Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led Israel’s denunciations of the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a human rights lawyer whose UN commission found Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Netanyahu called the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision misguided and said it had “lost its moral compass,” accusing Pillay of prejudice against Jews. The Israeli foreign ministry denounced the award as “the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.” UN Ambassador Danny Danon questioned the award’s integrity, saying it would damage the Nobel Committee’s credibility and tarnish the legacy of past laureates.
The September 2025 finding by the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which Pillay chaired, concluded that Israeli leaders had incited genocide and was among its most sweeping critiques of Israel’s conduct in the war. Israel has repeatedly rejected genocide allegations, calling the commission “morally bankrupt” and its members “notorious for their openly antisemitic positions” and “Hamas proxies.” Pillay, a South African lawyer, defended her work, citing her role in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she helped interpret and apply the 1948 Genocide Convention. She challenged critics to identify false evidence in the commission’s findings.
The Nobel Committee chair, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, said her work on the Gaza investigation played an important part in the decision. Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people, has resulted in over 74,000 Palestinian deaths according to local health authorities.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing