The “Commission of Inquiry” (CoI) established by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2021 with an open-ended mandate to vilify Israel has struck again. In its latest report, the CoI claims to focus on “attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel and highlights the link between such attacks and the right to self-determination.”
In its report, the CoI bemoans the IDF attacks on sundry educational facilities, mosques, and other cultural sites. The picture presented is designed to conjure the impression that Israel arbitrarily attacked the sites without justification, at the very best, or intentionally attacked the purely civilian sites with the intention of targeting civilians, at the very worst.
The accounts of the attacks are almost exclusively devoid of any recognition of the intentional use of the sites by Hamas as bases for operations, places to store weaponry, and sensitive locations under which they dug their extensive terror-tunnel infrastructure, estimated to extend in excess of 550km (342 miles).
This is not an inadvertent omission. Rather it is part of a concerted effort to ignore the fact that a war that started with Hamas and the other Gazan terrorists carrying out the October 7, 2023, massacre is being conducted in the Gaza Strip. In that war, the terrorists have unequivocally and undeniably used and abused the civilian population in Gaza as human shields. Weapons caches, rocket launchers, terrorists, and other terror assets have all been intentionally placed in and under civilian installations, including, but not limited to schools, hospitals, kindergartens, mosques, churches, clinics, and other locations. United Nations installations, including UNRWA schools and even UNRWA’s headquarters in the Gaza Strip, have also been intentionally used to provide cover for the terror infrastructure, sometimes, ostensibly, without the knowledge of UN personnel and other times, with their clear or undeniable knowledge.
Thus, with a combination of intentional distortion, vague and unfounded assumptions, and false legal determinations, intertwined with the occasional blood libel and open justification of terror, the CoI set out with the clear goal of vilifying Israel, while whitewashing the terrorists and their actions.
To understand the absurdity of the report from a body created and sustained by no less than the UNHRC, one need look no further than the recommendations section of the report, which is a microcosmic reflection of the entire report.
Addressing the democratic State of Israel defending itself against genocidal terrorists, the CoI compiled a long list of thirteen recommendations, some designed to limit and curtail Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens, and others interfering with the inner running’s of the country.
In contrast, when addressing the dictatorial Palestinian Authority, that systematically denies Israel’s very right to exist, denies Israel’s right to exist as the nation of the Jewish people, glorifies terror and terrorists, educates its children to hate, kill and be killed, and even operates a policy under which terrorists are paid substantial rewards for their participation in terror directed against Israel, the commission could only muster two recommendations. Neither of the recommendations addressed their malicious actions, statements, and policies.
No less shamefully, in the entire report and in its recommendations, the CoI refused to accept that Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that brought a disaster not only on Israel, but also on the Gazans, and addressed two recommendations to the “de facto authorities in Gaza.” As if Hamas gives a damn what the CoI has to recommend.
Most shamefully however, but also most indicatively, the CoI tells Israel to provide “effective, adequate and prompt remedy for victims of human rights violations, including surviving family members,” it never even condemns Hamas, or demand it surrender unconditionally and immediately release the hostages it kidnapped on October 7.
Misrepresenting, Distorting, and Ignoring the Laws of War
As part of the mission to misrepresent, distort, and even ignore the application of the Laws of War, the CoI brought different examples that color Israel’s actions as illegitimate, without providing critical context.
For example, in different sections of the report, the CoI bemoaned Israeli forces using certain premises in Gaza for lodgings and other purposes. What the CoI failed to note, one can only assume intentionally, is that using premises in enemy territory is common and accepted practice during war. As the United States’ Department of Defense Law of War Manual provides:
It may be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war to seize or destroy enemy property in order to support military operations. These examples are illustrative and not exhaustive:
- Using enemy land for the construction of military bases, air fields, and other facilities to support military operations;
- Using enemy buildings to billet military personnel and others supporting them, to house the wounded and sick, for observation and reconnaissance, for concealment and cover, and for defensive purposes;
- Demolishing, cutting down, or removing enemy walls, forests, and buildings to clear a field of fire or to provide construction material; or
- Seizing means of transportation for use in military operations.
In another instance, the CoI intentionally creates an impression that distorts the Laws of War. Describing an event that allegedly happened at the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the CoI opens by saying that the church itself, “was attacked.” It later admits that the church itself was not the target of the attack, but rather an adjacent building described by the IDF as “a command-and-control centre of Hamas.” The CoI then added, according to its analysis, “the actual impact crater was located on a side road some 20 metres south of the target identified by Israeli security forces and 5 metres from one of the church buildings affected, indicating that Israeli security forces may have used an unguided or imprecise bomb, with a wide margin of error.”
