The commission also cited extensive evidence of desecration of corpses, including sexual desecration, beheading, mutilation, burning and cutting off of body parts.
But the committee said Israel had also committed war crimes in its months-long campaign to expel Hamas from Gaza, such as by Gaza blockade.
The statement said that Israel’s use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas constituted a direct attack on civilians, had the basic elements of crimes against humanity, ignored the need to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and caused a large number of civilian casualties, especially women and children.
The conflict has killed or maimed tens of thousands of Palestinian children, the committee said, with the scale and casualty rate “unprecedented in recent decades of conflict.”
The committee said other crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza include “extermination, murder, gender-based persecution of Palestinian men and boys, forced transfer of population, torture and inhuman and cruel treatment.”
The panel said the Israeli army used sexual and gender-based violence, including forced nudity and sexual humiliation, as “operating procedures” during the forced evacuation and detention of Palestinians. “Both male and female victims were subjected to this sexual violence, but men and boys were attacked differently,” the report said.
The statement added: “The attacks on men and boys were intentionally sexual in nature and were in retaliation for the attack that took place on October 7.”
