to the UN Human Rights Council.
By Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor at UN Watch
The Human Rights Council’s Pillay Commission on Israel, now headed by Srinivasan Muralidhar of India, just released a new report focusing on violations by “non-State actors,” specifically “settlers” and “Palestinian armed groups” in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite the Commission’s formal reconstitution following the resignation of Navi Pillay, Miloon Kothari, and Chris Sidoti-with Sidoti subsequently re-appointed and Florence Mumba joining the panel-its reporting continues to reflect a persistent bias against Israel.
In an apparent effort to project even-handedness, the report addresses violations by both Israeli and Palestinian non-State actors. Yet the distribution of attention tells a different story. More than half of the report focuses on Israeli violations against Palestinians, while only approximately 9% addresses Palestinian attacks against Israelis. Another 34% examines Hamas abuses against Palestinians in Gaza. Even in those latter sections, however, the Commission repeatedly contextualizes or shifts blame to Israel, attributing lawlessness, repression, and social collapse primarily to Israeli actions rather than Hamas governance, effectively minimizing Hamas’s responsibility for its own crimes. The report also applies markedly different accountability standards to Israel and Palestinian actors.
At the heart of the report is a false moral equivalence between Israeli settlers and jihadi terrorist organizations through use of the term “settler violence,” which implicates all Israeli settlers and equates them with Hamas and PIJ terrorists, described in the report as “Palestinian armed groups.” According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 482,000 Israelis currently live in communities in Judea and Samaria (also referred to as the West Bank), many in areas of profound Jewish historical and religious significance, including Hebron, home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus. While the overwhelming majority are peaceful civilians, a small minority of Jewish extremists-estimated by Israeli defense officials at roughly 300 individuals, many of whom are not residents of the area-have repeatedly engaged in violence against Palestinians, including property damage, assaults, and, in some cases, killings.
The issue of extremist Israeli violence is real and should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Israeli authorities themselves have acknowledged this as a serious problem and have taken actions to curb the phenomenon, ranging from issuing restraining orders to arrest and prosecution, as detailed in Section 3 below. Condemnation of such violence has come from the highest levels of government. As recently as May 21, 2024, Israeli President Isaac Herzog lambasted acts of violence by Jewish extremists, saying that they “defile and violate every basic moral, legal, and Jewish norm.” He noted that “There are elements on the fringes of our society that have normalized violence, and, sadly, some go even further - celebrating it and taking pride in it.”
The existence of a small number of violent Jewish extremists does not warrant the collective stigmatization of hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians. Using the term “settler violence” to characterize all Israeli residents of the West Bank through the actions of a small extremist minority is misleading and irresponsible and risks stigmatizing innocent civilians due to their status as “settlers.” The report then draws a false moral equivalence by placing them in the same analytical category as designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad-groups openly committed to Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews. By the same logic, one could describe Hamas terrorism as “Gazan violence.” Such terminology would be widely rejected because it conflates the actions of violent actors with those of the broader population.
The report’s treatment of Israeli victims illustrates the consequences of this framing. In paragraph 68, the Commission notes that of 42 Israelis killed in terrorist attacks in the West Bank between 2023 and 2025, 36 were “settlers.” By contrast, when discussing Palestinian fatalities, the report does not distinguish between uninvolved civilians, members of armed groups, or Palestinians killed while carrying out terrorist attacks. Instead, it categorizes Palestinian victims only by sex and age. The Commission’s deliberate emphasis on the “settler” status of Israeli victims-while withholding comparable contextual information regarding Palestinian fatalities-creates the unmistakable impression that attacks against these Israelis are somehow more understandable or less morally troubling.
