Amnesty accuses Israel of Gaza genocide; Israel denies

By Linda Bordoni

In its report entitled ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International claims Israel's actions, such as indiscriminate airstrikes and treating Palestinians as “disposable,” have been conducted with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.

The report, released on Wednesday, says that during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention.

The London-based human rights group said it reached the conclusion after months of analysing incidents and statements of Israeli officials.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of 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, ethnical, racial or religious group".

It concluded that Israel and the Israeli military committed at least three of the five acts banned by that Convention, namely killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about a protected group's physical destruction.

Israeli denial

Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusation of genocide, saying it has respected international law and has a right to defend itself after the cross-border Hamas attack that precipitated the war.

Responding to the report, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the accusations, with a post on X that describes it as a “fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies." He recalled "The genocidal massacre on October 7, 2023, was carried out by the Hamas terrorist organisation against Israeli citizens."

Amnesty's own branch in Israel distanced itself from the findings of its parent group, saying it had played no part in the research and did not believe Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. However, the director of Amnesty Israel, as well as two Palestinian board members of the organization have since resigned.

ICC arrest warrants

The Amnesty report came just two weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence chief and one leading Hamas official for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Gaza conflict. They have denied the allegations.

Amnesty International also announced that it will publish a report on the crimes committed by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.