Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Navi Pillay, 85, who oversaw UN 'Gaza genocide' report as Trump issues new ICC sanctions

From the Newshound archive · first published 9 October 2026.

Navi Pillay, the 85-year-old South African jurist who chaired the UN commission that concluded Israel committed genocide in Gaza, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law. The Nobel Committee's chair called her "one of the most courageous and important legal experts of our time," and said the award was "a message to those undermining the international rules-based system." Hours after the announcement, the Trump administration issued new sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Nobel Committee had 'lost its moral compass,' while Israel's foreign ministry called the prize a 'grotesque weaponization' of the award.

Pillay, who learned of her win while attending a forum at Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, joked that if the crowd kept applauding she might 'share this prize with Trump.'

The Nobel Committee chose her from 287 candidates, explicitly framing the award as a rebuke to rising political attacks on international judges and legal institutions.