Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denounced former UN prosecutor Navi Pillay on X on October 9 2026, calling her a ‘bigot’ after her Nobel Peace Prize win for leading an inquiry that accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Pillay, the former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, received the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Oct 6 2026, for her work with the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The commission’s 2025 report concluded that Israel’s military actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, a finding that has sparked intense debate worldwide.
In a post on X, the Prime Minister’s office repeated a line from the Nobel Committee’s own statement: “The Nobel Prize committee has lost its moral compass….” It accused Pillay of fostering the “demonisation of the Jews” and warned that her award had legitimised “blood libels” against the Jewish state. The post also referenced the commission’s findings, implying that Pillay’s role in the report had been the basis of the award.
The statement has already drawn criticism from several Western diplomats, who say it could inflame already fraught relations in the Middle East. No response has yet come from the Nobel Committee, but the move is expected to prompt Israel’s allies to issue a joint statement condemning the rhetoric and to reassess their diplomatic stance toward the award‑winning jurist.