robbed of education, play, and hope. Gaza’s children, who make up nearly half of the population, have borne the brunt of this violence: targeted strikes on schools, denial of nutritional aid leading to widespread malnutrition, and the bombing of pediatric wards.
The UN report highlights how Israel’s blockade has weaponized hunger, with over 400 famine-related deaths recorded since October 2023, including 145 children. As the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared parts of Gaza in full famine this year, the international community’s inaction has turned complicity into a stain on humanity’s shared legacy.
Israel’s vehement rejection of the UN findings—labeling them “distorted and false” and calling for the Commission’s dissolution—only underscores the impunity that has enabled this horror. Yet, as the report urges, all states bear a legal obligation under international law to halt the genocide, including through arms embargoes, sanctions, and support for accountability at the International Court of Justice, where South Africa’s case against Israel proceeds. The silence of powerful nations, particularly those supplying weapons to Israel, echoes the failures that allowed past genocides to unfold.
At Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia, our mission has always been to foster knowledge, empathy, and justice through education. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian children, whose right to learn and live has been systematically denied.
This genocide is an assault on the very principles of humanity that education upholds. We call on Indonesian educators, policymakers, and citizens to amplify these voices: demand an immediate ceasefire, advocate for unrestricted humanitarian aid, and support Palestinian self-determination. The world cannot afford another “never again” that becomes “again and again.”
The children of Gaza are not numbers—they are our collective responsibility. Let their stories ignite action, not indifference. For in protecting them, we safeguard the soul of our world..
Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing education and human rights in Indonesia and beyond.
