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Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz criticized a United Nations report accusing Israel of genocide, warning that the Trump administration and Congress had tools at their disposal to sanction those behind it.
The report, issued Tuesday by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (COI), said, “the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide, and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Cruz said, “This latest announcement by the United Nations is no different than any of the other antisemitic smears and libels that have been leveled against Israel in their ongoing response to Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7.
“This campaign directly undermines American national security interests by eroding Israel’s freedom of action against Hamas terrorists who killed Americans and fueling international lawfare against Israel, which will be turned against American servicemembers, and indeed American citizens in general. The Republican Trump administration and Republican Congress have developed tools and sanctions to deal with these threats, and they should be used against everyone involved in this travesty,’ his statement concluded.
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Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, South African judge Navi Pillay, speaks during a press conference in Geneva on September 16, 2025. The Inquiry Commission on September 16, 2025 accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza in a bid to “destroy the Palestinians” there, and blamed Israel’s prime minister and other top officials for incitement. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, told Fox News Digital that “the latest report of the U.N.’s phony ‘inquiry’ promotes genocide – against Jews.”
Bayefsky said the report “obscenely rationalizes the crimes against humanity committed by Hamas and other Palestinians on Oct. 7 as an understandable reaction to prior Israeli wrongs,” and “downgrades the mass murder, rape, torture, and trauma of Israelis by suggesting that not enough Jews were harmed to pose an ‘existential threat’ to Israel.”
Bayefsky said that the COI, which has previously been accused of omitting important facts from its reporting, “makes zero recommendations for Hamas.” She also said the report mentions the terror group’s tunnel network, which was “integral to the Oct. 7 atrocities,” only “in the context of criticizing Israel.”
Sen. Ted Cruz condemned latest attack against Israel. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Salo Aizenberg, director of media watchdog group HonestReporting, pushed back on the COI report’s assertion that Israel has “impos[ed] measures intended to prevent births.” He told Fox News Digital that, “If Israel truly aimed to destroy Gaza’s population, why did it allow WHO teams earlier in 2025 to vaccinate 603,000 children under age 10 — matching pre-Oct. 7 numbers?”
He noted that it “disregards that more than 20,000 Gaza fatalities are fighters from Hamas and other armed groups, obscuring the true dynamics of the conflict.”
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In its recommendations, the COI report specifically calls for Israel to “ensure full, unimpeded access of humanitarian aid at scale” and “end the distribution of food aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.” The report cites the commissioner-general of the controversial U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), who has called GHF “an abomination” and “a death trap” that is “costing more lives than it saves.”
According to recent U.N. statistics, however, between July 21 and Aug. 18 there were double the number of deaths along U.N. convoy routes (576) as there were surrounding GHF sites (259).
Hamas terrorists killed civilians, including women, children and the elderly, when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7. (Israel Defense Forces via AP)
Additionally, only 14.5% of U.N. aid trucks sent into Gaza have reached their intended destinations since May due to armed looting and theft. During the same period, GHF has distributed 165 million meals to Palestinians at its secure distribution sites.
GHF released a statement explaining that the COI published its report “without ever contacting” the organization, calling its statements “falsehoods that could have been easily corrected had we been asked.” GHF said there have been no shootings at its sites, and that claims, particularly that children have been shot, are “not only false” but “reckless.”
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While the COI currently casts specific blame on three Israeli officials for alleged genocide, COI member Chris Sidoti told the press on Monday, “there are many, many statements by Israeli political and civilian leaders that incite genocide, and also by others, including some media commentators in Israel, that have been inciting genocide.”
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, did not respond to questions on whether Sidoti’s remarks were an attack on Israel’s media.
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu hold signs as he addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith) (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
In response to press questions about the COI report, Guterres said that “it is not in the attributions of the Secretary-General to do the legal determination of genocide. That belongs to the adequate judicial entities, namely, the International Court of Justice.” Guterres said, “the truth is that this is something that it is morally, politically, and legally intolerable.”
Bayefsky said that “U.S. law withholds funds for the COI, but clearly it has not had the intended impact.” She argued it is “high time” to do a “lot more to terminate the dangers that the U.N. and its COI pose to both the United States and Israel.”
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Fox News Digital asked the State Department whether it intended to sanction COI members or prevent their travel to the U.N. for next week’s General Assembly debate. The State Department did not issue a response by press time.
A spokesperson for the COI did not respond to questions from Fox News Digital about its report.