The story distorts the Laws of War on multiple levels. Firstly, it fails to recognize that attacking a legitimate military target is permitted by the Laws of War. Secondly, while presenting the number of people killed in the strike, it fails to present the actual military value of the target actually attacked. As unfortunate as it may be, the Laws of War accept that in certain instances, non-combatants may be inadvertently killed. To limit to the extent possible the collateral damage, the Laws of War prohibit an attack in which is expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
By distorting the true meaning of the principle of “proportionality” in the Laws of War, the CoI creates an impression of impropriety and even malfeasance on the side of Israel, while simultaneously hiding the terror activity and rendering any legitimate assessment as to whether the number of people inadvertently killed is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
The CoI completes its distortion by adding that “Israeli security forces may have used an unguided or imprecise bomb, with a wide margin of error.”
Even if one were to ignore the speculative “may have used” language, which certainly does not reach the standard of proof the CoI claimed to adhere to, the false premise that the CoI is trying to establish is that Israel is always required to use only guided bombs, when in reality, no such requirement exists in the Laws of War. By doing so, the CoI is intentionally, and deceitfully, creating a legal standard applicable only to Israel.
Using Hamas Terror Statistics
The fact that the CoI blindly quotes the statistics of Hamas – which have repeatedly been shown to be false – is an indication of its refusal to accept that a genocidal terrorist organization has no credibility. These statistics are nothing more than a propaganda exercise designed to vilify Israel. The statistics are predominantly valueless; they have been altered by sudden labelling of many deaths as unverified, include all deaths from natural causes, death caused by the terrorists themselves and numerous errant rockets, refusal to allow evacuation and heed warnings, and completely fail to distinguish between terrorist and civilian deaths.
CoI Repeats the Libel That Israel or Jews Pose a Danger to the Temple Mount
The canard that the Jews or Israel are threatening the Temple Mount site is a 100-year-old lie. It was initiated in the 1920s by Haj Amin al-Husseini, who at the time served as the Mufti of Jerusalem. It was this false claim that was then used by al-Husseini as a rallying call and provided the basis for the 1929 Arab massacre of the Jews in Hebron, Jerusalem, and Safed.
In reality, the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site. It is the biblical Mount Moriah where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac. It is the site at which King Solomon built the first Jewish Temple, destroyed in 586 BCE and where the Jews, 70 years later, built the Second Temple. As a pamphlet for tourists published in 1924 by the Supreme Muslim Council openly declares: “This site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.”
The site became holy to Muslims about 600 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, when they built the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the 7th century.
Despite its sanctity to Jews, for hundreds of years, the Muslims prevented Jews from ascending the site, restricting them instead to praying at a small section of the outer retaining wall of the Second Temple, that would become known as the “Western Wall” or the “Wailing Wall.”
When the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan invaded the nascent State of Israel as part of the Arab war of annihilation, they ethnically cleansed Jerusalem’s Old City and Jewish access to the site was restricted even more. Prior to that, already from the late 1890s, Jews were the majority of the population in Jerusalem. As the 1922 British Census for Palestine shows, already by 1922 Jews were the outright majority (33,971) of Jerusalem’s 62,578 residents.
After Israel liberated the site in 1967 from the Jordanians, Jews were permitted, for the first time in centuries, to visit it.
Seeking to placate the Arabs after their unequivocal defeat, then-Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan offered the Jordanian Waqf control of activities within the walls of the Mount itself while providing that Israel would be responsible for external security and public order. Dayan further conceded that Muslims would be granted free access to the site. Unilaterally, and without authorization, Dayan also agreed that while there would be no limitations on the number of Jews entering the mount, they would not be allowed to pray there. The prohibition of Jewish prayer on the site was immediately rejected by a ministerial committee established soon after to decide on the matter and was canceled. As a compromise, it was agreed that Jews would not be actively prohibited from praying on the site, but that there would be no organized prayers.
While the CoI accuses Israel of breaching the “status quo,” a term left undefined in its scope, the reality could not be further from the truth. Despite holding full sovereignty over the site, Israel has refrained, almost entirely, from conducting any archaeological activities on the site. In contrast, in the 1990s the Waqf excavated the area known as “Solomon’s Stables,” turning it into a new mosque referred to as the El-Marwani Mosque. It is located 12 meters below the current courtyard and the Supreme Muslim Council pamphlet notes that the area of the Stables “dates probably as far back as the construction of Solomon’s Temple. According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D.”
The extensive construction, carried out with the clear intention of destroying any Jewish history on the site, was one of the worst archaeological crimes of modern times.
