THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Amnesty International accused the State of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a report published on Thursday (05), an allegation Israel angrily denied.
The London-based rights group said it reached its conclusion after months of analyzing incidents and statements from Israeli officials. Amnesty said the legal threshold for the crime had been met, in its first such determination during an active armed conflict.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted after the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
Continues after advertising
Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusations of genocide, saying it respects international law and has the right to defend itself following Hamas’ cross-border attack from Gaza on October 7, 2023, which precipitated the war.
“The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is completely false and based on lies,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote on X.
Amnesty’s own Israel unit distanced itself from its parent group’s conclusions, saying it had not participated in the research and did not believe Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Continues after advertising
However, in a lengthy statement, she said the killing and destruction in Gaza had reached “horrible levels” and called for an investigation into possible crimes against humanity.
Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities across the border 14 months ago, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli records.
“The genocidal massacre of October 7, 2023 was carried out by the terrorist organization Hamas against Israeli citizens,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
Continues after advertising
Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 44,500 Palestinians and injured many more.
Palestinian and UN officials say there are no longer any safe areas in Gaza, a tiny, densely populated and heavily built coastal territory. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been internally displaced, some up to 10 times.
Amnesty’s report was published just two weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. Both denied the allegations.
Continues after advertising
“THERE IS NO DOUBT”
Presenting the report to journalists in The Hague, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the conclusion was not reached “flippantly, politically or preferentially”.
She told journalists after the presentation: “There is a genocide being committed. There is no doubt, no doubt in our mind after six months of deep and focused research.”
Continues after advertising
Amnesty said it concluded that Israel and the Israeli military committed at least three of the five acts prohibited by the 1948 Genocide Convention: murder, causing serious physical or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a protected group. .
These acts were carried out with the intent required by the convention, according to Amnesty, which said it analyzed more than 100 statements from Israeli officials.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of planting militants in populated neighborhoods to gain operational cover, which Hamas denies, while accusing Israel of indiscriminate attacks.
Callamard said Amnesty did not set out to prove genocide, but after analyzing the evidence and statements collectively, she said the only conclusion was that “Israel intends to commit genocide.”
She added: “The claim that Israel’s war in Gaza is only aimed at dismantling Hamas and not physically destroying the Palestinians as a national and ethnic group, that claim simply does not stand up to scrutiny.”
Amnesty called on the ICC prosecutor to investigate the alleged genocide. The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it was continuing investigations into alleged crimes committed in the Palestinian territories and could not provide further comment.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, additional reporting by Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem)
