Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza Says UN Commission

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, a United Nations commission of inquiry has said that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

A new report says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023. Israel's foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as "distorted and false". Adam is joined by John Simpson - BBC World Affairs Editor and Presenter of Unspun World.

And, an emergency debate has been held in the House of Commons into the appointment of Lord Mandelson as the UK Ambassador to the US. Adam, Chris and Alex discuss that and whether we are about to see a change of messaging from number 10 to ahead of the party conference.

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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Anna Harris and Shiler Mahmoudi. The social producers was Grace Braddock. The technical producer was Gareth Jones. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.7	Hello, in the previous episode of newscast, Chris and I were talking about the historical significance of parliamentary procedure SO-24, which is how you trigger an emergency debate on a significant subject.
0:17.2	Well, that did actually happen in Parliament on Tuesday, and the subject was the hiring and firing of Lord Mandelson as the UK ambassador in Washington, D.C.
0:25.9	So I'll catch up with Chris and Alex Forsyth to find out how that debate actually played out.
0:30.5	But first of all, we're going to focus on the latest on Gaza in this episode of Newscast.
0:35.5	Newscast from the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tappletail in the class. Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody. Then daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no solulu. Take me down to Downey Street. Let's go have a tour.
0:54.5	Blimey.
0:55.5	Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio, and we will catch up with Chris and Alex to find out
0:59.9	about goings-on at Westminster.
1:01.7	But first of all, we're going to talk about this report that was published on Tuesday morning
1:06.0	by a United Nations Commission, which found that Israel had been committing acts of genocide against
1:13.8	Palestinians living in Gaza. So this isn't the United Nations as a whole. This is a commission
1:20.5	which was appointed by a particular body within the UN to look at the situation. They looked at the
1:26.7	things that we've all seen on the news
1:28.3	happening in Gaza. They also looked at statements made by senior Israeli politicians,
1:33.7	including the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and they listened to testimony of people in
1:38.8	Gaza. And this commission concluded that if you put all that together, that meant that four out of the five
1:45.5	categories of genocidal acts were actually being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza right now.
1:53.0	Now, the Israeli foreign ministry responded to this pretty quickly.
1:55.6	They rejected it categorically and denounced it as distorted and false. And they said that the three commissioners
2:02.2	were acting more like proxies for Hamas. So what does this mean and how will this play into
2:09.1	the whole international picture around the conflict in Gaza? Let's discuss it now with the BBC's
	...

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