Freedom of Worship for All, Except the Jews
While the CoI bemoans the limited rights to religious freedom granted to the Jews to visit Judaism’s holiest site, the CoI completely ignored the daily expressions by the Palestinian leadership that deny any Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, in general, and to the Temple Mount and other Jewish holy sites, such as the Cave of the Patriarch’s in Hebron, in particular.
Had the CoI actually desired to demonstrate even a modicum of integrity, it would have scoured the hundreds of examples documented by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) – which were specifically submitted to the CoI (both electronically and via courier) in response to a CoI call for submissions. There, the CoI would have found a video of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas calling on Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and “defiling” it with “their filthy feet.”
Similarly, the CoI’s massive staff at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights could have found on PMW’s website evidence of Abbas’s Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations, Mahmoud al-Habbash, declaring in August 2024 that “The Al-Aqsa Mosque is our mosque. They [the Jews] have no right to even one millimeter of it. It is an Islamic Mosque, and if they are talking about an alleged Temple, let them look for it somewhere else, because there was never any Temple, presence, or sovereignty of theirs here at this pure Islamic place, the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and occupied Jerusalem.”
Similarly, while the Jewish connection to Hebron and to the Cave of the Patriarch’s is incontrovertible, according to al-Habbash, Ibrahimi Mosque, as it is called by the Palestinians, “is a purely Islamic heritage site, to which non-Muslims have no right whatsoever.”
The claim that Israel arbitrarily denies the rights of Muslims and Christians to frequent their holy sites is also false. Every day, thousands of Muslims pray on the Temple Mount. During the month of Ramadan 2023, according to the Waqf, nearly four million Muslims came to pray on the Temple Mount.
Israel Oppresses Christians
The pretense created by the CoI that Israel oppresses Christians is also false. The reality is that while the Christian population is increasing in size, the Christian population living under PA control is being decimated.
Bethlehem is the prime example. According to the Christian Information Center, in 1994, when the PA took control of Bethlehem, it was the most populous Christian town in the Holy Land. Since then, Bethlehem’s Christian population has dwindled to approximately 10% (according to the last census in 2017). Christian families are leaving Bethlehem due to systemic socio-economic hardships and instability, discrimination, and harassment (including of clergy) by Muslim Palestinians and the Islam-dominated PA. While the CoI did its utmost to vilify Israel, the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population, in reality, is Israel. The mass exodus of Christians from Bethlehem risks undermining the survival of Christianity in its birthplace.
The claim also contradicts the Israeli investment in developing Christian sites, such as the those in Nazareth and even the development of Qasr al-Yahud, the revered baptismal site on the Jordan River, where tradition holds that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
CoI Repeats Palestinian Terror Propaganda
Of the many falsehoods included in the report of the CoI, the lie that the visit of then-Member of Knesset Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in October (sic, September) 2000, “triggered the second intifada,” is particularly egregious. It is a lie that has been thoroughly debunked.
In a 2011 interview broadcast on the official PA TV channel, Suha Arafat, the wife of Yasser Arafat, confessed that he ordered her to leave him and move abroad since “he had already decided to carry out an Intifada after the Oslo Accords and after the failure of Camp David [July 2000].”
Arafat’s Advisor on Internal Affairs and member of the Palestinian Supreme National Security Council, Mamdouh Nawfal, also noted that, “As to the second Intifada, one could say with complete objectivity that Arafat exploited Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount and the people’s hatred of the occupation to bring about the outburst… Arafat made no attempt to evade responsibility when he was blamed for its eruption…”
The then Deputy Director of the PA’s Political and National Education Authority, Mazen Izz Al-Din, also noted in 2002, that “The Al-Aqsa Intifada – if we want to be truthful and open, history will reveal one day – that it [the Intifada] and all its directives belong to the President and Supreme Commander Yasser Arafat.”
Developing Jewish Historical Sites in Judea and Samaria
The CoI’s complaints regarding Israel’s investments in developing the many historical sites in Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem verge on ludicrous. The fact of the matter is that Judea and Samaria are the cradle of the ancestral Jewish homeland. It was in these areas that Jewish people first settled. The excavations and archaeological digs prove, time after time, that entire sections of the Bible are supported by real artifacts.
While bemoaned by the CoI, many of these sites, such as ancient Shilo, the resting place of the Jewish Tabernacle for hundreds of years, are exclusively Jewish heritage and historical sites. The reasoning behind this is a matter of simple fact. The Jewish people settled in the Land of Israel over 1,200 years before the birth of Christianity, in the first century, and 1,800 years before the birth of Islam, in 610.
