Amnesty International says Israel committing genocide in Gaza

Amnesty International has said in a report published on Thursday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war, media reported.

The London-based human rights group said it reached the conclusion after months of analysing incidents and statements of Israeli officials. Amnesty said the legal threshold for the crime had been met, in its first such determination during an active armed conflict.

An investigation by the human rights group said that Israel has committed three of the five acts prohibited under the genocide convention – killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and “deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”.

Examples highlighted in the report include an air strike in April that destroyed a family’s house in eastern Rafah, killing three generations, including 16 children, while they were sleeping.

It also cited the decision to “cut off” electricity, water and fuel on October 7, 2023. “In the nine months reviewed 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,” it said. “They thereby exacerbated an already existing humanitarian crisis.”

The blockade, combined with damage to infrastructure and agricultural land and mass forced displacement of 90 per cent of Gaza’s population, caused catastrophic levels of hunger and led to the spread of diseases at “alarming rates”.

On Wednesday, activist group Led by Donkeys unveiled a giant banner at Parliament Square in London reading “Yes, it’s a genocide.”

The report followed intensive investigation by Amnesty International into Israel’s conduct since October 7, 2023, and an in-depth legal analysis of court determinations on genocide.

MNA