Moreover, a close examination of the report reveals that many of its factual and legal conclusions rest on an incomplete and methodologically flawed evidentiary record. The report relies on unidentified witnesses, NGOs, open-source material, and prior UN reports-including the Commission’s own reports-which often suffer from the same methodological flaws. The lack of transparency regarding sources makes many factual assertions impossible to independently verify. Moreover, the report repeatedly omits or disregards material that undermines its narrative of Israeli violations, yet reaches sweeping legal conclusions on the basis of an incomplete and selective factual record. This is most evident in the Commission’s transformation of the criminal conduct of a small extremist minority into sweeping and unsupported allegations of Israeli state policy, culminating in the claim that settler violence functions “as a means of implementing” that policy (para. 73).
The Commission relies almost exclusively on OCHA statistics for deaths and injuries involving both Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank (paras. 7-8, 68). However, a detailed April 2025 incident-level analysis of OCHA’s data conducted by the Israeli NGO Regavim-corroborated in part by academic and other independent analyses-identified serious methodological deficiencies.
According to the study, approximately 12% of reported incidents (roughly 1,000 out of 8,333) relied on only a single source. More significantly, under the rubric of “settler violence,” OCHA counted Palestinians killed or injured in attacks they themselves initiated, while simultaneously undercounting Palestinian attacks and resulting Israeli casualties compared to official Israeli government data. OCHA also classified as “violent events” incidents that involved no violence at all, including Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, visits to archaeological sites, and even traffic accidents. Approximately 20% of recorded incidents occurred in Jerusalem rather than the West Bank, most involving Temple Mount visits or clashes between Israeli police and Muslim rioters. Another 19% involved alleged “trespassing” by Israeli tourists and hikers in the West Bank without violence, physical assault, or property damage.
After excluding incidents that did not involve physical violence initiated by Israeli civilians against Palestinians or their property, the study concluded that OCHA overstated the scope of “settler violence” by approximately 90%, identifying an average of only 9.4 allegations of Jewish nationalist physical violence per month-roughly 110 annually. By comparison, official Shin Bet data recorded more than 2,000 Palestinian attacks against Israelis per year. A June 2025 editorial in the Wall Street Journal endorsed many of Regavim’s findings, while a 2026 study by senior IDF officials reached similar conclusions. Hebrew University criminology researcher Dr. Michael Wolfowicz also identified methodological flaws in UN reporting, including double counting. For example, if a Palestinian terrorist was shot while carrying out an attack and died the following day, the incident could be recorded twice as “settler violence”-once for the shooting and again for the death. Palestinians killed in clashes with IDF soldiers were also at times included within the broader “settler violence” rubric. For example, in March 2026, OCHA reported that 26 Palestinians had been “killed by Israeli forces or settlers” since the beginning of the year. This included Khattab Mohammad Daragmeh, who was killed while attacking IDF soldiers and later mourned by Hamas as one of its shahids. Notably, while the Commission accuses Israel of “mischaracterizing settler-initiated assaults as Palestinian attacks” (para. 28), the OCHA methodology on which the report relies repeatedly classifies Palestinian-initiated attacks as “settler violence.”
The Commission’s conclusions regarding alleged settler violence rest on deeply flawed and inflated data, substantially undermining the reliability of many of its factual and legal findings. Its central charge that settler violence functions “as a means of implementing” Israeli state policy (para. 73) is therefore unsupported.
These methodological deficiencies are compounded by a series of additional factual, legal, and analytical flaws throughout the report, including the following:
1. Selective Evidence and Unverifiable Sources
The Commission states that it “consulted multiple sources of information, collected hundreds of open-source items, conducted remote interviews with victims and witnesses, and received information through an open call for submissions” (para. 3). Yet much of the report relies on anonymous interviews, unattributed allegations, and undisclosed materials, while the underlying evidence remains “on file with the Commission” and unavailable for independent scrutiny (paras. 3-4). As a result, many factual assertions cannot be independently verified. This concern is heightened by the Commission’s past reliance on highly politicized NGOs, which advance one-sided narratives demonizing Israel and minimizing or omitting Palestinian culpability. The result is a report built on unverifiable claims and selective sourcing that presents an incomplete factual record.
