UN rights staff urge genocide label for Gaza campaign

More than 500 staff at the United Nations human rights office have urged the agency’s chief to explicitly describe Israel’s nearly two‑year military campaign in Gaza as an unfolding genocide, saying in a letter sent on Wednesday that the legal threshold for genocide has been met. The appeal, delivered to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, comes amid mounting global criticism of the humanitarian toll in Gaza and internal frustration among the Geneva‑based office’s employees.

The letter, signed by the Staff Committee on behalf of over 500 employees, said the scale, scope and nature of documented violations in Gaza satisfy the legal criteria for genocide and that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has a “strong legal and moral responsibility to denounce acts of genocide.” Staff warned that failing to do so risks undermining the credibility of the U.N. and the broader human rights system and compared perceived inaction to the U.N.’s failure to prevent the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The Gaza Health Ministry reports nearly 63,000 Palestinians killed and almost 160,000 wounded since the October 2023 Hamas attack and the ensuing Israeli operations....