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Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are trapped between severe abuses by Israeli forces and settlers and the violent rule of Hamas-affiliated groups, a U.N.-mandated inquiry said Tuesday.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry said Palestinians were being “systematically and deliberately” subjected to serious human rights violations across the two territories.
In Gaza, the commission said ordinary Palestinians were caught between the “structural violence and mass atrocities” of Israeli forces and the “predatory, fear-based rule of Hamas.”
The investigative panel, which concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, said civilians in the territory were also being violently repressed and controlled by the faction that claims to govern them.
The commission said Palestinians in the West Bank were increasingly being targeted in attacks by Israeli settlers, while Hamas-affiliated forces in Gaza were responsible for executions, torture and other serious abuses.
The report focused heavily on the occupied West Bank, where violence has risen sharply since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.
“Violence by settlers is the direct outcome of Israeli policies that support, enable and protect their actions,” commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said.
Muralidhar said Hamas-affiliated forces had exploited the vacuum created by continuing Israeli attacks and widespread destruction in Gaza.
“What is alarmingly similar is the deliberate infliction of suffering on Palestinian civilians,” he said. “While their origins and motivations differ, both operate within environments engineered by Israel.”
The three-member commission was established by the U.N. Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,080 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
Official Israeli data shows that at least 46 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, were killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations over the same period.
The inquiry found that settlers killed at least 26 Palestinians and injured at least 1,570 others between January 2023 and December 2025.
“This trend continues in 2026 with attacks carried out on a daily basis,” the investigators said.
The commission concluded that Israel was responsible for enabling settler activity.
It said settler violence “functions as a means of implementing Israeli state policy,” with both directed toward expanding settlements, annexing Palestinian territory and displacing Palestinians from their land.
Israel has long accused the commission of “systematic anti-Israel discrimination.”
The report called on Israel to stop the violence, immediately end what it described as the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory, halt new settlement activity and remove settlers and settlements.
The commission also found that Hamas-affiliated forces were responsible for serious abuses in Gaza, including the war crimes of murder and torture.
The inquiry identified 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence in 2024 and 2025, resulting in at least 108 deaths and 384 injuries.
Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 of those incidents, according to the report.
Investigators said Hamas members had tortured Palestinian civilians inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza.
The commission stressed that such activity did not remove the hospital’s special protection from attack under international humanitarian law.
The report called on Gaza’s de facto authorities to immediately end extrajudicial punishments of civilians, including executions, torture and mental, physical and sexual violence.
It also urged them not to use civilian locations, including hospitals, for activities incompatible with their humanitarian and civilian functions.
The report is scheduled to be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday.
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