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Gaza genocide
Ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Gaza genocide is the ongoing, intentional systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel during the Gaza war. The genocidal acts include mass killings, starvation, the infliction of serious bodily and mental harm, and preventing births. Other acts include blockade, destroying civilian infrastructure, destroying healthcare facilities, killing healthcare workers and aid-seekers, causing mass forced displacement, committing sexual violence, and destroying educational, religious, and cultural sites.[10] The genocide has been recognised by consensus amongst experts,[11] including a United Nations special committee[12] and commission of inquiry;[13] humanitarian and human rights organizations;[14] international law experts;[15][16] genocide studies scholars;[17] and 86% of voters in the International Association of Genocide Scholars.[18][19]
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By October 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry had reported that at least 66,148 people in Gaza had been killed.[4] Most of the victims are civilians,[20][21] of whom at least 50% are women and children.[22][23] Compared to other recent global conflicts, the numbers of known deaths of journalists, humanitarian and health workers, and children are among the highest.[24] Thousands more uncounted dead bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings.[21][25] A study in The Lancet estimated that traumatic injury deaths were undercounted by June 2024, while noting a larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included.[26][27] As of May 2025 traumatic injury deaths are estimated at 93,000,[c] representing 4–5% of Gaza's pre-war population.[28][d] The number of injured is greater than 160,000.[4][8] Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world;[30] the Gaza war has caused disabilities for more than 21,000 children.[31]
An enforced Israeli blockade has heavily contributed to ongoing starvation and confirmed famine. Projections show 100% of the population is experiencing "high levels of acute food insecurity", with about 641,000 people experiencing catastrophic levels as of August 2025.[32] Early in the conflict, Israel cut off Gaza's water and electricity, but it later partially restored the water.[33] As of May 2024, 84% of Gaza's health centres have been destroyed or damaged.[34] Israel has also destroyed numerous cultural heritage sites, including all of Gaza's 12 universities and 80% of its schools.[35] Over 1.9 million Palestinians – 85% of Gaza's population – have been forcibly displaced.
The government of South Africa has instituted proceedings, South Africa v. Israel, against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging a violation of the Genocide Convention.[36] The Israeli government has denied South Africa's allegations and has argued that Israel is defending itself.[37][38] In an initial ruling the ICJ held that South Africa was entitled to bring its case, while Palestinians were recognised to have a right to protection from genocide.[39] The court ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of acts of genocide, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and to allow basic humanitarian service, aid and supplies into Gaza.[40][41][37] The court later ordered Israel to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza and to halt the Rafah offensive.[42][43] Israel did not comply with the court's orders,[44][45][46] instead continuing the Rafah offensive by displacing the city's inhabitants and razing thousands of buildings.[47][48]
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Background
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There is debate about when the genocide started. Some scholars say the Gaza genocide is merely the latest stage of a "slow-motion genocide" of Palestinians that began with the Nakba and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians upon the founding of Israel in 1948.[49][50][51] According to scholars, B'Tselem, and others, the Gaza genocide is occurring in the context of over 75 years of Zionist settler colonial violence and Jewish supremacy targeting the Palestinian people.[52]
Since 2007 the Gaza Strip has been governed by Hamas, an Islamist militant group, while the West Bank remained under the control of the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, Israel imposed a blockade of the Gaza Strip,[53] citing security concerns;[54] international rights groups have called the blockade a form of collective punishment.[55][56][57] UNRWA reported that, due to the blockade, 81% of Gazans were living below the poverty level in 2023, with 63% food insecure and dependent on international assistance.[58][59] Since 2007 Israel and Hamas (and other Palestinian militias in Gaza) have engaged in conflict,[54][60][61] including four wars in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021.[62][63]
On 7 October 2023 Hamas led an attack into Israel from Gaza,[64][65][66] resulting in at least 1,139[67][68][e] deaths, most of them civilians.[75] During this attack, Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip.[76] Israel responded with a highly destructive[77] bombing campaign followed by an invasion of the Gaza Strip on 27 October.[78] Some scholars argued that there was genocide against Palestinians before the 7 October attacks, but the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has been characterised as genocidal by South Africa and other supporters of the genocide argument.[79][80] B'Tselem considers the 7 October attack a triggering event, after which Israel's government policy changed "from oppression and control to destruction and annihilation" of the Palestinians.[81]
Hamas officials said the attack was a response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians, restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, and the detainment of thousands of Palestinians, many without charges, whom Hamas sought to release by taking Israeli hostages.[82][83][84] Numerous commentators have identified Israeli occupation as a cause of the war.[85] Several human rights organisations, including Amnesty International,[86] B'Tselem,[87] and Human Rights Watch,[88] have likened the Israeli occupation to apartheid; Israel's supporters dispute this characterisation.[89][90] An advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice published in July 2024 affirmed the occupation as illegal and said it violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.[91]
During the first 48 hours of Israel's retaliatory attack, IDF chief Herzi Halevi reported that the IDF attacked 1,000 targets. According to his wife, he told her that "Gaza will be destroyed". Reportedly, Netanyahu subsequently said he wanted 5,000 targets to be attacked, even though the IDF had not identified 5,000 enemy targets. Artificial intelligence was used to generate a list of targets, in many cases based on unconfirmed or outdated intelligence. About 10,000 Palestinians were killed in a month, including multiple entire families. Shmuel Lederman called this "as criminal as it gets".[92] This "front-loaded violence" makes it harder to argue that the genocide began later.[93]
