Amnesty International's latest report reveals Israel's genocide in Palestine…

In its latest landmark report, Amnesty International stated that, according to the organization's research, there is sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has been and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.

The report, titled 'You Feel Like You're Not Human': Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how Israel has unleashed hell and destruction upon Palestinians in Gaza with impunity, relentlessly and constantly, during its military offensive launched after the deadly attacks led by Hamas into southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard stated on the matter, “Our report demonstrates that Israel has committed acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians in Gaza, and deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. For months, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as an inhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, thereby revealing its intent to destroy the physical presence of Palestinians.” Callamard continued:

“Our devastating findings should alarm the international community: This is genocide. It must be stopped immediately.”

“States that continue to transfer arms to Israel must now know that they are violating their obligations to prevent genocide and are at risk of complicity in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly major arms suppliers such as the USA and Germany, as well as other EU member states, the UK, and others, must act immediately to urgently stop Israel's massacres against Palestinians in Gaza.”

In the last two months, the crisis has become particularly dire in the northern Gaza region. As relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid continue, the besieged population faces starvation, displacement, and the threat of annihilation.

Agnès Callamard stated, “Our research reveals that Israel has persisted in committing acts of genocide for months, fully aware that it is inflicting irreparable harm on Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has continued to do so despite numerous warnings regarding the humanitarian situation reaching catastrophic proportions and the legally binding decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calling on Israel to take urgent measures to ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians in Gaza.”

“Israel has repeatedly claimed that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military objective to eliminate Hamas. However, genocidal intent can coexist with military objectives and does not have to be Israel's sole intent.”

Amnesty International closely and holistically examined Israel's actions in Gaza, considering their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, as well as their immediate effects and cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. It took into account the changing scale and intensity of casualties and destruction over time. Concurrently, by analyzing public statements made by officials, it found that prohibited acts were often announced or called for by high-ranking officials primarily responsible for conducting the war.

Agnès Callamard evaluated, “Considering the context of pre-existing dispossession, apartheid, and unlawful military occupation in which these actions are carried out, we can reach only one plausible conclusion: Israel's intent is to terminate the physical existence of Palestinians in Gaza, whether parallel to or as a means of achieving its military objective of eliminating Hamas.”

“The massacre crimes committed by Hamas and other armed groups against Israelis and other nationals on October 7, 2023, including mass intentional killings and hostage-taking, can in no way justify Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

International jurisprudence recognizes that for the crime of genocide to have been committed, the perpetrator does not need to succeed in attempts to destroy the protected group in whole or in part. In this regard, it is sufficient that the prohibited acts are committed with the intent to destroy the group.

Amnesty International's report details the violations committed by Israel in Gaza over a period of more than nine months, from October 7, 2023, until early July 2024. Amnesty International conducted interviews with 212 individuals, including Palestinians affected by the attacks, witnesses, local authorities in Gaza, and healthcare workers, carried out fieldwork, and examined extensive visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. Furthermore, it analyzed statements from high-ranking officials of the Israeli government and military, and official Israeli bodies. Amnesty International shared its findings with Israeli authorities on many occasions but received no significant response by the date of the report's publication.

Unprecedented Scale and Intensity of Destruction

Israel's actions following Hamas's deadly attacks on October 7, 2023, have brought Gaza's population to the brink of collapse. In the relentless military assault, as of October 7, 2024, over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 13,300 children, mostly in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, and over 97,000 have been injured. The attacks have completely annihilated families, often comprising multiple generations, and caused unprecedented destruction. Experts state that this destruction has occurred at a scale and speed unseen in any other conflict of the 21st century, leading to the utter devastation of cities and the obliteration of critical infrastructure, agricultural land, and cultural and religious sites. Thus, vast areas of Gaza have been rendered uninhabitable.

Mohammed, who fled with his family from central Gaza City in March 2024 and was displaced once again in May 2024, recounted their struggle for survival under horrific conditions:

“Here in Deir al-Balah, it's like doomsday… You have to protect your children from insects and the heat, and there's no clean water, no toilets, and the bombardment never stops. You feel like you're not human here.”