2. Recycles Biased UN Reports
Aside from its reliance on biased OCHA data, the report cites remarkably few sources for its factual findings-mostly other UN reports, including previous reports of the Commission itself-and none at all for its legal conclusions. Rather than independently substantiating its claims, the Commission largely recycles prior UN reporting, much of it based on the same questionable and politicized sources. Repetition does not make contested allegations credible, nor does citing prior UN reports remedy underlying evidentiary deficiencies.
3. Insufficient Support for Claims of State Policy
The Commission claims that “settler violence has been carried out in collaboration with Israeli military authorities,” relying only on biased UN reports (para. 10). It further alleges that Israeli authorities promote “structural conditions that enable [settler violence],” citing outdated Knesset reports from 1982 and 1994 (para. 11). Without citing evidence, it asserts that “Israeli Army units have operated alongside settlers in numerous incidents,” that authorities treat settler attacks as “riots” or “confrontations” between “two ostensibly equal sides,” and that when Palestinians respond by throwing stones, they mischaracterize “settler-initiated assaults as Palestinian attacks” (Para. 28). On this basis, the Commission concludes that there has been a “de facto collapse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers” (para. 28), and that settler violence functions “as a means of implementing” Israeli state policy (para. 73).
The factual record does not support these sweeping claims. Attacks by Jews against Palestinians in the West Bank are perpetrated by a small minority of extremists who do not represent most settlers and in no way reflect Israeli “state policy” or its “implementation,” as the Commission claims (para. 73). The Commission itself acknowledges that some of those involved are not settlers at all, but at-risk youth from Israel (para. 24). Its reliance on the most extreme figures in this movement, including Elisha Yered and Meir Ettinger-both of whom have faced criminal proceedings in Israel-only confirms that this is not a mainstream phenomenon. Nor is it directed only at Palestinians: some of those responsible have also attacked IDF soldiers.
More can and should be done to curb Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. But the claim that such violence reflects Israeli state policy is contradicted by repeated condemnations from Prime Minister Netanyahu, including when violence was directed against Palestinians and against the IDF, as well as by President Isaac Herzog, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, and others-an inconvenient fact the Commission quickly dismisses (para. 73). Settlement leaders have also condemned such violence.
Recent studies published in 2025 and 2026 reviewing Israeli police data further undermine the Commission’s narrative of systemic impunity. While complaints against Jewish offenders in the West Bank were significantly higher than elsewhere in Israel, many allegations were ultimately dismissed as false or unsupported. One February 2026 case illustrates the problem: Palestinian sources accused settlers of deliberately setting fire to a sheep pen in the southern West Bank, killing dozens of sheep. An Israeli police investigation found that the fire was electrical, not a “criminal or nationalistically motivated act.”
Israeli authorities have also taken coercive measures against extremist settlers, including administrative detention. In 2025, leaked Shin Bet recordings reportedly exposed the head of the agency’s Jewish Division pressing the Judea and Samaria police chief to intensify arrests and interrogations of extremist settlers, stating: “We always want to arrest them for interrogation, as much as possible.” Far from demonstrating official indifference or acquiescence, these actions directly undermine the Commission’s claim that settler violence functions “as a means of implementing” Israeli state policy (para. 73).
4. Dismisses Evidence of Israeli Action Against Settler Violence
The Commission repeatedly discounts or minimizes Israeli efforts to address extremist violence by Jewish Israelis in the West Bank. It criticizes Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, for describing perpetrators as “a small group of unruly youth” that “do not represent settlers as a whole” (para. 23), despite the Commission itself acknowledging that some perpetrators are not settlers at all, but at-risk youth from Israel (para. 24). Likewise, while acknowledging that Israeli authorities have issued removal orders against violent settlers and dismantled certain outposts described as “exporters of Jewish terror,” the Commission dismisses these measures as merely “symbolic” and “limited in scope” (para. 27).
