Amnesty International released a new report on Thursday accusing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza of meeting the legal threshold to constitute genocide. Titled “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, it results from months of extensive research, witness interviews, and analysis of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery.
The organization said the Israeli military has committed at least three of the five acts prohibited by the 1948 Genocide Convention, namely indiscriminate killings of civilians, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately creating conditions in Gaza aimed at the physical destruction of the Palestinian population.
Month after month, Israel has subjected Palestinians in Gaza to an inhuman collective, as if they are less deserving of human rights and dignity than others, with an intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International. She also said the continuing acts by Israel have caused irreparable damage to the people of Gaza despite warnings on humanitarian crisis and binding decisions from the International Court of Justice urging immediate humanitarian assistance.
Callamard’s statement is a call to the international community for immediate action in the face of what she called genocide. She said that context, in the form of dispossession, apartheid, and unlawful military occupation, creates the intent of the Israeli military.
Israel’s foreign ministry immediately dismissed the report as “entirely false” and accused Amnesty of fabricating various claims based on lies. The Israeli military insists it is targeting Hamas and other militants, and that such operations in densely populated areas are justified.
Amnesty countered that the presence of Hamas fighters does not relieve Israel of its duty to care for civilians and to avoid disproportionate attacks. The organization said treating Palestinians as expendable speaks to genocidal intent regardless of Israel’s declared motives.
Further, Amnesty said it found no evidence to suggest that reported cases of diversion of humanitarian aid by armed groups in Gaza justify Israel’s widespread restrictions on basic humanitarian assistance reaching civilians.
The report also underlined that many documented crimes were preceded by statements from Israeli officials that dehumanized Palestinians or called for violent actions against them. Of over 100 statements reviewed, 22 were made by high-ranking officials involved in the Gaza conflict, suggesting genocidal intent.
Callamard lambasted the international community for its “seismic, shameful failure” in holding Israel accountable, and noted that continued support for military action without demanding a ceasefire makes them complicit in the atrocities in Gaza. She called on governments to move beyond statements of concern and take concrete action in halting what she labeled genocide, to confront uncomfortable truths of international complicity in these violations.