On 13 October 2023 the historian Raz Segal said Israel was committing a "textbook case of genocide". He was one of the first scholars to do so.[94] Others argue that the war was initially legitimate and the genocide started later, in 2024 or 2025.[93][95] In September 2024 the UN's "Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories" wrote, "The developments in this report lead the Special Committee to conclude that the policies and practices of Israel during the reporting period are consistent with the characteristics of genocide."[96]
Definitions of genocide and legal challenges
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group", and as such, "causing harm, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children".[97][98] The International Court of Justice has never held a state liable for genocide.[99] The legal threshold for genocidal intent remains a major barrier to prosecution.[99]
The original definition coined by Raphael Lemkin was broader than that used by the Genocide Convention and included cultural and social destruction. In contrast, orthodox scholarly definitions emphasise actions targeting a group's physical survival.[100][101] No minimum number of victims[102][103][104] or intended victims[105] is required for a genocide ruling. In the Rohingya genocide case, several states contended that the ICJ should "adopt a balanced approach that recognizes the special gravity of the crime of genocide, without rendering the threshold for inferring genocidal intent so difficult to meet so as to make findings of genocide near-impossible."[106]
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Genocidal intent and incitement
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"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly."[f]
Experts affirm that statements by Israeli political and military leaders[110][111][112]—coupled with eliminationist media rhetoric and Israel's conduct in Gaza—indicate genocidal intent and incitement against the Palestinian people in Gaza.[112] Israeli officials and journalists[110][113][114] have made verbal statements that dehumanise Palestinians and incite, justify, or praise atrocities against them as a group.[115][116] Genocidal intent is also evidenced by the scale and systematic nature of actions that exceed any legitimate military objective[117][112]—including the extensive targeting of children,[118][112] widespread sexual violence,[119] destruction of cultural heritage,[120][121][122] and imposition of life-destroying conditions[123][124]—together with the persistence of these practices despite awareness of their catastrophic effects.[125][126]
Both a United Nations commission of inquiry and Amnesty International documented a "pattern of conduct" by Israeli authorities, concluding that genocidal intent is the "only reasonable inference" that can be drawn from the evidence.[127][128] Other organizations which have attributed genocidal intent to the actions or statements of Israeli officials include a United Nations panel,[113][129] Genocide Watch,[130][129] and others[131][113] As part of Defense for Children International – Palestine et al v. Biden et al, the historian Barry Trachtenberg said that the rhetoric used by Israeli officials underlies the consensus among genocide historians that the situation in Gaza constitutes genocide.[116]
Particular attention has been paid to the statements of Prime Minister Netanyahu,[132][133][134] President Isaac Herzog, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: high-ranking Israeli officials whom a United Nations commission of inquiry found responsible for the crime of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide."[135]
Potential motive
Many see the Gaza genocide as a consequence of Zionism and a continuation of the over 75 years of violence since the Nakba, in which Palestinians were killed and dispossessed to establish the State of Israel in Palestine.[136]
The Israeli government has said that the military actions it has undertaken are in response to the October 7 attacks and sought to destroy Hamas and overthrow its governance of the Gaza Strip,[137] while denying that their military operations constitute genocide.[37] Multiple commentators argue that part of the motive is retaliation for the October 7 attacks.[138][139][140] Another stated purpose is to free the hostages taken in the October 7 attacks.[118] Nimer Sultany argues that anti-Palestinianism is in part the motive,[141]
Multiple genocide scholars argue that settler colonialism is an important motive.[142] Raz Segal and B'Tselem also highlight the increasing idea of Jewish supremacy in Israeli politics,[143][52] while reports by Francesca Albanese and Amos Goldberg highlight the project of Greater Israel.[144][145][146]
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Genocidal acts
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Clockwise from top:
- A newborn baby killed as a result of an Israeli airstrike
- Palestinians injured by an Israeli airstrike in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
- Video interviews conducted with several survivors of October 2023 Israeli airstrikes
- An injured child receives treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after Israeli airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip
Direct killings
UN experts and human rights organisations have characterised Israel's actions against Gaza as extermination,[147] which is a crime against humanity that involves "the act of killing on a large scale". During the first two months of bombing, Israel dropped 25,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip. Many of these were unguided "dumb bombs" dropped in densely populated areas, obliterating entire neighbourhoods.[148] Since 7 October 2023 the IDF has been accused of extrajudicial killing of unarmed Palestinian detainees[149][150] and healthcare personnel.[151] Israeli soldiers have summarily executed Palestinian civilians, often in front of their families.[152] They have killed Palestinians waving white flags.[152] In April 2024, mass graves were found containing corpses with their hands tied,[153] including women and the elderly.[153] Doctors have identified numerous Palestinian children with single gunshot wounds to the head and chest, consistent with intentional targeting by Israeli forces.[154]
The UN and many news outlets estimated that about 70% of Palestinians killed in Gaza were women and children, with at least 20,000 Palestinians having been killed in Gaza by December 2023.[155][g] As of 31 August 2024, data from the Gaza MoH (only for those of the dead that were fully identified – about 34,000 people at the time) would show that 60% of those killed were women, children, and the elderly.[157]
By 14 January 2024, over 23,900 had been confirmed killed.[158] By 10 May, deaths had topped 35,000, a third of them unidentified, with over 10,000 more estimated to be buried under the rubble.[159] Within the first three weeks, the Israeli assault killed more children in Gaza than were killed worldwide across all conflict zones in any year since 2019.[160][161] Over 52,000 people had been wounded by December 2023,[162][163] and by May 2024 this had risen to over 77,700.[164][165]
+972 Magazine and Local Call reported that the IDF decided early in the war to authorise killing up to 15 to 20 civilians per low-ranking militant, while for a senior militant killing more than 100 civilians was authorised. An intelligence officer said that Israel was not interested in killing Palestinian operatives in a military context only, but preferred to bomb them in their family homes, saying "It's much easier to bomb a family's home" where they are easier to target.[166] Another intelligence officer said that in targeting junior militants, Israel used only dumb bombs, which can destroy entire buildings, to not "waste expensive bombs on unimportant people".[167]
In March 2024 Haaretz reported that some Israeli commanders had set up "kill zones" in which soldiers were commanded to kill anyone on sight, even if they were unarmed.[168][169] In June 2024 the Associated Press found that Israel's campaign in Gaza was killing entire bloodlines of Palestinians to a "degree never seen before".[170] According to testimony given to the Israeli Knesset, Israeli soldiers driving armoured bulldozers have been ordered to "run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds".[171]
The proportion of women and children among the dead has been disputed.[172][173] As of 7 May 2024, total deaths quoted by the UN are 34,735, of which 24,686 are fully identified: 52% women and children, 8% elderly of all genders, and 40% men.[172] In November 2024 the UN published an analysis covering only victims verified by at least three independent sources between November 2023 and April 2024. It found that 70% of the 8,119 verified fatalities were women and children.[174] As of 31 August 2024, per the Gaza Ministry of Health, the number of fatalities had risen to 40,691, 34,344 identified by name: 17,652 (51%) women and children, 2,955 (9%) elderly of all genders, and 13,737 (40%) men.[175][157][176] In November 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 1,410 Gazan families had been completely erased from the civil registry as a result of Israeli bombings.[177] Data collection has become increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of infrastructure.[159] The ministry has had to supplement its usual reporting based on hospital dead with other sources of information,[159] including reports by the media and first responders as well as families and widows, who must formally register their husbands' deaths to qualify for government assistance.[178] Professor Mike Spagat found an urgent need for a transparent methodology to reconcile its top-line death numbers – 34,535 as of 30 April – with its detailed breakdowns summing to 24,653 on the same date.[22] The ministry's figures for the total number killed have also been contested by Israeli authorities, but have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and the World Health Organization.[159]
A 2025 paper on the Gaza war estimated 64,260 deaths from traumatic injury between October 2023 and 30 June 2024, and likely exceeding 70,000 by October 2024, with 59.1% being women, children and the elderly. It concluded that the GHM undercounted trauma-related deaths by 41% in its report, and also noted that its findings "underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation."[179] A comparable estimate for traumatic injury deaths would be around 80,000 for January 2025,[29] while it is 93,000 (77,000 to 109,000) for May 2025, which represents 4–5% of Gaza's prewar population.[28] A February study in The Lancet estimated that life expectancy in the Gaza Strip between October 2023 and September 2024 decreased by 34.9 years, excluding indirect deaths. The study also used census and registration data to assess the reliability of the Gaza Health Ministry's death count, and found no substantial errors.[180]
In May 2025 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed that Israel was targeting Hamas's civilian workers, saying, "We're eliminating ministers, bureaucrats, money handlers – everyone who holds up Hamas's civilian rule."[181]
Starting in June 2025, IDF soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at crowds of Palestinians near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites,[182] killing over 1,000 people.[183][184] Amnesty International alleged Israel was trying to restrict aid to starve and inflict genocide upon the Palestinians.[185]
As reported by the Gaza government media office in August 2025, a minimum of 18,885 children have been killed since October 2023.[186] According to classified Israeli figures, 83% of the dead are civilians, exceeding the civilian death rate of any global conflict except the Rwandan genocide, the Siege of Mariupol, and the Siege of Srebrenica.[187]
Indirect deaths
Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, and Salim Yusuf published an estimate of the number of deaths that the conflict may indirectly cause in the coming months and years. Indirect Palestinian deaths from disease are expected to be much higher due to the intensity of the conflict, destruction of healthcare infrastructure, lack of food, water, shelter, and safe places for civilians to flee, and reduction in UNRWA funding. They estimated that the total conflict-related deaths in Gaza will likely be three to 15 times higher than the reported death toll. By multiplying the reported deaths by five, they argued that "186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza".[159] Spagat wrote that their estimate "lacks a solid foundation and is implausible",[188][189] but it was "fair to call attention to the fact that not all of the deaths are going to be direct violent ones", and has called the death toll in Gaza "staggeringly high".[172][189] Donald Bloxham also notes that most deaths have been "indirect deaths" in various wars and that the "systematic obstruction of supplies into Gaza" is an Israeli policy, which makes calling these deaths "indirect" incorrect.[27]
According to an October 2024 letter[190] by American healthcare workers who had served in Gaza since 7 October 2023, the most conservative estimate was that at least 62,413 people in Gaza had died from starvation, most of them young children, and at least 5,000 people had died from lack of access to care for chronic diseases.[191][192][193] The indirect death estimates in two studies reviewed by The Economist implied that the life expectancy in Gaza has fallen by 35 years, rivaling the Rwandan genocide in absolute terms.[194][195]
Starvation and blockade
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- A four-year-old Palestinian girl who died due to malnutrition and lack of treatment
- Displaced Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
- Displaced Palestinians receive food from charitable Tekiya during Ramadan in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
In February 2024 Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both released statements declaring Israel had failed to comply with the ICJ's 26 January ruling to prevent genocide by blocking aid from entering Gaza.[196][197][198] A Refugees International report found that Israel had "consistently and groundlessly impeded aid operations within Gaza".[199] The historian Melanie Tanielian argues that starvation and blockade should be foregrounded as methods of genocide alongside mass bombing.[200] In an April report, B'Tselem called the unfolding famine "the product of a deliberate and conscious Israeli policy".[201][202]
In October 2023 the World Food Program warned of Gaza's dwindling food supply,[203] and in December, alongside the UN, it reported that more than half of Gaza's population was "starving", fewer than one in ten were eating every day, and 48% were suffering "extreme hunger".[204][205][206] Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki referred to "Israel's deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war against the people it occupied"; an Israeli official called the charge "blood-libellous" and "delusional".[207] In December 2023 Human Rights Watch found that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war by deliberately denying access to food and water.[208] In January 2024, UN experts accused Israel of "destroying Gaza's food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people".[209] In February 2024 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich personally blocked US-funded shipments of flour from entering Gaza, in violation of promises Israel had made to the US government.[210]
In early 2024 the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri said that Israel is "culpable" of genocide because "Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian" and because Israel was denying food to Palestinians by halting humanitarian aid and "intentionally" destroying
small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza ... We have never seen a civilian population made to go so hungry so quickly and so completely, that is the consensus among starvation experts. Israel is not just targeting civilians, it is trying to damn the future of the Palestinian people by harming their children.[211]
After the ICJ ruling, the number of aid trucks Israel allowed into Gaza dropped by 40%.[212] In the ICJ's March reaffirmation of provisional measures, the court highlighted the "unprecedented levels of food insecurity experienced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over recent weeks, as well as the increasing risks of epidemics",[213] acknowledging that since the Court's January order there had been a "lack of Israeli compliance" resulting in "the catastrophic living conditions" deteriorating further.[214]
In March 2024, 12 Israeli human rights organisations signed an open letter accusing Israel of failing to abide by the ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid.[215][216] In April the UN special rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng said Israel was "killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its bombardments", adding, "They are also knowingly and intentionally imposing famine" and accusing Israel of "genocide".[217]
In October 2024 Israel had reportedly adopted a modified version of the Generals' Plan.[218][219][h] The proposed plan included orders for all residents of northern Gaza to leave within a week; a full siege on water, food, and fuel; and then the arrest or killing of all who remained.[221][222] By mid-October 2024 Israel had ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza and prevented the entry of humanitarian aid for almost two weeks.[223][224] According to Stephen Devereux, avoidable deaths due to starvation as a result of Israeli policies "almost certainly constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity".[225]
On 21 November 2024 the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former defence minister Yoav Gallant, asserting that the two "bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare".[226][227][228]
Israel lifted restrictions on aid into Gaza in January–February 2025 during the first stage of the January ceasefire. But on 2 March, Israel announced that all humanitarian aid would be blocked indefinitely unless Hamas agreed to alter the terms of the ceasefire deal, which Hamas refused to do.[229][230] Within four days, food supplies in Gaza had rapidly depleted while the price of food had more than doubled. Aid agencies such as Oxfam and UNICEF warned of mass starvation if the aid freeze continued. Oxfam policy lead Bushra Khalidi predicted "the total collapse of systems that sustain life".[231] Lawyer Salah Abdel-Ati said Israel's actions were illegal under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the destruction or withholding of essentials such as food in combat zones.[232]
In May 2025, after blocking the import of all food, medicine, and fuel for two and a half months,[233] Netanyahu announced that Israel would allow "minimal humanitarian aid" into Gaza due to international pressure.[181] Israel has proposed using private companies to distribute aid to the south of Gaza only. The plan is backed by the US, which has created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to deliver aid without "Hamas stealing, looting or leveraging this assistance for its own ends". The United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher criticised the plan, saying it "forces further displacement" and "makes aid conditional on political and military aims".[234] Numerous Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while approaching GHF aid distribution points.[235]
In August 2025, it was reported that Israel planned to surge aid to other parts of Gaza while cutting off all aid to Gaza City to force residents to evacuate while Israel takes over the city.[236] As of August 2025, projections show the entire population is experiencing "high levels of acute food insecurity", with about 641,000 people experiencing catastrophic levels.[32] The IPC confirmed famine is taking place in the Gaza Governorate.[32][237]
Deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure
Clockwise from top:
- An aerial view showing destruction in Rafah after Israeli forces withdrawal and as the ceasefire took hold, Gaza Strip
- Damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023.
- Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City
Mark Levene and Elyse Semerdjian locate the mass destruction of infrastructure within Israel's Dahiya doctrine, implemented against Gaza since 2006, with Levene calling it urbicide and a tool of genocide.[238][239] In October 2024 Forensic Architecture concluded, "Israel's military campaign in Gaza is organised, systematic, and intended to destroy conditions of life and life-sustaining infrastructure".[240] The Guardian reported in July 2025 that "about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged". Israel is reportedly paying contractors up to 5,000 shekels per building demolished.[241]
In a December 2024 report, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of committing acts of genocide in Gaza by targeting water and sanitation infrastructure and depriving Palestinians of adequate access to water. The report alleges that Israel intentionally damaged solar panels powering treatment plants, a reservoir, and warehouses, while blocking repair materials and fuel for generators, cutting electricity supplies, and attacking workers.[242][243] Over the winter, at least 15 children died of hypothermia, due to Israel's destruction of housing and power facilities.[244] In May, Netanyahu said "we are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip."[245]
In July 2025 the BBC reported that Israel had engaged in controlled demolitions of civilian infrastructure, potentially in violation of the Geneva Convention.[246] The BBC reported an IDF spokesperson saying, "Hamas and other terrorist organizations conceal military assets in densely populated civilian areas. The IDF identifies and destroys terrorist infrastructure located, among other places, within buildings in these areas."[246]
Forced displacement
Clockwise from top:
- Return of displaced people via Al-Rasheed Street after ceasefire, January 2025, Gaza Strip
- An aerial photo of displaced Palestinians waiting in northern Nuseirat to return to their homes in Gaza
- An aerial view of Al-Mawasi area where displaced Palestinians live in tents, Gaza Strip
On 6 October 2024 Israel designated northern Gaza as a combat zone and ordered the civilian population to evacuate.[247][248] Both Israeli military analysts and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights alleged that this was the first stage of the "Generals' Plan", a policy proposed by the former Israeli general Giora Eiland to force Palestinians out of Gaza.[249]
Human Rights Watch reports that Israel's systematic forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since October 2023, Israel's evacuation orders have displaced 1.9 million people – nearly Gaza's entire population – through unclear, inconsistent directives, often issued amid bombings, leaving civilians with no safe routes or destinations. Humanitarian zones were repeatedly attacked, while Israel blocked aid, leading to starvation, destroyed infrastructure, and uninhabitable conditions. Senior Israeli officials openly declared intentions to reduce Gaza's territory and push Palestinians out, reinforcing policies of ethnic cleansing and permanent displacement.[250][251] The UN Human Rights Office said that Israel may be causing the "destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza's northernmost governorate through death and displacement."[252] South Africa and others have criticised the Gaza Strip evacuations as a key component of the genocide.[253] B'Tselem mentions statements by Israeli high-ranking officials that a "central objective of the war" was ethnic cleansing.[245]
Attacks on healthcare and preventing births
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- Destruction of UNRWA el-Sheikh Radwan health center, February 2024
- Palestinian Red Crescent Personnel inspect a destroyed ambulance in Deir el-Balah , Gaza Strip
In November 2023 in The Lancet and in February 2024 in BMJ Global Health, multiple doctors detailed how the targeting of Gazan health infrastructure and medical personnel, coupled with rhetoric used by Israeli politicians, amounts to genocide.[254] Legal scholars have supported this assessment.[255][169] Gaza's healthcare system faced humanitarian crises as a result of Israel's assault: hospitals began shutting down by 23 October as they ran out of fuel.[256] When hospitals lost power, multiple premature babies in NICUs died.[257][258][259] Israeli airstrikes have killed numerous medical staffers, and ambulances and health institutions have been destroyed.[260] Médecins Sans Frontières reported that scores of ambulances and medical facilities were damaged or destroyed,[261][262] and that its own staff were killed.[263][264] The Gaza Health Ministry said the healthcare system had "totally collapsed".[265] In April 2024 UN special rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng said, "The destruction of healthcare facilities continues to catapult to proportions yet to be fully quantified."[217]
As of February 2025 at least 160 healthcare workers from Gaza are believed to be detained by Israel, with another 24 missing after being taken from Gaza hospitals. Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia, detained for seven months and released without charges, detailed the abuses he faced and said that in Israeli prisons "no day passes without torture".[266]
In March 2025 a UN investigation concluded that Israel had committed genocidal acts in Gaza by systematically destroying its reproductive healthcare facilities while imposing a siege preventing necessary medications for deliveries, pregnancies, and neonatal care, causing "irreversible" harm to Palestinians' reproductive prospects in Gaza. The commission also found that Israeli forces intentionally destroyed Al-Basma IVF[i] Centre, Gaza's main in-vitro fertility clinic, which served 2,000 to 3,000 patients a month. Israel destroyed about 4,000 embryos and 1,000 specimens of sperm and unfertilised eggs in the attack.[267][268] No evidence that the building was used for military purposes was found. The commission concluded that the destruction of the clinic "was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act".[269][270][271]
Also in March 2025, UN experts reported that they had found that Israel had systematically destroyed women's health care facilities and used sexual violence as a war strategy, thereby carrying out genocidal acts against Palestinians.[270][271]
Destruction of cultural, religious and educational sites
_غزة_بعد_الحرب_23-25.jpg)
Clockwise from top:
- A mosque in Gaza destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, 20 February 2025.
- The wreckage of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center
- A mosque in Khan Younis, 8 October 2023
Amnesty International notes that "while the destruction of historical, cultural and religious property or heritage is not considered a prohibited act under the Genocide Convention, the ICJ has established that such destruction can provide evidence of intent to physically destroy the group when carried out deliberately."[272] The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has said that Israel's deliberate destruction of cemeteries in Gaza indicates genocidal intent because it enacts the "erasure of a people's...historical presence".[121]
Since 7 October 2023 the IDF has been accused of using excessive force against dozens of schools;[273][274] theft;[275] desecration and mutilation of deceased Palestinians;[151] and making no, or an inadequate, distinction between Hamas forces and civilians.[276] The targeting of cultural and educational sites have also been cited as genocidal acts, as has the use of white phosphorus.[j][278]
On 18 April 2024, UN experts in Geneva condemned Israel for its "scholasticide" in Gaza, finding that it had destroyed more than 80% of schools and killed 5,000 students, 261 teachers, and dozens of professors.[279]
Amnesty identified at least four instances in which there was "no imperative military necessity" for the deliberate destruction of Gazan cultural and religious sites:[280] the destruction of the Al-Mughraqa campus of Al-Azhar University, the Al-Zahra campus of Israa University, the Al-Dhilal mosque and Bani Suheila cemetery in Khan Younis, and the Al-Istiqlal mosque in Khan Younis.[281] Amnesty pointed to the attitudes and behaviour of Israeli soldiers involved in the demolitions of these sites in videos posted on social media as evidence that these actions demonstrated genocidal intent. Amnesty also noted the overall volume of destruction of Gazan cultural, historical and religious sites, including Gaza's central archives.[282]
As of January 2025, Israel had destroyed 815 mosques and 19 cemeteries during the Gaza war.[283]
In June 2025, UN experts published a report saying Israel had committed the crime against humanity of extermination for "killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites". According to the report, Israel has destroyed over 90% of educational buildings in Gaza.[284]
Serious bodily and mental harm, and sexual violence
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- Yamen was injured in his leg during his sixth displacement in Jabalia refugee camp, and he was forced to flee while wounded.
