The human rights group Amnesty International (AI) accused Israel of committing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza in a report released Thursday. It's the first time the leading non-governmental human rights organization has leveled such an accusation during an active conflict. Genocide is a term used to describe violent crimes committed against a group with the intent to destroy the existence of the group, in whole or in part.
The rights group has been very cautious in accusing officials of committing one of the worst crimes known to humankind. However, Amnesty International said its researchers have found sufficient evidence to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.
The United Nations Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, provides a legal definition of genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is widely regarded as one of the most serious international crimes, along with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. The Amnesty report is the latest in a series of reports finding Israeli officials responsible for genocide, but it is the most significant and substantiated to date.
âAmnesty Internationalâs report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,â said AgnĂšs Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
âMonth after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.â
Amnesty's report said that since the deadly cross-border attack by Palestinian armed groups on October 7, 2023, Israel "has carried out relentless aerial and ground attacks, many of them with large explosive weapons, which have caused massive damage and flattened entire neighborhoods and cities across Gaza, along with their life-supporting infrastructure, agricultural land, and cultural and religious sites and symbols deeply engrained in Palestinians' collective memory."
"Israel's military offensive has killed and seriously injured tens of thousands of Palestinians, including thousands of children, many of them in direct or indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families," the report said, adding that 90 percent of Gaza's 2.1 million inhabitants have been forcibly displaced.
Israeli security forces have killed more than 44,500 people and wounded more than 105,000 others, most of them civilians, since the war began last October. More than 10,000 people - including thousands of children - are missing and presumed dead.
It is estimated that a quarter of the injured in Gaza will require lifelong specialized rehabilitation and supportive care, including those with severe limb injuries, amputations, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries and severe burns.
The fatalities include at least 343 aid workers, 253 UN staff, 1047 health workers and 183 journalists. Since last October, more than 160,000 people, or over 7 percent of Gaza's population, have been killed, wounded or reported missing in Israel's attacks on Gaza.
Gaza is on the brink of famine, with more than 2 million people facing severe food shortages amid high rates of disease, inadequate shelter, and limited access to safe water and sanitation. Some 1.9 million people - 90 percent of Gaza's total population - have been displaced by Israeli military attacks or Israeli evacuation orders, including people who have been forced to flee dozens of times.
"[Israel] has deliberately obstructed or denied the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid," according to the report, which concludes that "there is sufficient evidence to believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 amounts to genocide."
"These crimes were and continue to be deliberate actions, deliberately calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza. They have also been perpetrated with total impunity. The conclusion that Israel is committing genocide is unequivocal, evidence based," Callamard said.
Amnesty International also cited the language used by some Israeli officials.
"Senior Israeli military and government officials intensified their calls for the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, using racist and dehumanizing language that equated Palestinian civilians with the enemy to be destroyed," the report said.
"In a widely publicized statement made at a press conference on 12 October 2023, President Isaac Herzog held all Palestinians in Gaza responsible for Hamas's attacks: 'It's an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved,'" according to the Amnesty report.
That language was reflected on the battlefield, Callamard said.
"We found statements calling for genocidal acts and other crimes under international law," she told reporters.
âWe verified videos of soldiers replicating those narratives, calling for the erasure of Gaza or to make it uninhabitable."
The Amnesty report is the latest in a string of reports accusing Israel of genocide and adds to the growing body of evidence that Israeli policies and military actions targeting Palestinians as a group amount to genocide, one of the worst crimes known to humankind.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said on March 25, 2024, that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide. Albanese found strong indications that Israel's executive and military leaders and soldiers are acting with genocidal intent in Gaza.
After analyzing Israel's actions and patterns of violence in its onslaught on Gaza, the dehumanizing rhetoric of senior Israeli officials, and the actions of soldiers on the ground, the Special Rapporteur's report stated that the threshold indicating Israel's commission of genocide had been met.
A report released on November 14, 2024, by the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs in the Occupied Territories found that Israel's war in Gaza was consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions deliberately imposed on the Palestinians there.
The Committee said that by imposing a siege on Gaza, obstructing humanitarian aid, and targeting and killing civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and Security Council resolutions, Israel was deliberately causing death, starvation, and serious injury, using starvation as a method of warfare, and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population.
In January, the International Court of Justice began hearings in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in its war on Gaza. South Africa asked the ICJ to order an immediate halt to Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
In a landmark ruling on January 26, the International Court of Justice affirmed that Palestinians have a right to be protected from acts of genocide and ordered Israel to "take all measures within its power" to prevent actions that amount to genocide.
Among the provisional measures, the Court also ordered Israel to allow the entry of much-needed humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave and to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services to Palestinians there. The Israeli government has failed to comply.
Since October 2023, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza, with people dying from widespread attacks, disease and starvation. Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea continues unabated throughout the territory, resulting in further civilian deaths, injuries, maiming, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Leading UN officials have called the situation in Gaza "apocalyptic," "hell on earth," a "dystopian nightmare," and "beyond catastrophic." They have said that the humanitarian community is "running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza.â
Now, the new Amnesty report adds another layer of evidence that the actions of Israeli government and military officials amount to genocide.
âOur damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,â Callamard said.
In her remarks, Amnesty International's Secretary General stressed that Israel's allies, including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, could be complicit in the alleged genocide and urged them to stop supplying arms. These countries continue to provide political and military support for Israel's operations and actions.
âStates that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide,â she said.
âAll states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israelâs atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.â
In addition to genocide, criminal acts under the Genocide Convention include conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide. All of these acts are criminal offenses.
Apart from the alleged genocide, the war in Gaza has been characterized by grave war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli forces.
These include the collective punishment of civilians, the use of starvation as a method of warfare, the denial of humanitarian aid, the targeted killing of civilians, the indiscriminate killing of civilians, disproportionate attacks, forced displacement, torture, enforced disappearances and other atrocity crimes.
On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the situation in Gaza.
The ICC judges found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each committed the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. The Pre-Trial Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that each is responsible for the war crime of directing attacks against civilians.
âThe International Criminal Courtâs (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims. States must demonstrate their respect for the courtâs decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC,â Callamard said.
Amnesty International is calling on the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and for all states to use every legal avenue to bring perpetrators to justice.
âNo one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished,â Callamard said.
Further information
Full text: Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory: âYou Feel Like You Are Subhumanâ: Israelâs Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International, report, published December 5, 2024
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/MDE1586682024ENGLISH.pdf