Saudi Arabia welcomes UN report confirming Israel committed genocide in Gaza

By Mohammed Al Ragawi and Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) – Saudi Arabia on Tuesday evening welcomed the findings of a UN fact-finding committee report that included evidence of Israel committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory confirmed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said the report “contained facts about the Israeli occupation forces committing crimes of genocide against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip.”

“The report clearly shows the crimes and violations to which the brotherly Palestinian people are being subjected,” the ministry said.

It renewed the kingdom’s call on the international community “to take serious steps to enforce international resolutions, implement the two-state solution, and end the suffering of the Palestinian people.”

The commission’s report concluded that Israel committed four out of the five acts of genocide defined in the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

It explained that these acts are: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

The Israeli army has killed almost 65,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable, and led to starvation and spread of diseases.