Amnesty International Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza…reports Asian Lite News
Amnesty International has released a detailed report alleging that Israel has committed and continues to commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Titled “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” the 296-page document builds a case for genocidal intent based on extensive research conducted over nine months, following the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched attacks on southern Israel.
Amnesty’s findings come amid ongoing scrutiny of atrocities committed by Hamas during its October 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in mass hostage-taking. The report states that these acts will be addressed in a separate forthcoming document.
Amnesty claims Israel’s military offensive has caused catastrophic destruction in Gaza, killing more than 42,000 Palestinians, including 13,300 children, and leaving 97,000 injured. It describes systematic attacks on civilians, widespread destruction of vital infrastructure, and a suffocating blockade that has created inhumane living conditions for Gaza’s population.
The organisation analysed satellite imagery, visual evidence, and over 200 interviews with Palestinian victims, witnesses, and healthcare workers. It also reviewed statements from senior Israeli officials, finding evidence of dehumanisation and calls for actions that meet the criteria of genocide under international law.
Amnesty’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, said: “Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza… This is genocide. It must stop now.”
The report highlights patterns of destruction and displacement, arguing that these acts reflect an intent to destroy Gaza’s Palestinian population in whole or in part. Among the evidence cited:
• Aerial bombings wiping out entire families and neighbourhoods.
• Forced displacement of 1.9 million people—90% of Gaza’s population—under life-threatening conditions.
• Blockade restrictions exacerbating malnutrition, disease, and suffering.
Amnesty also examined 102 public statements by Israeli officials, with 22 showing explicit dehumanisation of Palestinians and calls for genocidal acts.
Amnesty urged the international community, particularly arms suppliers like the US, UK, and Germany, to take immediate action to stop the alleged genocide. It called on the UN Security Council to impose sanctions and demanded full cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes have already been issued.
International jurisprudence recognises that the perpetrator does not need to succeed in their attempts to destroy the protected group, either in whole or in part, for genocide to have been committed. The commission of prohibited acts with the intent to destroy the group is sufficient.
Amnesty’s report examines in detail Israel’s violations in Gaza over the nine months between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024, with Amnesty interviewing 212 people – including Palestinian victims and witnesses, local authorities in Gaza and healthcare workers – while conducting fieldwork and analysing an extensive range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. Amnesty also analysed statements by senior Israeli government and military officials, and official Israeli bodies. On multiple occasions, Amnesty shared its findings with the Israeli authorities but has received no substantive response.
“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” added Callamard. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.
“All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states – the UK and others – must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.
“The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued last month offer real hope of long-overdue justice for victims.
“States must demonstrate their respect for the court’s decision and for universal international law principles by arresting and handing over those wanted by the ICC.”
Israel has imposed conditions of life in Gaza that have created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and disease, exposing Palestinians to a slow, calculated death. Israel has also subjected hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Viewed in isolation, some of the acts investigated by Amnesty constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. But in looking at the broader picture of Israel’s military campaign and the cumulative impact of its policies and acts, genocidal intent is the only reasonable conclusion.
Amnesty is calling for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most implicated in crimes under international law. Amnesty is calling for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally, and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October to be held to account.
To establish Israel’s specific intent to physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty analysed the overall pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, reviewed dehumanising and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials – particularly those at the highest levels – and considered the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, its inhumane blockade of Gaza and its unlawful 57-year-old military occupation of the Palestinian Territory.
Before reaching its conclusion, Amnesty examined Israel’s claims that its military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the resulting unprecedented destruction and denial of aid were the outcome of unlawful conduct by Hamas and other armed groups, such as locating fighters among the civilian population or the diversion of aid. Amnesty concluded these claims are not credible.
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. Its research found Israel repeatedly failed to do so, committing multiple crimes under international law for which there can be no justification based on Hamas’s actions. Amnesty also found no evidence that the diversion of aid could explain Israel’s extreme and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid. In its analysis, Amnesty also considered alternative arguments such as ones that Israel was acting recklessly or that it simply wanted to destroy Hamas and did not care if it needed to destroy Palestinians in the process, demonstrating a callous disregard for their lives rather than genocidal intent.
However, 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. Many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty were preceded by officials urging their implementation. Amnesty reviewed 102 statements that were issued by Israeli government and military officials and others between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024, which dehumanised Palestinians and called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them. Of these, Amnesty identified 22 statements made by senior officials in charge of managing the offensive that appeared to call for, or justify, genocidal acts, providing direct evidence of genocidal intent. This language was frequently replicated, including by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as evidenced by audiovisual content showing soldiers making calls to “erase” Gaza or to make it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities.
Amnesty’s report also documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza.
After 7 October 2023, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza cutting off electricity, water and fuel. In the nine months studied for this report, Israel maintained a suffocating, unlawful blockade, tightly controlled access to energy sources, failed to facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and obstructed the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, particularly to areas north of Wadi Gaza. Israel’s actions thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis. This, combined with the extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities and agricultural land, and mass forced displacement, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at alarming rates. The impact was especially harsh on young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, with anticipated long-term consequences for their health. Time and again, Israel had the chance to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, yet for more than a year it has repeatedly refused to take the necessary steps, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza or lifting tight restrictions on what can enter the territory.
Through its repeated “evacuation” orders Israel has displaced nearly 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza’s population – into ever-shrinking, unsafe pockets of land under inhumane conditions, some of them up to ten times. These multiple waves of forced displacement have left many jobless and deeply traumatised, especially since some 70% of Gaza’s residents are refugees or descendants of refugees whose towns and villages were ethnically cleansed by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Despite conditions quickly becoming unfit for human life, the Israeli authorities have refused to consider measures that would have protected displaced civilians and ensure their basic needs were met, showing that their actions were deliberate. They refused to allow those displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza or relocate temporarily to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israel, continuing to deny many Palestinians their right to return to areas from which they were displaced in 1948.
On 7 Octocter 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups indiscriminately fired rockets into southern Israel and carried out deliberate mass killings and hostage-taking, killing 1,200 people, including over 800 civilians, and abducted 223 civilians and captured 27 soldiers. Amnesty continues to call for all civilian hostages to be released unconditionally, and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on 7 October 2023 to be held to account. The crimes perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups during this attack will be the focus of a forthcoming Amnesty report.
ALSO READ: Amnesty Urges UK to Halt Arms Transfers to Israel
