The Decibel - Israel begins ground invasion of Gaza, UN inquiry finds genocide

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

After weeks of warnings, Israel has begun a full-scale ground invasion into Gaza City. Hundreds of thousands of people are living under bombardment in the city, with large waves of Palestinians under evacuation order, attempting to move south in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry has determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.Hamida Ghafour, deputy foreign editor at The Globe, joins the show to break down the latest escalation of the war in Gaza, what we know about the UN Commission’s findings on genocide, and where this leaves the possibility of a ceasefire.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Tuesday, Israel launched a major ground assault on Gaza City. As of Tuesday afternoon, Gaza health officials have reported that at least 75 people have been killed, mostly in Gaza City. Israel has renewed calls for civilians to evacuate. Also on Tuesday, a UN commission released a report that examined Israel's conduct in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October of 2020. It concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. The goal of the Israeli government is abundantly clear, as we continue to witness the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, the Commission finds it is genocide. Israel rejects these accusations. Israel categorically rejects the libelous rant published today by this Commission of Inquiry.

It spreads the malicious genocide narrative. The report diverges from the mandate of the commission, yet again, stressing their biased analysis. All of this comes a week after Israel struck the headquarters of Hamas's political leadership in Doha Qatar. Hamas said five people were killed. Qatar is a U.S. ally with thousands of American troops stationed there. They've also played a major role in mediating ceasefire talks, and the attack puts the continuation of these talks in jeopardy.

So today, we're talking to Hamida Ghafore about these developments. She's the Globe's Deputy Foreign Editor. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hamida, thanks so much for joining. us today. Thank you for having me on the show. And we should note that we are speaking Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern, and things are moving quickly, so I just want to put that time stamp on. Okay, let's start with what we know about the ground invasion so far. What has happened and how is it playing out? So for the last few weeks, the Israeli government, really Benjamin Netanyahu,

has been talking about a full-scale invasion of Gaza city. And so we've been sort of in this holding pattern for a few weeks. Overnight, and early in the morning here, we woke up to the news that the Israeli military has indeed launched a ground invasion of Gaza. It's been different to what's been happening over the last few weeks, and in fact, many months, which is to say that there's been missile strikes, there's been drone strikes on Gaza City, but what's different now is that there's tanks that are going in and there's helicopters as well that are involved. So it's a much more comprehensive invasion and offensive

than what we've seen so far. And what's a situation like for people on the ground? I know you've been in contact with a globe contributor on the ground in Gaza. What have you learned from that? So there's about 700,000 people who live in Gaza City. And a lot of the people who are there have been displaced. This war has been going on for a couple of years. A lot of the people who are in Gaza City are displaced from other areas. Hassan Jabber is our regular contributor. He lives in the Baraj refugee camp, which is on Gaza City, but it's not far away. It's a few kilometers away.

And what he was telling me this morning, he's been speaking to residents of Gaza. And the picture that emerges from the last few hours is men, women, children, running back and forth between Gaza City and the neighborhoods outside, then returning. essentially there's nowhere for people to go. At the same time, there's bombs, missiles, tank fire hitting buildings. So they're trying to walk or drive if they can across roads that are blocked with concrete and rubble. There's no water. They have no food. People can be hit by a missile at any time. Ultimately, there's nowhere in Gaza to go. Beyond Gaza City, the Gaza Strip is sealed on all sides. It's a time when people are, civilians are trying to survive hour by hour. And if they

live to see the next day, they consider themselves lucky. If there's nowhere for them to go, are they just, I guess, staying? Well, this is the conundrum. So the Israeli military has said that the Al Rashid Road, which is near the coast along Gaza vertically, it's the only permitted route for civilians to use to evacuate Gaza City. But it's congested with cars, trucks, there's long delays, people are stranded on the roadside while airstrikes continue overhead. They're supposed to be heading south towards Khan Yunus or Almwasi, but in the past, these areas have not proven safe either. They're also being attacked by the military, and there's also no services, there's no clean water, very little medicine, no food, no shelter. So what happens is people leave these

