An Israeli legal advocacy group accused the United Nations commission investigating Israel and the Palestinian territories of applying different standards to Israel and Hamas, arguing in a report circulated Tuesday that alleged Israeli wrongdoing is traced to state policy and senior officials - while Palestinian responsibility is more often described in general terms.
The 48-page report by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice challenges the credibility of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, and Israel. The commission’s findings are not court judgments, but its mandate includes collecting and preserving evidence and identifying those believed responsible for violations, giving its work potential significance for international legal and diplomatic proceedings.
The Jerusalem Post queried the commission for comment.
The institute said it examined nine major commission reports issued between its establishment in 2021 and May 2026, alongside UN documents, budget records, public statements by commissioners, and other UN investigations.
Its central argument is that the commission repeatedly connects alleged Israeli violations to named officials, military units, government institutions, state policies, and institutional intent, while more often describing Palestinian perpetrators as “armed groups,” “militants,” “attackers,” or members of military wings.
The report focuses in part on the commission’s June 2024 findings concerning the October 7 massacre and the first months of the war.
UN commission attributes alleged Israeli violations to authorities, security forces
In its main report, the commission attributed crimes committed during the attack to members of Hamas’s military wing, other Palestinian armed groups, and Palestinian civilians. Its conclusions regarding Gaza, by contrast, attributed alleged violations to “Israeli authorities” and members of the Israeli security forces.
The institute argued that this difference dispersed responsibility for the Hamas-led attack among broad groups of perpetrators without examining Hamas’s political leadership, chain of command, operational planning, and organizational policy to the same degree as Israeli institutions and decision-makers.
The UN commission did not, however, ignore Hamas’s organizational role. Its separate detailed investigation found that the October 7 attack was led and coordinated by Hamas, documented what it described as indications of standing operational instructions, and concluded that Hamas’s military wing and six other Palestinian armed groups deliberately attacked civilians and committed war crimes.
The institute acknowledges those findings. Its criticism is narrower: that Hamas’s leadership and institutional responsibility did not receive the same depth of analysis or carry the same weight in the commission’s broader legal conclusions.
“Impartiality is tested by one thing: whether the same rules apply to everyone,” said attorney Uri Morad, director of the institute’s international law and public diplomacy department. “In this case, the answer is no.”
The report also alleges an evidentiary double standard. It says the commission repeatedly rejected Israeli military and security explanations when it considered them insufficiently supported, while relying on information from Palestinian authorities, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, advocacy groups, confidential witnesses, and social media without always explaining how that material was independently verified or reconciled with conflicting evidence.
The commission has said its findings are based on interviews, submissions, satellite imagery, medical records, and verified open-source material. Israel has refused to cooperate with the inquiry or permit its investigators access, saying the body is structurally biased. The commission has said the lack of access obstructed its investigations.
That dispute complicates the institute’s comparison. Restricted access may help explain why the commission relied on remote interviews, confidential sources, and publicly available material, although it does not by itself answer whether evidence from the two sides was tested equally.
Report criticizes UN commission's open-ended mandate
The report separately criticizes the commission’s open-ended mandate, which allows it to investigate violations occurring since April 2021, earlier events leading up to them, and the broader “root causes” of the conflict without a fixed end date.
That structure has drawn criticism beyond Israel. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom said jointly in 2025 that they regretted the commission’s open-ended establishment, describing it as contrary to usual practice, while continuing to support proportionate scrutiny of alleged violations by all sides.
The institute called on UN member states to terminate the commission and replace it with time-limited investigations governed by clearer evidentiary and impartiality standards.