Israel has created living conditions in Gaza characterized by malnutrition, starvation, and diseases, subjecting Palestinians to a severe, calculated death. Simultaneously, it has subjected hundreds of Gazan Palestinians to solitary confinement, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment.

Taken individually, some of the actions investigated by Amnesty International constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law. However, when looking at the broader picture of Israel's military operation and the cumulative consequences of its policies and actions, genocidal intent is the only plausible conclusion.

Intent to Destroy

To determine Israel's specific intent to destroy the physical existence of Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International analyzed the overall pattern of Israel's actions in Gaza; assessed the dehumanizing, genocidal statements made by Israeli government and military officials, particularly the highest-ranking ones; and examined the context of Israel's apartheid system, its inhumane blockade on Gaza, and the 57-year ongoing unlawful military occupation of Palestinian territory.

Before presenting its findings, Amnesty International addressed Israel's claims that the military lawfully targeted Hamas and other armed groups throughout Gaza, and that the unprecedented destruction and obstruction of aid were the result of unlawful actions by Hamas and other armed groups, such as positioning fighters among the civilian population or diverting aid. Amnesty International concluded that these claims are not credible. The presence of Hamas fighters in or near densely populated areas does not absolve Israel of its obligation to take all feasible precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants and to avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. The investigation determined that Israel has repeatedly failed to take these precautions and has committed numerous international law crimes that cannot be justified by Hamas's actions. Amnesty International also found no evidence that aid diversion could explain Israel's excessive and deliberate restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid.

In its examination, Amnesty International also considered alternative theses suggesting that Israel acted irresponsibly or merely sought to destroy Hamas, and rather than having genocidal intent, shamelessly disregarded Palestinian lives, not caring whether their existence would be eliminated in the process.

However, regardless of whether Israel views the destruction of Palestinians as a means to destroy Hamas or as a reasonable collateral consequence of that objective, the perception of Palestinians as expendable, as if not worthy of consideration, is in itself evidence of genocidal intent.

Prior to many of the unlawful acts documented by Amnesty International, officials encouraged their implementation. Between October 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024, Amnesty International assessed 102 statements published by Israeli government and military officials and others that dehumanized Palestinians, called for or justified acts of genocide or other crimes against Palestinians.

Among these, Amnesty International identified 22 statements made by high-ranking officials responsible for leading the attack, which overtly called for or justified acts of genocide and thus constituted direct evidence of genocidal intent. The language in these statements was frequently echoed, including in expressions by Israeli soldiers on the ground, as revealed by audio-visual content verified by Amnesty International, showing soldiers calling to “wipe Gaza off the map” or render it uninhabitable, and celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools, and universities.

Killing and Causing Serious Bodily or Mental Harm

Amnesty International documented acts of genocide involving the killing and infliction of severe mental and bodily harm on Palestinians in Gaza, by evaluating the results of its research into 15 airstrikes between October 7, 2023, and April 20, 2024, which led to the deaths of at least 334 civilians, including 141 children, and the injury of hundreds more. Amnesty International found no evidence to suggest that any of these attacks were directed at a military objective.

In a landmark case that occurred on April 20, 2024, an Israeli airstrike in the Al-Junaida neighborhood, east of Rafah, annihilated the Abdelal family. Palestinians from three generations, including 16 children, were killed in their sleep in the attack.

While these represent only a fraction of Israel's airstrikes, they are examples of a broader pattern of attacks that directly targeted civilians and civilian structures, or were deliberately indiscriminate. The attacks were also carried out in a manner calculated to cause the highest number of deaths and injuries within the civilian population.

