From Apartheid Courtrooms to Gaza’s Ruins: The Unflinching Jurist Naming a Genocide in Real-Time 

Based on the findings of her UN Commission of Inquiry, former UN human rights chief and international judge Navi Pillay concludes that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a determination she anchors in specific, intentional acts like the targeted destruction of a fertility clinic holding 4,000 embryos, which she cites as evidence of an intent to prevent Palestinian births.

Drawing parallels to the Rwandan genocide, she emphasizes that this is a unique, publicly witnessed atrocity, fueled by dehumanizing rhetoric from political leaders, and she expresses profound disappointment in the international community’s failure to act on its legal obligation to prevent such crimes.

Rooted in her own experience fighting apartheid, Pillay argues that just as global collective action helped end that system, a lasting peace in Gaza requires not just a ceasefire but an end to the occupation, Palestinian self-determination, and a universal pursuit of accountability for the atrocities committed.

From Apartheid Courtrooms to Gaza’s Ruins: The Unflinching Jurist Naming a Genocide in Real-Time 

The term “genocide” sits heavy in the air, a legal and moral thunderbolt reserved for the darkest chapters of human history. It is not a word to be used lightly, and for Navi Pillay, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and chair of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Palestine, it was a conclusion reached not in haste, but through a painstaking, two-year forensic process. Her finding that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza is not just a legal opinion; it is a testament to a lifetime spent navigating the brutal geography of state-sanctioned violence and the fragile pathways toward justice. 

At the heart of her determination lies a single, chilling image: not a sprawling refugee camp or a shattered high-rise, but a lone shell’s impact on the Al-Basma fertility clinic in December 2023. This strike, she argues, is a microcosm of a broader, systematic intent. The clinic stood apart from other hospital buildings, a solitary structure housing 4,000 Palestinian embryos. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not hit the main hospital complex that day; they struck the nitrogen tanks that sustained these nascent lives. 

“That clinic stands alone in the grounds,” Pillay states, her legal mind dissecting the action with precision. “They came straight to this building and targeted and hit the nitrogen tanks that kept the embryos alive.” For her, this is not collateral damage. It is a deliberate act “intended to prevent births” among Palestinians—a specific criterion for genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. An expert witness to her commission put it in starkly human terms: “Children who were meant to be born from these… reproductive specimens will never exist. Families will be forever changed and bloodlines may end.” 

The Weight of Witness and the Echoes of Rwanda 

What distinguishes this moment, Pillay contends, is that unlike the hidden horrors of the Holocaust or the closed-door killings of other conflicts, “we are all witnesses to it. It’s happening in real time. We see it on our screens every day.” This pervasive visibility creates a unique and damning dynamic. The international community cannot plead ignorance; it can only choose to act or to look away. 

Her perspective is forged in the fires of precedent. As a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, she confronted the mechanics of a genocide that unfolded with terrifying speed. She draws a direct, unsettling parallel between the rhetoric that fueled those killings and the language used in the current conflict. In Rwanda, Hutu extremists incited mobs to “exterminate this scum… these cockroaches.” In 2023, then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a complete siege on Gaza, declaring, “We are fighting human animals.” 

“The idea comes from the politicians to destroy this group in all or in part,” Pillay observes. This pattern of dehumanization is not incidental; it is a foundational step in constructing a permission structure for atrocity. She and her fellow commissioners, including Australia’s Chris Sidoti, built their case like a court of law, personally verifying every incident cited in their report. While Israel has categorically rejected their findings, dismissing the commissioners as “Hamas proxies,” Pillay stands by their work as the most authoritative UN-backed investigation to date, a crucial placeholder until the International Court of Justice renders its final judgment. 

A Lifetime of Defying the “Impossible” 

To understand Pillay’s unwavering stance, one must look to her past. As a woman of Indian Tamil heritage growing up under South Africa’s apartheid regime, she learned firsthand the corrosive weight of state-sponsored racism. “I was a lawyer. I had four degrees, but I was treated like dirt just because of my skin colour,” she recalls. That experience of humiliation, rather than breaking her, instilled a resolve to resist. 

Yet, for years, the struggle seemed hopeless. “I never thought apartheid would end in my lifetime,” she admits. This confession makes her subsequent victory all the more powerful. It underscores her fundamental belief that seemingly immovable systems of oppression can, and do, fall. 

The key, she argues, is collective, global action. She recalls the distant ripples of international solidarity that provided succor to her and fellow activists under censorship. News filtered through of Australian students protesting against all-white South African rugby tours. People told her they, as children, stopped eating South African oranges. “You might think, well, how is it going to help the struggle if I stop eating an orange? Well, it did,” she affirms. “Collective action helped achieve the impossible.” These small, symbolic acts, aggregated across the globe, created an economic and cultural pressure that helped dismantle a monstrous regime. 

Beyond the Ceasefire: The Unaddressed Roots of Conflict 

While Pillay welcomes any respite from violence, such as the fragile ceasefires, she is clear-eyed about their limitations. A temporary truce is not peace. It does not address the root cause of the conflict: the decades-long occupation and the denial of Palestinian self-determination. 

“Palestinians have a right to self-determination,” she states unequivocally. “They know how to govern themselves. I wouldn’t even say they should be consulted: no, they should have the leading role here. The people for whom this matters most must be at the table.” This is a direct challenge to the diplomatic processes that often sideline the very people whose futures are being negotiated. 

Her vision for a just peace is inextricably linked to accountability. The international multilateral system, she argues, failed in its most fundamental duty: to prevent genocide. To now grant impunity to the perpetrators would be to complete that failure. “People want justice and accountability, and justice has to be universal to succeed,” she cautions. There can be no lasting security built upon unaddressed graves. 

Navi Pillay’s journey—from the segregated courtrooms of Natal to the global stage of international law—is a map of the long road toward justice. Her finding of genocide in Gaza is a controversial, painful, but legally grounded verdict on a crisis unfolding before our eyes. It is a call to action rooted in the hard-won lesson of her own life: that the arc of the moral universe does not bend on its own. It is bent by the collective will of those who, even in the face of overwhelming force, refuse to stop believing in the impossible, and refuse to let the world look away.