President Donald Trump forcefully pushed back against a recent United Nations report accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, redirecting attention to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel as the true act of genocide in the conflict.
“I haven’t seen [the report],” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, “but did anybody commit genocide on Oct. 7? What do you think about that? That was murder, genocide, you can call it whatever you want … but little babies were chopped in half, arms were cut off people, heads were cut off people—that’s genocide.”
The president characterized the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in Israel’s south as “genocide at the highest level,” fundamentally challenging the narrative that has dominated international discourse since the war began.
Trump’s remarks represent a consistent effort to reframe the conversation around the Gaza conflict. Earlier in the week, during a visit to London, he similarly interrupted a reporter’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insisting that any evaluation of Israel’s policies must account for the war that Hamas initiated with its savage attack on Israeli communities.
This approach forces the discussion back to what Trump sees as first principles: Hamas’s October 7 atrocities as the originating crime that sparked the current conflict.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Trump’s sentiments, describing the UN commission’s report as “a modern-day blood libel” rather than legitimate criticism. Senator Ted Cruz went further, warning that such allegations undermine American national security interests by “eroding Israel’s freedom of action against Hamas” and “fueling international lawfare against Israel.”
Cruz suggested the Trump administration and Congress could impose sanctions “against everyone involved in this travesty,” according to Fox News.
Several prominent voices have rejected the characterization of Israel’s military operations in Gaza as genocide. International lawyer Natasha Hausdorff, who frequently appears on British media, has consistently argued that the genocide allegations against Israel lack a legal foundation and misapply international law.
In an article in The Spectator, Hausdorff stated, “As is so often the case with Israel, the crimes it is accused of are rooted in an inversion of the truth. Genocide has been committed during this conflict: by Hamas terrorists who rampaged through southern Israel and massacred over 1,000 innocents, targeting Jews.”
The Anti-Defamation League noted on its website that highlighted the October 7th massacre of Israelis as the actualization of Hamas’s genocidal intentions, as stated explicitly in its charter.
Since its founding in the late 1980s, Hamas has been promoting rhetoric and policies aimed at destroying the Jewish state of Israel and killing Jews and Israelis around the world. This is evident in their founding charter, which cites the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery as “proof” of a Zionist plot to control the world. It remains true after Hamas released a new charter in 2017, which essentially simply swapped the word “Jew” out and replaced it with “Zionist” while repeating antisemitic tropes.
The late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk offered a particularly pointed analysis during a recent campus debate, cutting through what he saw as deliberate distortion: “A genocide is the targeted mass killing of people. So Hamas is guilty of genocide. A war crime is going into kibbutzes, going into the Nova music festival, going into people’s places of residence on October 7th.”
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued its report alleging Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The commission found that Israel has “committed four genocidal acts” in the enclave since October 7, 2023.
The panel examined what it called the “systematic destruction” of healthcare and education in Gaza and “systematic” acts of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians, as well as the alleged “direct targeting” of children. The commission said statements made by Israeli authorities are “direct evidence of genocidal intent.”
The report concluded 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.” However, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the inquiry’s findings as “fake.”
The credibility of the UN commission behind the genocide report has come under scrutiny, with all three members facing documented accusations of antisemitic statements. This has provided additional ammunition for those who argue the report represents bias rather than objective analysis.
The UN report comes against the backdrop of a separate legal proceeding at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where South Africa filed a case in December 2023, accusing Israel of violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in its military assault on Gaza.
In January 2024, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling stating it was “plausible” that Israel committed genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to ensure its military does not take actions that violate the Genocide Convention. However, the court did not call for a ceasefire, noting it did not have sufficient evidence to decide whether genocide had occurred definitively.
The case has gained significant international support, with Brazil announcing in July 2025 that it would officially join South Africa’s case. Fourteen other countries have indicated their intention to join the proceedings, making it one of the most widely supported ICJ cases in recent history.
The Trump administration’s reference to the UN report ignoring ICJ orders adds another layer to the international legal controversy, as the UN commission specifically noted Israel’s “disregarding [of] the orders of the International Court of Justice” from March 2024 regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance.
While Trump and Republicans rally behind Israel, the genocide narrative has gained traction among some Democratic figures. Senator Bernie Sanders recently became the first sitting U.S. senator to definitively declare the war a genocide, stating: “The intent is clear. The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”
Even London Mayor Sadiq Khan has broken with the UK Labour government’s official position, describing the situation in Gaza as a “genocide” and becoming the most senior Labour figure to contradict official policy.
When pressed about whether a ceasefire represents the only path to free remaining hostages, Trump suggested military pressure could also yield results. “A lot of strange things happen [in war]… results you would never think,” he said, while acknowledging the difficulty as Israel closes in on the remaining captives believed held in Hamas’s tunnel network.
Trump estimated that fewer than 20 of the 48 hostages being held are still alive, saying “a lot of people died in those horrible tunnels.”
Trump’s response to the UN genocide allegations represents more than mere deflection—it’s an attempt to reset the entire framework through which the Gaza conflict is understood. By consistently returning focus to October 7, he challenges what he sees as an international narrative that has lost sight of how this war began and who initiated the cycle of violence.
Whether this reframing will gain broader traction remains to be seen. Still, it clearly signals how the Trump administration intends to approach Middle East policy: with unwavering support for Israel’s right to defend itself against what Trump characterizes as the real genocide perpetrators.
