UN Special Committee on Israeli Practices

The committee’s mandate focuses on Israeli policies and practices affecting Palestinians and other Arabs in territories occupied since 1967; it does not extend to investigating violations by other duty bearers in those territories.[4] Its geographical scope includes the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — including East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan, as well as refugees who left because of hostilities.[4]

The body consists of representatives of three UN Member States, rather than a membership appointed as individual investigators.[1][3] In its 2025 report, those states were Malaysia, represented by Ahmad Faisal Muhamad; Senegal, represented by Coly Seck; and Sri Lanka, represented by Jayantha Jayasuriya, who chaired the committee.[3] This composition describes the membership for that report, rather than a permanent roster.[3]

Its recurring work combines investigations, consultations and reports addressing such subjects as the administration of justice, detention, restrictions on fundamental freedoms and settlement activity.[2] Because Israel has not granted access to the territories, the committee has conducted interviews and consultations in neighbouring countries and elsewhere.[2][3]

The General Assembly established the committee through Resolution 2443 (XXIII), adopted on 19 December 1968 at its 1748th plenary meeting.[1][5] The resolution originally named it the “Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories,” specified a membership of three UN Member States and asked the Assembly’s president to appoint them.[1]

The founding resolution’s preamble linked its creation to concerns about human rights in Arab territories occupied by Israel, including the destruction of civilian homes and the situation of inhabitants who had fled during hostilities.[6] It recalled a call for those inhabitants to return, resume normal life, recover their property and homes, and rejoin their families.[6] The operative provisions requested that Israel receive the committee, cooperate with it and facilitate its work; they also directed the committee to report to the Secretary-General as soon as possible and whenever subsequently necessary.[1] The Secretary-General was asked to provide the facilities needed for its task.[1]

Annual reports to the General Assembly began in 1970, and two additional periodic reports per year were introduced in 1989.[2] An account of the committee’s earlier membership identifies Sri Lanka, Senegal and Yugoslavia as members, with Senegal replacing Somalia in 1974.[7] The committee’s later remit incorporated subjects added by General Assembly Resolution 3005 (XXVII), including settlements, annexation, exploitation or looting of resources, population transfers, pillage of archaeological and cultural heritage, and interference with freedom of worship at holy places.[4]

The General Assembly continued to renew and specify its work in later resolutions.[8] Resolution 74/87, adopted on 3 December 2019, requested continued investigation of Israeli policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and other Arab territories occupied since 1967.[8] It specifically referred to the Fourth Geneva Convention and requested consultations with the International Committee of the Red Cross as appropriate.[8]

Resolution 78/76, concerning the committee’s work, was adopted on 7 December 2023 by 86 votes in favour, 12 against and 75 abstentions.[9] The committee’s fifty-sixth report, a 27-page document numbered A/79/363, was transmitted by the Secretary-General on 20 September 2024 pursuant to that resolution.[10] Its fifty-seventh report covered 1 August 2024 through 31 July 2025.[3]

Interviews outside the territories have been a longstanding component of the committee’s investigations.[2] Its members have interviewed people described as having first-hand experience of the human-rights situation, while information has also been received from Egypt, Jordan and Syria.[2][11] Reports have addressed the administration of justice, the treatment of detainees and Palestinian civilians, measures affecting fundamental freedoms, and settler activities characterized in those reports as violations of international law.[2] Their historical coverage has included incidents associated with the first intifada of 1987–1993 and the second intifada, which began in 2000.[2]

Resolution 74/87 specifically requested continued investigation of the treatment and status of Palestinian and Arab prisoners and detainees, including children, women and elected representatives, in Israeli prisons and detention centres.[8] It also asked the Secretary-General to support committee visits, circulate periodic reports and continue assigning the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to assist its work.[8]

For its 2023 work, the committee visited Cairo and Amman to meet civil-society organizations, Palestinian Authority officials and UN representatives, followed by consultations with Member States and other stakeholders in Geneva.[4] Its 2024 mission included meetings in Geneva and Amman with government officials, UN organizations, UN human-rights mandate holders, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, civil society, youth representatives, human-rights defenders and Palestinian families.[12] The committee also met UNRWA officials and visited Baqa’a refugee camp.[12]

In April 2025, and again before its annual field mission, the committee requested Israeli cooperation, access to the occupied Palestinian territory, Israel and the Syrian Golan, and a meeting with Israel’s Permanent Representative in Geneva; its report records no response from the Israeli government.[3] Instead, members visited Amman from 5 to 9 May 2025, including Amman New Camp for Palestine refugees.[3] Their meetings included government officials, UN entities including UNRWA, a human-rights commission, and civil-society and youth organizations.[3]

The committee provides a recurring channel through which investigations of Israeli practices enter the General Assembly’s deliberations: it reports to the Secretary-General, and the Fourth Committee reviews its reports.[3] In November 2019, renewal of its mandate was among eight resolutions adopted by the Fourth Committee for subsequent submission to the Assembly’s plenary.[13] A December 2020 General Assembly resolution concerning policies and practices reflected in the committee’s report passed with 76 votes in favour, 14 against and 83 abstentions.[14]

Its reports have advanced legal characterizations of Israeli policies as well as descriptions of conditions.[2] They have characterized establishing or expanding settlements, confiscating property, transferring Israeli citizens into occupied territories, deporting Palestinians, and encouraging or compelling Palestinians to leave as elements of a continuing policy of de facto annexation.[2] The reports have also characterized these actions as violations of Israel’s obligations as a High Contracting Party to the Fourth Geneva Convention.[2]

The 2025 report concluded that Israel’s conduct in Gaza was consistent with the characteristics of genocide and expressed the committee’s increasing conviction that genocide was occurring.[3] It relayed figures from the Ministry of Health in Gaza of 60,138 Palestinians killed and 146,269 injured since 7 October 2023, and stated that 70 per cent of Gaza’s infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed.[3] These were the committee’s conclusions and reported figures, not a court’s adjudication.[3]

The committee’s reporting has also included recommendations addressing both peoples.[15] A passage quoted during a 2002 UN debate called for “accountability on all sides” and safeguards to prevent future violations of “the human rights of both peoples, Palestinians and Israelis.”[15]

Israel’s refusal to cooperate rests on its objection that the founding resolution was discriminatory and prejudged the allegations under investigation.[2] During a 2024 Fourth Committee debate, its representative argued that singling out Israeli practices violated equal treatment of states and criticized the committee’s account as politicized and one-sided, particularly because it did not investigate Palestinian authorities or terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[16] The United States opposed continuing the committee’s work in 2002 on similar grounds, while acknowledging its recommendations for human-rights compliance and accountability by all parties.[15]

Israel’s July 2005 UN reform paper included the committee among four bodies it accused of disseminating “a partisan view of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”[17] Its stated biennial cost of more than US$5 million applied to those four bodies collectively, not to this committee alone.[17] The paper also criticized five General Assembly resolutions concerning the committee and proposed dispensing with resolutions reconfirming perennial bodies’ mandates.[17]

The committee’s evidentiary methods have also attracted criticism: Shabtai Rosenne alleged that its reliance on press material and oral presentations involved inadequate verification, an assessment expressed as his personal view rather than an independently established finding.[7] The scope of the mandate, the reliability of evidence gathered without access, and the legal characterizations advanced in reports remain central points of dispute.[2][16]