The Commission similarly discounts repeated public condemnations of settler violence by senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, and military leadership as “periodic government statements,” and asserts that Israeli authorities have taken “no meaningful or sustained measures” to curb such attacks (para. 73). Yet this conclusion disregards administrative detention, arrests, removal orders, police investigations, and other coercive measures undertaken against extremist offenders.
The Commission also appears willing to infer institutional failure from incomplete legal processes. In discussing a March 2026 case in which Israeli police arrested seven individuals, it emphasizes that it was “not aware of any investigative or judicial outcomes,” implying a deficiency in accountability even though the legal process had not yet run its course. The absence of immediate judicial outcomes is not evidence of impunity, particularly where arrests and investigations were already underway.
5. False Distinction Between Hamas’s Political and Military Wings
The Commission attempts to distinguish between Hamas’s “military wing” and Hamas governing institutions, criticizing Israel for targeting “civilian Hamas officials, including police, and internal security forces” (para. 46) while treating them as separate from Hamas military operations. Yet the Commission itself found that crimes against Palestinians in Gaza were committed by “a plain-clothed paramilitary force created in March 2024 by the Ministry of Interior in Gaza” (para. 37)-a Hamas government ministry.
In reality, Hamas does not recognize a meaningful distinction between its political, governing, and military structures. Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin explicitly rejected such separation, stating: “We cannot separate the wing from the body. If we do so, the body will not be able to fly. Hamas is one body.” Reflecting this reality, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the European Union, and others designate Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organization, rather than distinguishing between political and military branches.
6. Minimizes Violent Stone-Throwing
The Commission minimizes the seriousness of Palestinian stone-throwing, criticizing Israel for referring to Palestinian stone-throwers as “terrorists” over what it characterizes as “some stone throwing” (paras. 29, 75). It further portrays stone-throwing as an act of self-defense, referring to “Palestinians who throw stones to defend themselves, their property and land in the face of settler attacks” (para. 75).
This characterization obscures the violent nature of such attacks. Stone-throwing attacks are often carried out by organized groups and frequently target Jewish vehicles on West Bank roads. Israeli authorities have repeatedly documented incidents in which rocks thrown at moving vehicles resulted in severe injuries and fatalities.
7. Shifts Responsibility for Palestinian Terrorism onto Israel
While the Commission includes a section on Palestinian crimes against Israelis, apparently in an effort to appear even-handed, it is the shortest section in the report and addresses the issue only superficially. Moreover, approximately one-quarter of the text is devoted not to Palestinian abuses themselves, but to criticizing Israeli security measures designed to protect civilians and prevent attacks. Without citing sources, the Commission claims that such measures contribute to further Palestinian violence “as a measure of resistance and revenge” (para. 72). By characterizing attacks as acts of “resistance and revenge,” the Commission implicitly legitimizes violence against Israelis while shifting focus from Palestinian responsibility to criticism of Israeli security measures.
8. Ignores Official Palestinian Support for Terrorism
While the report concludes that “settler violence functions not as a deviation from state policy but as a means of implementing it” (para. 73), it ignores evidence of official Palestinian Authority support for terrorism. Beyond longstanding concerns regarding incitement on official PA television and in PA educational materials, Palestinian terrorists and their families continue to receive state payments.
Although Mahmoud Abbas announced in February 2025 that the payment system would be reformed, he made clear that financial support would continue through a different mechanism. At the time, Abbas declared: “Even if we have [only] one penny left, it is for the prisoners and Martyrs. I will not agree, and you will not agree, to reduce any obligation, any interest, or any penny given to them. They must receive everything, as it was in the past, and they are more precious than all of us!” The U.S. confirmed, based on open-source reporting, that, as of February 2026, the payments continued.
Moreover, a February 2026 report by Palestinian Media Watch found that since 2021, the Palestinian Authority had concealed substantial payments to terrorists by categorizing them as civil servant salaries and pension payments. Following the report, PA Finance Minister Estephan Salameh stated that the Palestinian Authority had “not abandoned” any terrorist, “whether they are prisoners or families of Martyrs and wounded,” and reaffirmed the PA’s commitment to these payments despite “great, almost impossible difficulty,” describing the issue as a “clear, fundamental national issue.”