- A Palestinian refugee carries his injured grandchildren from the Israeli bombing of Nuseirat Camp, Gaza Strip
The number of injured since 7 October 2023 due to Israeli military actions is greater than 160,000,[4][8] and Gaza has the most child amputees per capita worldwide.[30] In the same period over 990 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank.[285] Israel has been accused of indiscriminate mass detentions[286][287] and has been documented making threats of mutilation,[288] death, arson, and rape,[289] and torturing Palestinians detained without charges.[290] By March 2024, an estimated 17,000 children were "wounded children, no surviving family" (WCNSF), a new medical term.[291][154]
In August 2024, the UN OHCHR reported receiving testimony from Palestinians imprisoned at Sde Teiman detention camp about rape and sexual assault perpetrated on detainees.[3] The Lemkin Institute considers this and similar reports to be indicative of "Sexualized Violence During Genocide", or sexual violence being used to destroy a group.[292]
As of 25 August 2024, the UN estimates that most of Gaza's 2.2 million people are confined to roughly 15 square miles (39 km2), causing a critical lack of basic services, like clean water, and diseases spreading widely, such as Hepatitis C.[293]
Amnesty reported that the pattern of abuses inside Israeli prisons "underscores the systematic dehumanization and mental and physical abuse of Palestinians in Gaza and may also be taken into account with a view to inferring genocidal intent from pattern of conduct."[294] According to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, gender-based and sexual violence were committed "to dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part."[295] According to a UN committee, the Gaza war has resulted in disabilities for more than 21,000 children as of September 2025.[31]
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Academic and legal discourse
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Perspective
Answers to the question "How would you define Israel's military campaign in Gaza?" among Middle East scholars in a January–February 2025 survey[296]
- Genocide (46.0%)
- Major war crimes akin to genocide (36.0%)
- Major war crimes but not akin to genocide (9.00%)
- Unjustified actions but not major war crimes (4.00%)
- Justified actions under the right to self-defense (4.00%)
- I don't know (2.00%)
There is a growing consensus among genocide and Holocaust scholars, international legal experts, human rights organisations, and governments that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide. Israel and its supporters deny the accusation.[297][298][296]
Genocide and Holocaust studies
In May 2025, NRC wrote that leading scholars in genocide studies are "surprisingly unanimous" that Israel is committing genocide.[299] Some scholars of Holocaust studies, such as Norman J. W. Goda and Jeffrey Herf, have said that Israel is not committing genocide.[300] Others, such as Raz Segal and Shira Klein, have argued that Israel's actions should be analysed as a case of genocide,[299][301][302] citing, among other things, attacks on infrastructure, food, and water as genocidal.[303]
On 31 August 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the world's biggest academic association of genocide scholars, passed a resolution saying that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.[18][19][304]
Legal and human rights experts
On 26 January 2024, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling finding that the rights asserted in South Africa's filing were "plausible", and an order requiring that Israel take all measures in its power to prevent acts of genocide, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and allow basic humanitarian services into Gaza.[40][39] Some Israeli politicians supported South Africa's actions, including Ofer Cassif, but most opposed the case.[305]
On 15 May 2024, a report by the University Network for Human Rights, Boston University School of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Pretoria, and the Yale Law School found that "Israel has committed genocidal acts".[298][306]
In December 2024, Amnesty International published a report accusing Israel of committing genocide.[307][308][309] After the Amnesty report, Human Rights Watch also said Israel had committed "genocidal acts" in Gaza but did not say definitively whether genocidal intent existed.[310]
Other scholars
In March 2024 the Middle East Studies Association condemned the "accelerating scale of genocidal violence being inflicted on the Palestinian population of Gaza", saying that Israel's conduct constituted cultural genocide.[311] Surveys of 758 Middle East scholars by the Brookings Institution indicated a growing consensus that Israel's military campaign in Gaza was genocide.[312][313][296]
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Legal proceedings
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Perspective
International Court of Justice application
South Africa
Countries that have supported South Africa's case
Countries that have opposed South Africa's case
Israel
South Africa has instituted proceedings at the International Court of Justice pursuant to the Genocide Convention, accusing Israel of committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza.[314][36][315] South African president Cyril Ramaphosa compared Israel's actions to apartheid.[316] Several international organisations and other nations supported South Africa's suit.[317][318]
In an application filed in December 2023, South Africa argued that Israel's actions "are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group".[36][319] South Africa requested that the ICJ issue a legal order on an interim basis requiring Israel to "immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza".[36][319]
On 26 January 2024 the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling finding that the rights asserted in South Africa's filing were "plausible" and issued an order requiring that Israel take all measures in its power to prevent acts of genocide, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and allow basic humanitarian services into Gaza.[40][39] Later that year, South Africa asked the ICJ to order additional measures against Israel because Gazans are facing mass starvation,[320] and in May, the court issued what some experts considered to be an ambiguous order but which was widely understood as requiring Israel to immediately halt its offensive in Rafah.[321] Israel rejected this interpretation and continued its offensive.[42]
The Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy rejected the allegations "with disgust"[315] and accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas,[314] calling South Africa's claims "blood libel".[322] On 2 January 2024 Israel decided to appear before the ICJ in response to South Africa's case, despite a history of ignoring international tribunals.[319] On 13 January Netanyahu said, "No one will stop us. Not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, no one."[323] Israeli officials called the court antisemitic.[324][325] Israel's position is that "while unfortunate, the mass killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians is necessary, unavoidable, and justifiable self-defense."[326] South Africa's actions found support from some Israeli politicians, including Ofer Cassif.[305]
International Criminal Court
In May 2024 Khan applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, saying he had reasonable grounds to believe they bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza strip.[327] The list of crimes did not include genocide, which is legally distinct from extermination.[328] The warrants were issued in November 2024.[228]
