Human rights group Amnesty International has issued a report asserting that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal threshold for genocide.
The report, titled, “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, is the culmination of months of research by Amnesty, including extensive witness interviews, analysis of “visual and digital evidence”, including satellite imagery, and statements made by senior Israeli government and military officials.
Amnesty said that the Israeli military has committed at least three of the five acts banned by the 1948 Genocide Convention, including indiscriminate killings of civilians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and “deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”
Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, said, “Month 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.”
“Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza.
“It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice [ICJ] ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.”
Agnes Callamard
Callamard said that taking into “account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation” in which the Israeli military’s crimes against the civilian population of Gaza have been committed, “we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.”
According to the rights group, the Israeli military’s argument that it is lawfully targeting Hamas and other fighters who are located among the civilian population of Gaza – and that it is not deliberately targeting the Palestinian people – does not stand up to scrutiny.
It asserted that the presence of Hamas fighters near or within a densely populated area does not absolve Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.
“Regardless of whether Israel sees the destruction of Palestinians as instrumental to destroying Hamas or as an acceptable by-product of this goal, this view of Palestinians as disposable and not worthy of consideration is in itself evidence of genocidal intent.”
Amnesty international
Amnesty also said that it found “no evidence” that the reported diversion of humanitarian aid by armed groups in Gaza “could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid” to the civilian population of the war-torn territory.
More than 100 statements by Israeli military and government officials were reviewed in the report that “dehumanised Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them.”
The report disclosed that of those statements, 22 were made by senior officials in charge of managing the war on Gaza and “appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent.”
Moreover, Amnesty’s Callamard said that the international community was also guilty of a “seismic, shameful failure” in Gaza by failing to “press Israel to end its atrocities.”
Callamard noted that by delaying calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and continuing to send weapons to Israel, the international community’s failure “will remain a stain on our collective conscience.”
“Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which was enabled by decades of impunity for Israel’s violations of international law.
“States need to move beyond mere expressions of regret or dismay and take strong and sustained international action, however uncomfortable a finding of genocide may be for some of Israel’s allies.”
Agnes Callamard
Israel Dismisses Report
Israel dismissed the Amnesty International report.
Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement, “The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.”
Officials in Israel have consistently rejected allegations of committing genocide in Gaza.
They claim that they are acting in self-defence following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and that criticising their war is anti-Semitic.
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