Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the human rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday, in a campaign that’s benefited from huge military and diplomatic support from the United States.
The declaration from Amnesty, an influential watchdog organisation with wide international reach and respect, represents a significant addition to the chorus of accusations that the US-backed Israeli offensive constitutes a genocide – one of the gravest possible violations. Its decision was based on more than 200 interviews and a review of visual and digital documentation of Israeli conduct in Gaza, as well as media coverage, reports by the United Nations and humanitarian organisations and statements by Israeli officials and Palestinian groups in Gaza.
“Amnesty International concedes that identifying genocide in armed conflict is complex and challenging, because of the multiple objectives that may exist simultaneously. Nonetheless, it is critical to recognise genocide when it occurs in the context of armed conflict, and to insist that war can never excuse it,” the group’s report reads.
The report cites in particular the “relentless” Israeli attacks on civilians, infrastructure and cultural sites, and the US-backed offensive’s displacement of around 2 million Palestinians “into ever-shrinking, ever-changing pockets of land … forcing people to live in conditions that exposed them to a slow and calculated death.”
This is an especially contentious charge for Israel, given its founding in the aftermath of the attempted extermination of Jews via the Holocaust, which led to the coining of the term “genocide.”
A United Nations committee last month said Israel’s actions qualify as a genocide, and the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice, is considering a case from South Africa that holds Israel is breaching the Genocide Convention, after rejecting an Israeli claim the suit is baseless. Multiple scholars – including Holocaust historian Omer Bartov, himself an Israeli American – also say genocide is the appropriate term.
Israel and the US have repeatedly rejected this depiction. Officials from both governments have cast the use of the term “genocide” related to the Gaza war as antisemitic and inaccurate. They argue Israel is not targeting Palestinians in general but specifically the Gaza-based militant group Hamas, and that doing so is an appropriate act of self-defence, after Hamas led an October 7 attack inside Israel that killed 1,200. Israel respects international standards for shielding civilians during conflict, the country’s supporters add.
Israel has yet to abide by repeated orders from the ICJ rooted in the genocide case, experts say, which include legally binding directives to ensure enough aid reaches Palestinians and to prevent incitement to commit genocide.
“There are acts which can never be justified by military necessity."”
- Amnesty International
Another global court, the International Criminal Court, is also considering whether Israel’s actions constitute major offences. The ICC last month issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel’s government and the US — which, as Israel’s chief backer, is tacitly implicated in the many alleged international law violations over the Gaza war — condemned the court’s decision.
Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of the Israeli military and defence minister, said this month Israeli actions in Gaza constitute war crimes.
Amnesty’s peer organisations, like Human Rights Watch and the Israeli group B’Tselem, have released investigations accusing Israel of various war crimes and crimes against humanity, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, conducting ethnic cleansing and using mass starvation as a method of warfare. All three groups have also said Hamas’ actions on October 7 represent war crimes.
In the years prior to Oct. 7, each of the three separately concluded Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constituted “apartheid” — a notable finding that spurred calls for global action, particularly by the US, to change Israel’s behaviour and to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The report from Amnesty acknowledges the sensitivity of a broad claim Israel is conducting genocide.
Its investigation makes the case that Israel has “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza,” noting: “There is resistance and hesitancy among many, mainly other states, in finding genocidal intent.”
“This resistance has impeded justice and accountability with respect to past conflicts around the world and should be avoided in the future,” the Amnesty statement continues.
The report details the devastating impact of Israeli actions as the country has fought what it calls a war against Hamas.
“A state’s actions can serve the dual goal of achieving a military result and destroying a group,” such as the Palestinians, the report reads. “Genocide can also be the means for achieving a military result. In other words, a finding of genocide may be drawn when the state intends to pursue the destruction of a protected group in order to achieve a certain military result, as a means to an end, or until it has achieved it.”
The ICJ in January ruled Palestinians in Gaza constitute a group with the right to be protected from genocide.
Amnesty highlighted 15 Israeli attacks that, the group’s probe showed, had no military goal, as well as Israeli forces’ use of large bombs in residential areas and around hospitals even when pursuing military targets. It also described Israel’s move to cut off electricity for Gaza, which severely limited access to clean water; Israel’s displacement and detention of huge numbers of Palestinians; Israeli forces’ destroying medical facilities and the local agricultural system; and severe Israeli-enforced restrictions on humanitarian aid.
The Israeli actions represent policies barred under the Genocide Convention, to which Israel and the US are both parties, Amnesty argues. The convention bars major violence committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical racial or religious group.”
“International jurisprudence recognises that the term ‘in whole or in part’ refers to the intent, as opposed to the actual destruction. Equally important, finding or inferring specific intent does not require finding a single or sole intent,” the Amnesty report reads.
While the probe focused on the period between Oct. 7, 2023, and early July 2024, the report notes: “Israel’s policies, actions and omissions do not appear to have changed in any significant way. In fact, since Amnesty International completed its research, Israel’s offensive in Gaza expanded.”
This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed dozens of Palestinians in northern Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have fled the area, which some observers worry Israel plans to never return to Palestinian control.
Israeli officials say their continued operations are key to preventing a Hamas resurgence. In its Wednesday report, Amnesty said it also plans to release a publication on alleged violations by Hamas and its allies.
“International law places certain conduct, including genocide, outside the permissible methods of war, meaning there are acts which can never be justified by military necessity,” the group’s Wednesday statement reads.