Deliberately Inflicting Conditions of Life Calculated to Bring About Physical Destruction

The report documents how Israel has deliberately subjected Palestinians in Gaza to living conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction over time. These conditions were created through three simultaneous methods, which often exacerbated the situation many times over due to their mutually destructive effects. These include the damaging or destruction of infrastructure vital for sustaining life and other structures indispensable for the survival of the civilian population; the repeated issuance of excessively broad, arbitrary, and confusing mass 'evacuation' orders to forcibly displace almost the entire population of Gaza; and the denial of entry of essential services, humanitarian aid, and other life-saving supplies into Gaza, and the obstruction of their delivery within Gaza.

After October 7, 2023, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, cutting off electricity, water, and fuel supplies. Throughout the nine months examined in this report, Israel maintained its suffocating, unlawful blockade on Gaza, exercised tight control over access to energy resources, did not facilitate meaningful humanitarian access within Gaza, and especially hindered the import and delivery of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid to areas north of the Gaza River. In doing so, it further exacerbated the already existing humanitarian crisis. All of this, combined with widespread damage to homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, and agricultural lands in Gaza, and the mass forced displacement of the population, led to catastrophic levels of hunger and the alarming rapid spread of diseases. The resulting situation was particularly harsh for young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, and is expected to have long-term consequences on their health.

Israel had many opportunities to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but for over a year, it repeatedly refused to take steps clearly within its power, such as opening sufficient access points to Gaza, lifting tight restrictions on goods that could enter the Gaza Strip, or removing obstacles to aid delivery within Gaza as the situation progressively worsened.

With repeated 'evacuation' orders, Israel forcibly displaced approximately 1.9 million Palestinians – 90% of Gaza's population – under inhumane conditions, forcing them to seek refuge in ever-shrinking, unsafe areas. Some Palestinians were displaced up to 10 times. These multiple waves of forced displacement left many jobless and caused deep trauma, especially since about 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 rapidly becoming uninhabitable for human life, Israeli officials demonstrated their actions were deliberate by refusing to consider measures that would protect displaced civilians and ensure their basic needs were met.

By refusing to allow the displaced to return to their homes in northern Gaza, or to temporarily resettle them in other areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or in Israel, they continued to impede the right of return for numerous Palestinians to the areas from which they were displaced in 1948, under international law. They did this knowing that there was no safe place for Palestinians to flee within Gaza.

Accountability for Genocide

Agnès Callamard stated, “The international community's enormous and shameful failure over more than a year to pressure Israel to end its massacres in Gaza, first by delaying calls for a ceasefire and then by continuing arms transfers, is and will remain a stain on our collective conscience.”

“Governments must stop pretending they are powerless to end this genocide, which has been made possible by decades of Israel's violations of international law going unpunished. No matter how uncomfortable the finding of genocide may be for some of Israel's allies, states must move beyond mere expressions of sorrow and horror and take strong and sustained international action.”

“The International Criminal Court's (ICC) issuance of arrest warrants last month for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity offers real hope for justice, albeit delayed, for those affected. States must demonstrate their respect for the court's decision and universal principles of international law by arresting and surrendering those sought by the ICC,” Callamard concluded:

“We urge the ICC Prosecutor to urgently consider adding genocide to the list of crimes it is investigating and call on all states to use all legal avenues to bring perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to commit the crime of genocide and go unpunished.”

Amnesty International also calls for the unconditional release of all civilian hostages and for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups responsible for the crimes committed on October 7 to be brought to justice.

Amnesty International also calls on the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials most frequently cited for international law crimes.

Background

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other armed groups launched indiscriminate rockets into southern Israel, intentionally killed civilians en masse in that region, and took hostages. In the attacks, 1,200 people were killed, over 800 of whom were civilians, 223 civilians were abducted, and 27 soldiers were captured. A forthcoming report by Amnesty International will focus on the crimes committed by Hamas and other armed groups during these attacks.

Since October 2023, Amnesty International has been conducting in-depth investigations into multiple violations and international law crimes committed by Israel, including attacks directly targeting civilians and civilian structures, indiscriminate attacks leading to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, other unlawful attacks against the civilian population, and the collective punishment of the civilian population. Amnesty International urges the ICC Prosecutor to expedite its investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine and is campaigning for an immediate ceasefire.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL