Palestinian civilians are being crushed between the violence of Israeli forces and settlers on one side and the repressive rule of Hamas on the other, a United Nations-mandated commission has warned in a stark new report.

The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel says Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are being “systematically and deliberately” subjected to grave human rights violations, amounting in many cases to mass atrocities.

In Gaza, the commission describes a population living under relentless Israeli military assault while also facing “predatory, fear-based rule” by Hamas and affiliated groups. The report accuses these factions of exploiting the chaos and destruction to tighten their grip, carrying out war crimes including murder, torture and extrajudicial executions.

Investigators documented 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence by Hamas-affiliated forces in 2024 and 2025 alone, resulting in at least 108 deaths and 384 injuries. Among the incidents cited were acts of torture against Palestinian civilians inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza. The commission stressed that such abuses do not strip hospitals of their protected status under international humanitarian law.

In the occupied West Bank, the inquiry focuses on a surge in deadly violence by Israeli settlers and security forces since the Gaza war began. At least 1,080 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers over that period, according to figures based on Palestinian health ministry data, while 46 Israelis have died in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli operations.

The commission found that at least 26 Palestinians were killed and 1,570 injured by settlers between January 2023 and December 2025, with attacks continuing on a near-daily basis. It concludes that settler violence “functions as a means of implementing Israeli state policy,” aimed at entrenching settlements, annexing Palestinian land and displacing Palestinian communities.

Commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said both Israeli forces and Hamas share “the deliberate infliction of suffering on Palestinian civilians,” even if their motives differ. Both, he argued, operate within structures “engineered by Israel.”

The report calls on Israel to end what it describes as the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory, halt all settlement expansion and remove existing settlements and settlers. It also urges the de facto authorities in Gaza to immediately cease executions, torture and all forms of extrajudicial punishment, and to stop using civilian sites, including hospitals, for military or security purposes.