9. Selective Analysis of Nasser Hospital
The Commission detailed multiple Hamas violations against Palestinians at Nasser Hospital, including interrogations, mistreatment, and violent punishment carried out on hospital premises, thereby demonstrating Hamas’s operational use of the facility (paras. 55-61). However, it omitted any discussion of Hamas’s use of Nasser Hospital for military operations against Israel. The IDF has stated, based on intelligence, that Nasser Hospital served as a Hamas headquarters and that hostages were held there. This is corroborated by returned hostage Sharon Aloni Cunio, who told CNN in January 2024 that tens of hostages were held captive at Nasser Hospital. Military experts such as John Spencer and Andrew Fox, both of whom have conducted field visits to Gaza and analyzed these issues, have similarly concluded that Hamas used Nasser Hospital for military purposes in its war against Israel. Under Article 19 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, hospitals lose protection when they “are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy.” Yet despite documenting only Hamas’s operational use of the facility against Gazans-while omitting evidence regarding Hamas’s military use against Israel-the Commission finds that these documented crimes do not amount to “acts harmful to the enemy” and makes the sweeping legal conclusion that such conduct “does not result in the loss of special protection of the hospital against attacks under international humanitarian law.” (paras. 61, 87). Given the selective factual record, the Commission cannot credibly reach such a sweeping legal conclusion.
10. Shifts Responsibility for Hamas Abuses onto Israel
In discussing Hamas violations against Palestinians in Gaza, the Commission frames Israeli actions-not Hamas rule-as the primary driver of abuses. In its “Background” section, it reiterates its prior claim that Israel “committed genocide in Gaza” after October 7 (para. 46), before faulting Israel for creating a power vacuum by targeting “civilian Hamas officials, including police, and internal security forces,” while distinguishing them from Hamas’s “military wing,” and by destroying “essential infrastructure.” According to the Commission, the resulting “lawlessness, killings, lootings, theft and social chaos were the direct results of this vacuum and Israeli attacks” (para. 46).
The Commission similarly links increased risks of “sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment” to the humanitarian conditions in Gaza, attributing them to Israel’s alleged “destruction of the international aid delivery system” (paras. 46-47). In its legal conclusions, the Commission again situates Hamas violations “in a context where the genocide inflicted by Israel has devastated Gaza’s infrastructure, eliminated civil policing and administrative structures, and helped to create a deep power and security vacuum in which no functioning, accountable law-enforcement or judicial system protects civilians” (para. 81).
This framing obscures the role of Hamas itself. By suggesting that abuses primarily stemmed from the collapse of governance structures, the Commission implicitly portrays Hamas-run policing and governance as institutions that previously protected civilians. Yet Hamas police and security forces have long been implicated in abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including executions, shootings at aid sites, arbitrary detention, and torture. In its August 2022 concluding observations, the Committee Against Torture expressed concern regarding “allegations of widespread torture” by the security and intelligence services of both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Likewise, in its August 2023 concluding observations, the Human Rights Committee expressed concern regarding the use of the death penalty in Gaza, the prosecution of civilians in military courts, the lack of judicial guarantees, and the absence of judicial independence. Video footage recovered in Gaza and published in November 2024 appeared to show Hamas members torturing Gazans between 2020 and 2022, visually reinforcing longstanding reports of abuse by Hamas authorities. The Commission did not address this evidence.
11. Minimizes Hamas Abuse of Israeli Hostages
The Commission gives only cursory treatment to Hamas torture and sexual abuse of Israeli hostages. Its finding that hostages were merely “mistreated in captivity” (para. 69) fails to convey the severity of the reported abuse. This is the Commission’s first report since the release of the final Israeli hostages in October 2025 and its fifth report since the January 2025 hostage releases. Yet, it has never meaningfully addressed the consistent testimony of returning hostages describing repeated physical and psychological torture, sexual abuse and assault, deliberate starvation, and severe deprivation of hygiene and medical care.
