“We will look back and say, ‘Why did we not do more earlier?” Amnesty’s director tells Zeteo.
By PREM THAKKER, DEC 05, 2024
A young Palestinian man walks in the rubble following Israeli airstrikes on Khan Yunis, Gaza, on April 7, 2024. Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty Internationalsaid for the first time on Wednesday, calling on countries, especially those with influence over Israel, such as the US and Germany, to take action to bring the violence to an end.
“The Palestinian people will not recover from this in our lifetimes as a people, and we’re failing to call it what it is,” Amnesty International executive director Paul O’Brien told Zeteo.
“I think there’s this misunderstanding that it’s impossible to watch a genocide unfolding before your eyes. But that is precisely what is happening, and I am convinced that we will look back in years to come and say, ‘Why did we not do more earlier?’” he added.
Amnesty International reached its conclusion after examining Israel’s actions and statements over a nine-month period from Oct. 7, 2023, and early July and interviewing more than 200 people, including Palestinian victims of Israeli air strikes, displacement, and detention; local authorities in Gaza; and healthcare and aid workers.
“Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse,” Mohammed, a 42-year-old father of three, was quoted by Amnesty as saying. “There is no room for you to pitch a tent; you have to set it up near the coast… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.”
Loved ones and relatives mourn as the bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack are prepared for a funeral in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, on June 18, 2024. Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images
Israel’s Claims Are ‘Not Credible’
Amnesty’s intensive 296-page report covers everything from airstrikes and aid sieges to agricultural decimation and destruction of cultural and religious sites. On multiple occasions, Amnesty notes, the organization shared its findings with Israeli authorities but received no substantive response.
The Israeli government has repeatedly balked at charges of genocide, claiming it takes great efforts to protect civilians while Hamas deliberately puts Palestinians in danger. The US has made similar defenses, and, when pressed, often defaults to its line that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”
Amnesty found such claims are “not credible,” saying that the presence of Hamas does not absolve Israel from its obligation to avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.
From “the clear pattern of causing intergenerational harm by dropping bombs on residential areas at night where children, infants, parents and grandparents are sleeping,” to “the constant forced movements of populations that are already traumatized by having been displaced and then attacking them once they have been moved,” O’Brien said it is “absolutely not the case” that Israel’s violence can be “understood exclusively as an attempt to defeat Hamas.”
Palestinians inspect the rubble after the Israeli army hit a UN school sheltering thousands of people in Gaza’s Nuseirat Refugee Camp on June 6, 2024. Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images
Amnesty reviewed 15 Israeli airstrikes between Oct. 7, 2023, and April 20, 2024, that killed and wounded hundreds of civilians and found no evidence that any of the strikes were directed at a military objective.
Humanitarian workers meanwhile told Amnesty that Israel repeatedly failed to support aid distribution – and at times targeted workers who had coordinated with Israel.
One worker told Amnesty their organization actually chose not to even try notifying the Israeli government of their movements, as Palestinian staff actually feared that would put them at a higher risk. “Of course, they don’t think it will stop Israel. On the contrary, it may make them more of a target.”
Citing such evidence, Amnesty said there is “sufficient basis” to conclude that Israel has committed several acts “with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza” – a finding the human rights group said fits thelegal definition of genocide.
Unlike in many other cases of genocide, O’Brien noted, the expression of such intent in Israel has come from top officials. Of 102 dehumanizing and genocide-inciting statements from Israeli officials Amnesty identified over nine months, 22 were made by senior officials in charge of managing Israel’s violent campaign.
Last month, the International Criminal Courtissued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes. An International Court of Justice case led by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide has had several nations — including Spain, Ireland, and Belgium — join. The ICJ has ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide (which Israel has since continued to flout) while the case proceeds.
The Israeli military has killed at least 44,532 Palestinians, injured at least 105,538, and displaced an estimated 90% of people in Gaza since the war began. The death and injury toll is feared to be a drastic undercount due to decimated health and tracking capabilities, and thousands missing in the rubble.
With its conclusion, Amnesty International now joins an ever-burgeoning list of people and organizations who have found Israel to be committing acts of genocide against Palestinians.
These include:
• UN Special Rapporteurs
• Holocaust historian and author of “The United States and the Nazi Holocaust” Barry Trachtenberg
• Israeli-American Holocaust and genocide professor Omer Bartov
• Israeli Holocaust historian Amos Goldberg
• Co-founder of Human Rights Watch and Holocaust survivor Aryeh Neier
• The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security
• The University Network for Human Rights
• The International Federation for Human Rights
• Jewish Voice for Peace
• South Africa, Nicaragua, Belgium, Ireland, Colombia, Libya, Egypt, Cuba, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Türkiye, Chile, Maldives, Bolivia
• US Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Summer Lee, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush
