UN Inquiry Member Says Gaza Genocide Claims Unverified as Population Grows

Claims that Israel committed genocide in Gaza faced renewed scrutiny this week after a reported acknowledgment by a senior member of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry that some allegations had not been independently verified. The development came as data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health indicated that Gaza’s population increased in 2025.

Critics argue that the genocide allegations have contributed to rising antisemitism worldwide and say the organizations and media outlets that promoted them should be held responsible for their reporting and public statements.

In September 2025, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, known as the COI, published a report concluding that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza since October 2023. Among its cited sources was a Guardian article that claimed civilians accounted for 83% of those killed in the conflict.

Following the release of data from the COI commissioner, Chris Sidoti, in an interview last week reported by JNS and posted on X was asked whether the COI had independently established that the remainder of Palestinians said to be killed in the fighting were civilians, Sidoti said, “No, we didn’t because we don’t have that information … We literally do not know, nor does anybody else know, including the IDF, how many militants were there.” 

Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, the commission’s former chair, received the Nobel Peace Prize last week.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health’s Health Information Unit has released figures detailing mortality across Gaza in 2025. The update marks the first time since 2022—before the conflict that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks—that the ministry has included deaths from causes unrelated to violence.

According to the ministry, Gaza recorded 24,650 deaths in 2025. Of that total, 18,085 were males, or 73.4%, while 6,565 were females, representing 26.6%. The ministry attributed 17,286 deaths, or 70.1%, to direct attacks during the war.

The ministry also recorded 50,227 live births during the year. News Media contacted ministry officials for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Elliot Malin, president of Stratos Council, said the figures challenge allegations that Israel is committing genocide. Because live births substantially outnumbered deaths in 2025, Malin said it is “very hard for us to infer the intent of Israel was to destroy Palestinians in Gaza to a substantial portion.”

“We’re not seeing a population under threat. We are seeing that it is actually able to sustain itself,” Malin said. He also questioned last year’s declaration by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, that famine had reached Gaza during the summer of 2025. “If the population is sustaining and growing through this, what they call a famine, it indicates that there is enough caloric intake to sustain the population,” he argued.

Gabriel Epstein, a senior policy associate at the Israel Policy Forum, likewise said the Health Ministry’s report does not support broad claims of genocide. The figures “absolutely” show population growth in 2025, Epstein told News Media, adding that growth would be expected in Gaza, whose population is among the youngest in the world.

Epstein acknowledged that immigration and emigration make the precise growth rate difficult to calculate. However, he said proving that Gaza experienced population decline in 2025 would require “more than doubl[ing] the number of both violent and non-violent deaths.”

Andrew Fox, a senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said the latest figures demonstrate that “there was no famine in Gaza.” He argued that the allegations draw on “the ages-old blood libel of Jews killing children” and have fueled antisemitism internationally. “Agencies and the media who shared these false allegations have blood on their hands,” Fox said.

Epstein said the new Health Ministry data also undermines claims by outside groups that Gaza’s official death toll was significantly understated. Those organizations relied on estimates and comparisons with non-violent death rates from other conflicts to suggest that total deaths could have reached several hundred thousand—a figure then used to reinforce the genocide narrative. The latest report, Epstein said, “really eliminate[s] the possibility that there is a much higher death toll driven by non-violent or non-trauma deaths.”

He added that a comparison between the new report and the ministry’s continuing war-casualty figures suggests the Health Ministry was not overlooking the “vast, vast majority” of malnutrition-related deaths that would have been necessary to support the IPC’s assessment that famine had affected parts of Gaza in the summer of 2025.

The IPC did not respond to News Media’s questions about whether the newly released data changes its earlier famine determination.

In the MOH’s favor, Epstein said that the current tranche of figures supports a real attempt at honest accounting from the health organization, which was accused of inflating civilian casualties — particularly those of women and children — during the early days of the war.

In its latest report, however, the MOH does not distinguish how many terrorists were among those killed in the conflict. In fact, it states that “The number of deaths among males was approximately 4.9 times the number of deaths among females within this group — attributed principally to the direct targeting of working-age men during military operations.”

A spokesperson from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told News Media that, “The IDF targets terrorists and military objectives, not civilians based on their age or gender. The fact that more military-age men are disproportionately among those eliminated is consistent with the fact that terrorist organizations are predominantly composed of men in this age group. It does not demonstrate that the IDF targets individuals because they are men or of a certain age.” 

The spokesperson added that, “Targets are selected based on their military nature or an individual’s involvement in terrorist organizations or participation in hostilities, in accordance with international law and IDF directives. Unlike Hamas, which deliberately targets Israeli civilians, the IDF takes all feasible precautions to mitigate harm to civilians and operates under a structured targeting framework designed to ensure the identification of lawful military objectives.”

Epstein also pushed back against the MOH claim that working-aged men are being purposefully targeted. Epstein said that “military-aged men aren’t appearing disproportionately because the IDF was targeting military-aged men as such, but because the vast majority of militants come from that range.” He said that “Gaza is unique in how heavily militarized its male population is.”

Epstein added that available 2025 data does not support the claim that the IDF acted with the intent to cause harm to the population. Not only do the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and hybridization of civilian and military structures in Gaza provide a rationale for military targeting, Epstein emphasized that the IDF has taken numerous mitigation measures to avoid civilian casualties.

Requests for comment to the Palestinian Ministry of Health were not returned by press time.