urban areas, and so Gaza City today, they head south, their attack there, or they can't find a place to sleep or they can't find food. And so they end up sort of moving back north. The IDF is also telling the Palestinians to continue to a corner of Gaza by the Egyptian border. But the fear is that, well, first of all, this corner of Gaza in the south down by Rafah is a very small, it's a very small physical location. And what's being asked is that, you know, two million Palestinians from all over the Gaza Strip are expected to move into tiny corner. And the fear is that, well, how are they going to live there? There's nothing there. There's no services. And of course, the bigger fear as well is that they will not be able

to return back to their homes. There's no homes to go back to and that the Israeli military might be taking over those areas as well. This war has been ongoing for nearly two years. And the Israeli government has been talking about a ground invasion for months. Do you have any understanding as to why the IDF, the Israeli defense forces, are moving forward with a ground invasion now? That's a very good question. For many weeks now, what we've been hearing is that the head of the Israeli military, the chief of staff, who currently is Isle Zahir, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

they have not been able to agree on whether to launch a ground invasion of Gaza or not. The nub of the issue is that if they did go in, it puts the hot. hostages, the Israeli hostages at risk. There's about 20 hostages that are still being held by Hamas. So the worry is that if they go in, this risks the lives of the remaining hostages. And there's a lot of pressure in Israel among Israeli citizens to not do that. There's been huge demonstrations in recent weeks. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been calling for an end to the war in Gaza and they've been asking their government to secure a deal to release these hostages held by Hamas. So this has been holding back Benjamin Netanyahu and the ministers that surround

him who've been pushing for the ground invasion. Last week, Israel hit a residential compound in Qatar to try and kill Hamas negotiators. Qatar is a negotiator. They've been trying to secure a ceasefire and ultimately a peace deal for this conflict. And they have been hosting Hamas in Qatar for a long, long time. They've been doing it with the permission of the U.S. government. They've been doing it with a full acknowledgement of the Israeli government as well. So when the Israelis hit this compound to try to kill these negotiators, and by the way, they apparently didn't, the negotiators are still alive, they've gone to ground. So now there's no one for Israel to negotiate with. The Hamas negotiators have disappeared. We don't know where they are. And there's no ceasefire talks. The

ceasefire talks are dead. There's no one to speak to. So it's created a situation where a full-ground invasion can begin. What about the goals here? What is the IDF said is the plan or the goal of this offensive? So the goal is to get the hostages and bring them back home safely. Defeating Hamas is the other goal, and that must be put around air quotes. It's understood that there's around 3,000 Hamas fighters who are making a last stand in Gaza City. but again there's no international reporters in Gaza so it's really difficult to know how if you know

if this is true how many there are but we do know that defeating Hamas is one of Benjamin Netanyahu's goals in this incursion and I think there's a third part to this answer as well in terms of what's the goal or the plan of the offensive so there are figures around Mr. Netanyahu they're from the far right politically in Israel they're always described as the far right And they speak very openly about a long-term plan to take Gaza and make it part of Greater Israel. The finance minister, Bezalil Smotrich, certainly in international arena and international media, he's one of the more louder voices calling for Gaza to be part of Greater Israel. And what that means is to build settlements and homes for Jewish families.

They do not want the Palestinians to live there and they do not want them to return to their homes. What has Netanyahu said about this ground invasion? So I will quote Mr. Netanyahu, he says, we are now moving inside Gaza to destroy Hamas's infrastructure, and we will continue until our objectives are fully achieved. And he also said that the operations aren't going to stop before what he called complete victory. I think this signals to us that there's no appetite

for any negotiated settlement with Hamas, that the idea is that this war. is going to be settled on the battleground as far as the Israeli Prime Minister is concerned. Have we heard anything from the international community, international leaders? Has there been a response yet? There has been a response from the international community. The European Union, the Germans, the British, they have condemned it as reckless, appalling, and of course have said that it's going to deepen the crisis. The European Union is accepted. expected to meet, to impose new sanctions on Israel, and also suspend some trade.

