Statement by the Chair of the Commission of Inquiry to the 62nd Session of the Human Rights Council

Statement by Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, to the 62nd session of the Human Rights Council, noting that the Commission's September 2025 Conference Room Paper found that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed and were continuing to commit genocidal acts with the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part the Palestinian group in Gaza. Despite the October 2025 ceasefire, the continuing Israeli offensive means that the conduct the Commission documented has not ended. Palestinian lives in the occupied West Bank are more at risk than ever, with a 130% increase in settler killings and injuries in 2025 compared to 2024. A key source for international legal researchers working on accountability post-ceasefire, as the Commission Chair's statement directly addresses whether the 2025 ceasefire has ended the genocidal conduct that the Commission documented, concluding that it has not. This source is valuable for legal researchers and advocates following the UN Commission of Inquiry's genocide findings, and is an important primary record of the Commission's assessment that genocidal conduct continued after the ceasefire.