Amnesty says Israel committing genocide in Gaza

ATHENS

Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, human rights group Amnesty International concluded in a new report released on Thursday.

"Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," the UK-based organization said in a statement.

Its latest report, You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, "Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity."

Since the cross-border incursion, Israel has killed more than 44,000 people in Gaza and reduced the enclave to ruins.

“Amnesty International’s 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. 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,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now."

Warning that the states continuing to provide arms to Israel are violating their obligation to prevent genocide, and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide, the non-profit urged Israel’s Western allies, including the US, Germany and EU states, to act now "to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end."

“Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent,” Agnes added.

Amnesty said it examined Israel’s acts in Gaza "closely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences." The organization, according to the statement, considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time, and also analyzed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts.

Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.