As part of a December 2024 report accusing Israel of genocide, Amnesty International called on the ICC "to urgently consider the commission of the crime of genocide by Israeli officials since 7 October 2023 in the ongoing investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine".[329][330] Also in December 2024, the Israeli law professor Omer Shatz filed a complaint with the ICC naming eight Israeli political and media figures he believed were responsible for incitement to genocide.[331] The International Criminal Court faces political pressure and sanctions for its decisions during the Gaza War, particularly from Israel and the US.[332]
US Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit
In November 2023, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.[333][334][78] The suit alleges that Israel's "mass killings", targeting of civilian infrastructure, and forced expulsions amount to genocide,[335][333] writing that the United States is capable of deterring Israel from committing these acts due to the close relationship between the countries.[335]
A federal judge dismissed the case in January 2024, ruling the US Constitution prevented his court from determining foreign policy, but writing that "as the ICJ has found, it is plausible that Israel's conduct amounts to genocide".[336] The judge also commented that he would have preferred to have issued the injunction and urged Biden to rethink US policy.[337][338][333]
German lawsuit
In February 2024, lawyers representing Palestinians in Germany filed a criminal complaint against politicians including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Economic Minister Robert Habeck, and Finance Minister Christian Lindner for "aiding and abetting" genocide in Gaza.[339][340]
Nicaragua v. Germany
In March 2024 Nicaragua initiated proceedings against Germany at the ICJ under the Genocide Convention concerning Germany's support for Israel in the Gaza war.[341][342] It sought provisional measures of protection, including resumption of suspended German funding of the UNRWA and cessation of military supplies to Israel.[342]
Australian legal proceedings
In March 2024 Birchgrove Legal referred Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and others to the ICC as accessories to genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, citing the defunding of UNRWA, the provision of military aid, and "unequivocal political support" for Israel's actions during the Gaza war.[343][344]
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Responsibility of third states and other entities
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Perspective
All UN states that are signatories to the Genocide Convention are obliged "to employ all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible" and must not provide "means to enable or facilitate the commission of the crime".[345] Multiple scholars argue that the inaction of the international community to confirmed atrocities in Gaza expose the irrelevance and weakness of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.[346][347][348] Many Western countries, especially the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, have supported Israel by offering diplomatic, military, and intelligence support.[349]
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Palestine said, "States may be complicit in failing to prevent genocide if they do not act in compliance" with the International Court of Justice's orders or if they directly aid or assist in "the commission of genocide".[350] Other journalists and scholars have written that the actions of the US and other Western countries implicitly give permission for genocide.[351][352] In January 2024 the former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said that the US and UK are complicit in genocide against Gaza.[353] In March Oxfam released a statement detailing its intention, alongside several other non-governmental organisations,[k] to sue Denmark to prevent arms sales to Israel, warning that by selling arms Denmark is "complicit in violations of international humanitarian law ... and a plausible genocide".[354][355]
Navi Pillay, the chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, has said that states that provide weapons to Israel, including the US, are complicit in genocide.[356] A UN Special Committee wrote, "Failing to act now ... will tear apart the very foundation of the international rule of law we have collectively built to protect peace, security, and the well-being of all. Our inaction today is setting a perilous precedent for tomorrow.[12]
United States
The United States has been a key provider of diplomatic and material support before and during the Gaza war. It pays for around 15% of Israel's military budget and is its largest supplier of arms; it also provided more than $22.7 billion to Israel's military and other operations related to the war between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024.[357][page needed] According to the Quincy Institute, the destruction of Gaza is "in large part, the result of unconditional U.S. assistance and diplomatic cover".[358]
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have denied that genocide is occurring in Gaza.[359] Trump has proposed "to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza, 'level' the remaining structures, place the territory under U.S. control and bring in settlers to create a major resort area", in violation of international law.[359] According to an August 2025 opinion poll, half of US voters believe that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and a majority oppose further military assistance.[360] In September 2025, Bernie Sanders joined the growing list of members of Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Becca Balint, who called Israel's war on Gaza a genocide, and condemned US complicity.[361]
United Kingdom
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The British government does not give weapons to Israel directly but rather issues licences for British companies to sell them.[362] On 12 December 2023, Human Rights Watch said that selling weapons to Israel could make the UK complicit in war crimes. UK law says licences cannot be granted when there is a clear risk the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.[363] James Denselow of Save the Children UK said, "By failing to push for a permanent end to the fighting or speak out against the weaponisation of aid, Rishi Sunak and his government are complicit in the horror that is unfolding."[364] In December 2023, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf condemned the UK's abstention from a draft UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying this would lead to the deaths of more children.[365]
In April 2024, Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of international law at Oxford University, said: "There is a serious risk of genocide, as the International Court of Justice has found. If the UK, with that knowledge in mind, carries on exporting arms to Israel, there is a risk that those arms will be used in the conduct of aggressive activities and in the conduct of genocide."[366] The same month, hundreds of lawyers and legal academics published a legal opinion warning that the government risked complicity in genocide by continuing to arm Israel.[367][368]
On 2 September 2024, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced he was suspending approximately 30 arms export licences to Israel after a government review concluded there was a high risk these exports were being used for severe violations of international humanitarian law.[369] At the time of the suspension, Israel had around 350 arms export licences in the UK.[370]
On 3 September 2025, the Scottish Government announced a ban on funding to "arms companies whose products or services are provided to countries where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed", including Israel.[371] The Scottish Parliament also voted for a boycott of Israel and any companies providing it military support.[372]
Lawsuit over export licences
