Palestinians 'trapped' between Israeli forces, settlers and Hamas, UN report finds
A UN report says Palestinians are caught between the "mass atrocities of Israeli forces" and the "fear-based rule of Hamas". (Reuters: Ramadan Abed)
In short:
A UN probe finds that Palestinians are trapped between Israeli forces, settlers and Hamas.
The report by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli authorities have enabled settler attacks through financial and military support.
What's next?
The report will soon be presented to the rights council.
Palestinians are trapped between Israeli forces, settlers and Hamas, a UN probe has found.
Civilians across war-ravaged Gaza and the occupied West Bank are being "systematically and deliberately" subjected to severe rights violations, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry said.
It said that civilians in the territory were also being "violently repressed and controlled by the very faction that claims to govern them".
In the Gaza Strip, "ordinary Palestinians find themselves trapped between the structural violence and mass atrocities of Israeli forces and the predatory, fear-based rule of Hamas", the report said.
Israeli air strikes have devastated Gaza. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)
Palestinian civilians in the West Bank have increasingly been targeted by Israeli settler attacks since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, the report found.
"Violence by settlers is the direct outcome of Israeli policies that support, enable and protect their actions," commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said in a statement.
'Deliberate infliction of suffering'
Hamas-affiliated forces, Mr Muralidhar said, had meanwhile "exploited the vacuum created by relentless Israeli attacks and widespread destruction of Gaza".
"What is alarmingly similar is the deliberate infliction of suffering on Palestinian civilians," Mr Muralidhar said.
"While their origins and motivations differ, both operate within environments engineered by Israel."
The three-person commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Tuesday's report focused heavily on the situation in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
In the territory, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,080 Palestinians since October 2023, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data.
Official Israeli figures show that at least 46 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.
The inquiry found that at least 26 Palestinians were killed and at least 1,570 were injured by settlers between January 2023 and December 2025.
"This trend continues in 2026 with attacks carried out on a daily basis," the investigators said.
Israeli flags along the main road to Qaryut, a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank. (ABC News: Daniel Pannett)
Call to end 'unlawful occupation'
The report, which is set to be presented to the rights council, concluded that Israel was responsible for enabling the settlers' action.
Settler violence "functions as a means of implementing Israeli state policy", it charged, with both focused on "entrenchment of Israeli settlements, annexation of Palestinian territory and displacement of Palestinians from their land".
The report called on Israel, which has long accused the commission of "systematic anti-Israel discrimination", to stop the violence.
It called on Israel to "immediately end the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory".
Loading...Executions and torture
The commission also determined that Hamas-affiliated forces were responsible for serious rights abuses, including "war crimes of murder and torture" in Gaza.
It identified 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence in 2024-2025, resulting in at least 108 deaths and 384 people injured.
The commission found that Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 such incidents.
The investigators found, among other things, that Hamas members had "tortured Palestinian civilians in the Nasser Medical Complex" in Gaza.
It stressed that such conduct did "not result in the loss of special protection of the hospital against attacks under international humanitarian law".
The commission recommended "that the de facto authorities in Gaza immediately stop all extrajudicial punishments of civilians, including executions, torture, and mental, physical and sexual violence".
They should also "refrain from using civilian objects, including hospitals, for any purpose incompatible with their humanitarian and civilian functions", it said.
AFP/Reuters