A United Nations inquiry has found that Israel’s war on Gaza is a genocide, a landmark moment after nearly two years of war.

Navi Pillay, chairwoman of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday about its findings, which hold Israeli leaders – including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and President Isaac Herzog – responsible.

“We’ve identified the president, the prime minister and the former minister of defence based on their statements and the orders that they’ve given,” Pillay said in an interview.

“Because these three individuals were agents of the state, under the law, the state is held responsible. So we say it’s [the] State of Israel that has committed genocide,” she added.

According to the report, the commission found that, along with the statements made by the Israeli officials, there was “circumstantial evidence” that led to their findings of genocidal intent.

“The Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the report found.

However, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the inquiry’s findings as “fake” and alleged in a post on X that the report’s authors were “serving as Hamas proxies”.

“The report relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others,” the ministry said. “Israel categorically rejects this distorted and false report and calls for the immediate abolition of this Commission of Inquiry,” it added.

Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, Daniel Meron, also condemned the inquiry’s findings and referred to it as “scandalous”, “fake” and a “libellous rant”.

This is not the first time that Israel has been formally accused of committing genocide in Gaza.

In 2023, South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, accusing it of conduct in Gaza that was tantamount to genocide.  That case is ongoing.

In April, Amnesty International found that Israel was committing a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza with the “specific intent” of wiping out Palestinians.

‘Intentionally killed’

The report found that Israeli soldiers “intentionally killed” civilians in Gaza through the use of “wide impact munitions”.

“The Commission therefore concluded that the Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination in the Gaza Strip by killing Palestinian civilians. While the number of victims is not relevant for an act to constitute an act of genocide, the Commission notes that the number of victims may be taken into consideration to establish genocidal intent,” it added.

Israel’s war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, the day Hamas led attacks in southern Israel, which killed 1,139 people and took more than 200 people captive, of whom 48 remain in Gaza.

Israeli bombardments and ground operations across the enclave since then have killed at least 64,871 people and wounded 164,610, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported on Monday.

In its recommendations, the UN report called on Israel to implement a “complete permanent” ceasefire, allow unhindered access to Gaza by all UN groups, end its “policy” of starvation and end the United States- and Israeli-backed GHF aid distribution system, which has resulted in the deaths and injuries of thousands of Palestinians.

The report also called for the commission to be given access to Israel and occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, to continue its investigations.

On the day the UN inquiry released its findings, Israeli attacks on Gaza only intensified. Defence Minister Israel Katz announced early on Tuesday that the enclave was “on fire” as the military launched a ground invasion of Gaza City.

Since dawn, at least 62 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave, 52 of them in Gaza City alone, medical sources told Al Jazeera.