By Cnaan Lidor
South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, who headed a UN commission that accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, Oct. 9.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said:
“The committee praised Pillay for her ‘exceptional courage and integrity’ in advancing international law, saying she had been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.”
Pillay, 85, is a former UN high commissioner for human rights who has held senior positions in international judicial bodies.
Her selection drew enthusiastic support from her allies and sparked outrage in Israel and at UNWatch.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the Nobel decision a “grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.
“If there were a prize for lies, hatred and blood libels, Navi Pillay would not merely be a candidate — she would be the front-runner,” the ministry said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Nobel Committee had “lost its moral compass.” Netanyahu said Pillay supplied fabricated allegations that International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan used to build a case against Israel.
UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, writing on X, accused Pillay of a “gross breach of ethics” while chairing the UN commission investigating Israel.
Neuer noted that Pillay had expressed strong views against Israel before taking charge of the inquiry, including signing a statement calling for sanctions against Israel.
“By honoring Pillay, the Nobel committee has failed to uphold the principles it seeks to celebrate,” Neuer wrote. “International justice depends on impartiality.”
Neuer criticized Pillay’s defense of fellow commissioner Miloon Kothari after Kothari referred to a “Jewish lobby” in a 2022 interview.
In September, 2025, a UN commission that Pillay headed issued a 72-page report concluding that there were “reasonable grounds” to conclude that four of the five acts defined as genocidal under the 1948 Genocide Convention had been committed by Israel since the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The commission did not accuse Hamas of genocide.
The commission cited Israel’s killing of members of a group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction; and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
It also accused senior Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of incitement to genocide.
Israel categorically rejected the commission’s findings, saying it was fundamentally biased against the Jewish state. Israel called Pillay and the UN commission “Hamas proxies.” Israel says that its military campaign in Gaza has targeted Hamas and other terrorist organizations, not the Palestinian civilian population, and that the IDF takes extensive measures to minimize civilian casualties.
Born in Durban in 1941 to an Indian Tamil family, Pillay became the first non-white woman to open her own law practice in South Africa’s Natal Province during the apartheid era. She later became the first non-white woman appointed to South Africa’s High Court.
Pillay was a judge and later president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, established to prosecute those responsible for the 1994 genocide. She then was a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. From 2008 to 2014, she was the UN high commissioner for human rights.
She is now an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in proceedings brought by The Gambia against Myanmar over allegations of genocide against the Rohingya minority.
This court is trying to loosen the definition of genocide
After Friday’s announcement, Pillay spoke in the Nuremberg courtroom in Germany, where Nazi leaders were tried after WW II.
She took pride in her investigation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and in her conclusions.
“The last thing I did was the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what’s happening there as genocide,” she said, eliciting applause from supporters.
A video of her remarks was posted on X by Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard, who hailed Pillay’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Michael Dickson, executive director of StandWithUs Israel, responded to Callamard on X: “You and her belong in the Nuremberg Court — in the dock. What a stain on the Nobel Prize.”
Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s special envoy for combating antiSemitism, noted the symbolism of Pillay celebrating in Nuremberg.
“I cannot think of a stronger symbol for the devastating collapse of the human rights institutions & principles you were entrusted to uphold & protect, equally & consistently,” she wrote.
The Nobel Prize committee’s chairman, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, is a human rights advocate.
There were 287 candidates for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel rules keep the nominees’ identities secret for 50 years. The prize carries about $1.2 million and will be formally presented in Oslo, Dec. 10, the 130th anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