What kind of support for an escalation of war is there within Israel? Like, what's the support from Israelis? This war is not popular among the Israeli public. There is an overwhelming desire, and there has been since day one of this war, to get the hostages back home. You know, Hamas sees 250, mostly Israeli citizens. reasons, Israeli society has overwhelmingly been calling for that. And that hasn't changed. There was actually a poll that came out earlier in September. It was published in the Times of Israel,

and it showed that more than 60% of those who were polled wanted Israel, the Israeli government, to agree to a deal that released all the hostages and ended the war. Okay. How significant an escalation is this ground invasion? It's a very significant escalation. So this war is only, almost two years old. Between, you know, the start of the war to now, Israel has taken about 70 to 80 percent of the Gaza Strip. Gaza City is the last remaining urban area that's not under the control of the military. And by taking it, the IDF is consolidating its control over all of the Gaza Strip. The UN is set to meet later this month where countries like Britain, France, and Canada are set to recognize Palestine as a state. I'm just wondering, Hamida, how does that

factor into Israel's military calculations? Well, I would say that it has absolutely no bearing on Israel's calculations. The current policy of the government is that it does not want a two-state solution. So the two-state solution is a secure sovereign Israel living side by side with a state of Palestine. But the Israeli government policy currently is that it does not support that idea. So essentially at the UN later this month, there is a large support for a two-state solution, which would mean declaring Palestine as a state. But how is that going to get imposed from the outside if the two countries who have to live side by side with each other aren't there yet? there's no conceivable conditions on the ground as of today that suggests that we are anywhere

near a two-state solution. Recently, there was a former foreign minister, Shlomo Ben Ami, and he gave a very memorable quote about the two-state solution and how feasible it was, and he called it an idea from the attic of lost causes. So in other words, there's no hope of a two-state solution. The idea of a Palestinian state being independent, even if countries like Canada support it, it doesn't change anything on the ground. We'll be right back. Hamida, also on Tuesday, a UN commission released a new report.

This came from the UN Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory. What did this commission find? So the UN Commission report is, a legal analysis of the situation. It's a 72-page document and it says that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. To use a more technical term, Israel is in breach of the 1948 Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. So the genocide convention came as a direct result of the Holocaust. It was directly inspired by Nazi Germany's attempt to exterminate the Jewish

people. Genocide is the most heinous crime any person, any government can be accused of. I think in recent years it's become a word that's thrown around very casually, especially with regards to many different conflicts around the world. And it's, in some ways, it's lost its impact and its meaning. But I think it's worth pausing to quote the chair of the UN Commission panel, and that's Navi Pillay. And she said, quote, today we witness in real time how the promise of never again is broken and tested in the eyes of the world, close quote. And never again, of course,

refers to the Holocaust against the Jewish people by the Nazis. It's become two words that carry rightfully a lot of weight and a lot of gravitas. And hearing the UN Commission accused the Jewish state of genocide, you really feel the weight of history. And just to clarify, this was a body of the UN. This isn't the same as the UN as a whole institution coming out and declaring that Israel has committed genocide. So that's right. So the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupy Palestinian Territory, it was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021.

So it is a UN body. And it was established to investigate all allegations of violations of violations of international humanitarian. and human rights law. I think it's also worth noting that the panel is made up of three experts. The chair is Navi Palais. She's a South African human rights expert and she was president of the International Tribunal

on Rwanda's genocide in the 1990s. And the other two key people in here are, he's an Australian human rights lawyer, Chris Hidote. And there's also an Indian expert on housing and land rights, Malone Qutari. This commission, I think, is also important to note has previously said that Hamas and other Palestinian on groups, they have also committed war crimes on October 7th, 2023, which is obviously this was the start of this conflict.

I think you touched on this a bit, but we'll kind of just spell it out. How did the commission come to this conclusion that this is a genocide? So under international law, what legal experts have to establish is genocidal act and also intent. So those are two really important things. and that's what this commission has done. And in terms of establishing genocidal act, what they did was examine military operations in Gaza, so that's including killing and harming

unprecedented numbers of Palestinians, as they put it. Imposing a total siege on Gaza. Gaza is blocked on all three sides, and it's got a sea on the other side. There's very little humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, so that's led to starvation and family. in Gaza City, systematically destroying infrastructure, health, education, cultural centers. And the evidence comes from interviews of victims, witnesses, doctors, open source documents,

satellite imagery analysis. And what they found is that these Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts that are defined by the Genocide Convention of 1948. and they are killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births. Intent is also really important under international law. The Commission analyzed statements made by Israeli authorities

and the pattern of conduct by authorities and security forces in Gaza. So, in other words, imposing starvation inhumane conditions of life. This is the terminology that they use. And they've concluded that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference from these statements. And I think it's also important to point out that in this report, three officials are singled out. Benjamin Netanyahu, you know, of Gallant, who was the defense minister in October 23, and President Isaac Herzog. How has Israel responded to this report?

report. Israel has dismissed it as fake news. Joav Gallant, who's named in this report, called it a morally bankrupt commission. It's been accused of being anti-Semitic and that, in fact, it's Hamas that has intentions to commit genocide against Jewish people. What about other countries? Does this change anything for countries allied with Israel, like Canada? So I guess that's the question. You know, what happens when someone is accused or a group of people or a country is accused of genocide. So some time ago, the International Criminal

Court in the Netherlands issued arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and you have Gallant, which he was the defense minister. And so what's supposed to happen is that when these two figures travel to a country that signed up to the International Criminal Court, the arrest warrant is meant to be enforced. Canada is very much signatory to the International Criminal Court. But that hasn't happened in part because Mr. Gallant and Mr. Netanyahu have not taken the risk of traveling too far widely outside Israel. International law doesn't have police or an army to back it up. It's up to us collectively as the international community to enforce it and to do something about it. And as of right now, is where we stand today. It's unclear what's going to happen,

if anything. Yeah, because saying committing a genocide, that's a very strong, claim? And do we have a sense of what kind of tangible impact it could have? So it's certainly going to entrench people's views of the conflict. For some, it's more evidence that the UN is irrelevant. It's biased against Israel. It's anti-Semitic. And for others, that such a judgment is coming from some of the leading experts in the field of human rights and coming from what really still is the world's highest body, world body. For them, it's it's evidence that Israel is fighting an unjust war. It's going to further polarize and divide people. We live in a very polarized world. You know, on one side, there's the global south, increasingly

European countries, such as the UK, France, Canada as well, who are condemning the killings, condemning the famine that was declared in August caused by Israel. And on the other side are Israel supporters. Israel supporters are a dwindling group. The country, is quite isolated from its, certainly from its traditional democratic, Western liberal allies. Its main supporter is really the only one that can have an impact on its behavior, which is the United States. The Trump administration, however, continues and has said it will continue to provide military aid, diplomatic protection, and any assistance it needs. And in fact, only earlier this week, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was in Jerusalem expressing his solidarity and his

support for Israel. Just before we wrap up here, a lot is changing very quickly, as we mentioned off the top, but what don't you know yet? Like, what are you hoping to find answers on soon? I think the overwhelming, you know, as a journalist, as an assigning editor, as a deputy foreign editor here at the globe, I think that it is, the overwhelming question is, When will the Gaza Strip be open to international journalists so we can go in and report without fear or favor of what's happened to Gaza? What's the actual death toll? Is Hamas stealing food? What is the extent of the devastation to the Gaza Strip?

There's no indication whatsoever that Gaza is going to be open to international journalists. But I think that's the big question. And I think once, you know, if we are allowed in, that I'm not. I think we will be able to, you know, there'll be such a huge interest in international news organizations sending in teams that I think some of the bigger questions about what's happened to Gaza can be, you know, known in more detail. I think the big question is what happens now to the ceasefire talks? What happened? How is this war going to be brought to an end? Israel clearly is a no to negotiate with Hamas. Hamas has gone underground. If you are Qatar and you

are, you know, one of the kind of lead negotiators. The Qataris are very angry about, you know, a strike on their territory. Egypt is the other big country that's been trying to negotiate and enter this conflict. It's not clear that the Egyptians will want to host peace or ceasefire negotiations in Cairo because they will also be risking being attacked by Israel. So I think today, while, you know, the question of genocide for many people is much more clear. In the medium term, let alone the long term, it's just not clear how this terrible, terrible tragedy is going to be resolved. Hamida, I really appreciate making the time for us today.

Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Cheryl, for having me. That was Hamidica, 4, the deputy foreign editor for the globe. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhail Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show.

Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.