Overview
- The UN Human Rights Office says intensified attacks, systematic neighborhood destruction and restrictions on aid indicate an effort to alter Gaza’s demographics, raising concerns about ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.
- The report documents at least 463 starvation deaths in Gaza, including 157 children, between November 1, 2024 and October 31, 2025, and states that using hunger as a weapon against civilians constitutes a war crime.
- In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli security forces are accused of unlawful violence, arbitrary arrests, torture and home demolitions as part of systematic discrimination and control.
- Israel rejects the allegations, with its mission in Geneva calling the UN rights office’s work a campaign of demonization and disinformation and asserting long-standing bias at the Human Rights Council.
- The findings were released on February 19, 2026, as Gaza health authorities controlled by Hamas report more than 1,500 deaths since an October 9, 2025 ceasefire plan and over 70,000 since October 2023.