Most of the sites were extremely difficult to identify and required considerable investment to develop. However, the efforts were rewarded, and hundreds of historical sites were brought back to life.
Aside from Shilo, another similar site is that of King David’s palace, located to the south of the Temple Mount. Before Israel started developing the site, it was nothing more than a dilapidated area of Jerusalem.
Now that it is being developed, the finds are proving to be archaeological gems, including the 2,000-year-old Pilgrim’s Road and scores upon scores of other artifacts that correspond with biblical stories. Discounting the substantial historical value of excavating the site, in the eyes of the CoI, Israel should refrain from developing the site, simply because it strengthens the Jewish connection to the area.
The CoI’s Racial Discrimination
The racial discrimination expressed by the CoI is also clear to see. On the one hand, the CoI condemned Jews who questioned out loud the existence of the “Palestinian people.” On the other hand, the CoI claimed people, predominantly Arabs, who celebrated the October 7th massacre, are entitled to the right to hold opinions and freedom of expression, and Israeli law prohibiting incitement and glorification of terror was unenforceable.
In an overtly racist statement, the CoI referred to “extremist Jews” who are not entitled to hold opinions or exercise freedom of expression, even when they pose legitimate questions. Arabs, on the other hand, are allowed to celebrate the murder, torture, rape, and beheading of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of over 250 others, and law enforcement against them violates International Human Rights Law.
Similarly, in the eyes of the CoI, Jews are prohibited from developing Jewish heritage sites that may or may not be frequented by Arabs/Muslims, but had nothing to say about the Palestinian destruction of Jewish heritage sites and their development as sites for Muslims alone. In fact, according to the CoI, the development of Jewish heritage sites is nothing short of “annexation,” and part of a nefarious policy to promote a “narrative of an exclusively historical Jewish attachment and affinity to the land, while erasing any other narrative or prior relationships.” In contrast, as noted above, the CoI not only had no reservations regarding the Palestinian rewriting of history regarding the Temple Mount, but actively condemned Jews who merely wished to pray in Judaism’s most holy site.
The CoI’s Legal Analysis and Conclusions
Similar to the rest of the report, the section dealing, ostensibly, with “legal analysis” was fundamentally flawed. Paragraph by paragraph, the CoI laid the blame on Israel alone for the alleged destruction of school buildings and other sites in Gaza. Denying clear reality and ignoring overwhelming evidence, only as regards one incident, did the CoI find that “Hamas had used a school for military purposes.”
In contrast Israel was accused of a host of offenses, including directing attacks at civilians and the crime against humanity of “extermination.” Israel was blasted for giving no warning before a strike – even though international law does not always require prior warning. While the CoI did note that on some occasions, Israel did give prior warning of an attack, the CoI concluded, without showing proof, that Israel was guilty of providing “inadequate advance warning.”
In the eyes of the CoI the “high number of civilian casualties” – based solely on the Hamas death statistics that don’t distinguish between natural deaths, deaths at the hands of the terrorists, and the death of terrorists – indicates that even if the CoI concedes that the targets attacked were legitimate targets, the attacks themselves were “disproportionate.” However, as noted above, the CoI distorted the concept of “proportionality.” Thus, outrageously, the CoI reached conclusions about lack of proportionality without the critical knowledge, such as the nature of the target attacked and the direct military advantage anticipated. Without that information, no legitimate determination of “proportionality” can be made.
For that determination to be made, the CoI would have to have conceded that Hamas’s over 40,000 strong terrorists and the organization’s entire terror infrastructure were legitimate targets. Since an admission of this nature would clearly undermine the goal of vilifying Israel, the CoI merely chose to ignore the reality.
According to the CoI, statements made by Israeli soldiers are indicative of the Israeli desire to destroy “educational facilities and to reduce Palestinians’ access to necessary civilian infrastructure, in particular education, in the long term.”
From the point of view of the CoI, the destruction in Gaza is not the result of Hamas intentionally placing its terror infrastructure in and beneath sensitive civilian sites such as schools, hospitals, and mosques, but rather “indicates a clear disregard for the Palestinian people’s religious beliefs, culture and heritage and undermines the Palestinian people’s culture and identity.”
For the CoI, the bottom line is that Palestinian terror is in need of contextualization – the Israeli bad guy– and the “context of the unlawful occupation and settlement activity.”
While Israel is the epitome of the return of an indigenous nation to its ancestral homeland, in the eyes of the CoI, the liberation of Judea and Samaria from the illegal Jordanian invasion suddenly rendered the area “Palestinian territory,” that must be, in the terminology of the Nazis, “Judenfrei,” and in which the Jews have no history.