Likewise, while the Commission addressed sexual crimes committed on October 7 in its June 2024 report, its findings were limited. It stated that it could not attribute the crimes to Hamas due to insufficient information regarding perpetrators and made no findings regarding the deliberate or systematic nature of the abuse. The Commission has not revisited the issue in any meaningful detail despite extensive open-source material, including testimony from witnesses, survivors, and former hostages.
For example, the May 2026 report of Israel’s Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children concluded that Hamas sexual crimes were “deliberate,” “widespread,” “systematic,” and “integral” to the October 7 attack. The study documented its findings based on “430 formal and informal interviews, testimonies, and meetings with survivors, witnesses, former hostages, experts, and family members,” “more than 10,000 photographs and video segments,” and visits to affected communities. The Commission does not mention this report, nor does it engage with earlier Israeli studies, including the June 2025 report of The Dinah Project and the February 2024 report of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.
12. Double Standards on Israeli and Palestinian Children
The report discusses the impact of settler violence on both Palestinian and Israeli children (paras. 77-78; 90). Regarding Israeli children, it portrays them as both “perpetrators and victims,” exposed to “constant indoctrination and radicalisation” amounting to “child abuse and exploitation.” Yet while the report briefly notes harm suffered by Palestinian children directly exposed to Hamas violence (para. 84), it entirely omits the longstanding indoctrination and radicalization of Palestinian children by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, including through school curricula, glorification of “martyrs,” antisemitic narratives, media messaging, and the recruitment and use of minors by Palestinian armed groups. Numerous studies of Palestinian Authority textbooks, including those used in UNRWA schools, have documented such content. Whatever indoctrination may occur among some Israeli children, the Commission ignores a far more extensive, institutionalized and officially-sponsored system of indoctrination affecting Palestinian children. If indoctrination, radicalization, and the exploitation of minors constitute a child-rights concern amounting to “child abuse and exploitation,” the Commission cannot selectively apply that standard only to Israeli children while disregarding longstanding abuses affecting Palestinian children.
13. Omits Gender-Based Violence Against Palestinian Women
While the report discusses sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by Hamas against Palestinian males, including forced stripping, sexual humiliation, and threats of castration (paras. 64-67; 86), it entirely omits allegations of sexual violence against Palestinian women by Hamas, particularly in Gaza. An April 2026 exposé by the Daily Mail reported disturbing accounts by Gazan women who alleged that Hamas operatives sexually assaulted and raped women in exchange for humanitarian aid. The report’s complete omission of these allegations, despite its detailed treatment of sexual and gender-based violence against Gazan males, reflects a selective approach to documenting abuses committed by Palestinian actors.
14. Unequal Standards for Palestinian Accountability
While the Commission treats Israel harshly, issuing a series of one-sided demands, it adopts a markedly more lenient approach toward the Palestinian Authority. Rather than demanding an immediate end to violations and meaningful accountability, as it does with Israel, the Commission merely calls on the Palestinian Authority to investigate and prosecute crimes “to the extent possible,” to take “all possible” measures to prevent future attacks, and to ensure that the judicial system complies with international law (para. 91). Notably, the Commission’s recommendations to Hamas relate only to violations against Palestinians, not Israelis.
Likewise, the Commission’s recommendations to Member States are directed primarily at Israeli settlements and settlers, calling for criminal prosecutions and sanctions against those “sustaining” the “settlement enterprise” (para. 93(e)). Although the Commission also calls for a cessation of assistance and support to “all non-State actors,” including “settlers and Palestinian armed groups” (para. 93(d)), this framing creates a false moral equivalency between violent Palestinian armed groups and Israeli civilians living in the West Bank, while failing to distinguish between violent extremists and the overwhelming majority of settlers who are not involved in violence.