The human rights groups Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network took legal action against the British government in December 2023, saying that the government risked violating the Genocide Convention by granting export licences for the sale of military equipment to Israel.[373]
In May 2025 a hearing began at the High Court of Justice to determine whether the UK had violated arms export control laws by continuing to supply Israel with components for F-35 jets even after other licences were suspended. Government lawyers said the components were not being supplied directly to Israel and that withholding them could threaten international security.[374][375]
Germany
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In October 2023 the political analyst Lena Obermaier argued that Germany is complicit in Israel's war crimes against Gaza.[376] She detailed how most of Germany's most prominent news outlets have "been silent on Israeli genocidal policies". She also highlighted police suppression of pro-Palestine protests[377] as evidence of state complicity.[376] According to Germany's Federal Commissioner for the Fight against Antisemitism, accusing Israel of genocide is antisemitic.[378] Publicly accusing Israel of genocide can lead to arrest in Germany, even when the accusers are Jewish or Israeli.[379][380] In February 2024 a criminal complaint was filed in German courts accusing various senior politicians of complicity in genocide.[339] In March, Nicaragua sued Germany for complicity at the ICJ.[341]
European Union
The European Union was accused of potential complicity after it did not suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnès Callamard said the EU was giving Israel a "green light" to continue its genocide and was at "risk of complicity in Israel's actions".[381][382] The Rights Forum said the decision was "shameless complicity in genocide".[383]
Egypt
Egypt has been accused of complicity in genocide for its enforcement of the blockade on Gaza and refusal to open the Rafah Border Crossing.[384][385] In April 2025 Cage and five other African advocacy organisations filed a complaint with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights.[386] Egypt is not permitted to turn people away at its borders if doing so would expose them to life-threatening conditions or collective punishment, as this would violate its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture.[387][388] Egypt was also accused of complicity with Israel for its crackdown on the Global March to Gaza.[389]
Egypt has said that its closure of the Rafah crossing is done in opposition to Israeli plans to displace Palestinians.[384] Egypt rejected an Israeli proposal that Gaza be returned to Egypt for up to 15 years[390] and formally supported South Africa's genocide case against Israel.[391]
Private sector and media
Multiple corporations have been accused of profiting from the Gaza genocide.[392][393] Executives from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and RTX Corporation have described the war in Gaza as a source of increased profits.[394][395]
On 20 June 2024, UN experts warned that continued arms transfers to Israel could amount to violations of international law and risk state and corporate complicity in potential genocide. They called for an immediate halt to all weapons transfers to Israel, including by such major arms manufacturers as BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Caterpillar. They also warned institutions investing in these companies, such as Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.[396]
In June 2025 a UN expert's report named Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM as "central to Israel's surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction", and Palantir as a source of AI tools for the Israeli military.[397] The report also named Allianz, Barclays, BlackRock, and BNP Paribas for underwriting and purchasing Israeli government bonds, which the UN said are the main source of financing for Israel's military expenditures.[398] Scholars, journalists, media analysts and human rights advocates have accused various media outlets, mainly western, of complicity through media imperialism.[399]
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Political discourse
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Perspective
World leaders and governments
Agree
Disagree
Unclear
No data
Several Western governments (notably the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany), reject calling Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide, often arguing that courts must make that determination.[citation needed] Belgium, Norway, and Canada have said they will abide by or await the ICJ’s judgment rather than take a definitive stance.[400][401][402]
A large group of states, especially in the Islamic world, parts of Africa, Latin America, and some European countries, explicitly describe Israel’s actions as genocide and/or have joined or supported South Africa’s ICJ case.[403] These include Turkey,[404] Malaysia,[405] Egypt,[406] Brazil,[407] Chile,[408] Colombia,[409] Spain,[410] Ireland,[411] and Slovenia.[412]
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Arab League, and the African Union have collectively endorsed the characterisation of Israel’s actions as genocide and called for accountability and measures such as ending arms transfers.[413]
Non-governmental organisations and intergovernmental organisations
After Israel started its military operation against Hamas, both Genocide Watch and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued statements warning of the imminent risk of genocide.[414][415] In December 2023 the Lemkin Institute said that it viewed Israel's continuing actions as genocide.[416] In December 2024 Genocide Watch said that Israel was conducting genocide against the Palestinian people.[417]
In November 2023 Defence for Children International (DCI) accused the US of complicity in Israel's "crime of genocide".[418] In March 2024 DCI addressed the famine affecting Gaza: "The starvation of children is a hallmark of genocide and a deliberate political choice by Israel, backed by the Biden administration."[419] Three Palestinian rights groups, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) urging it to investigate Israel for apartheid and genocide and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.[420] The Arab Parliament wrote that Israel "aims to destroy the identity of an entire people".[421]
In December 2023 the International Federation for Human Rights said Israel's actions in Gaza constituted an unfolding genocide.[422] In February 2024, ahead of the Rafah offensive, Amnesty International head Agnes Callamard wrote: "Amnesty is reiterating that Palestinians in Gaza are at grave risk of genocide. The international community has an obligation to act to prevent genocide."[423] In March 2024 Callamard said the international community "must uphold their obligations under the Genocide Convention and take concrete measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza today".[424] In October 2024 Medical Aid for Palestinians released a statement calling for the protection of Palestinians, saying, "Gaza is being erased in front of our eyes."[425] Oxfam and 37 other humanitarian organisations warned that Israel was failing to comply with the Genocide Convention as it wiped Northern Gaza "off the map".[426] Oxfam added that it was "impossible not to believe" that Israel's aim was the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.[427]
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented evidence of executions committed by the IDF.[428] Jewish Voice for Peace said: "The Israeli government has declared a genocidal war on the people of Gaza. As an organization that works for a future where Palestinians and Israelis and all people live in equality and freedom, we call on all people of conscience to stop imminent genocide of Palestinians."[429]
In December 2024 Amnesty International issued a report declaring that Israel had "committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip".[430][431][432] The report asserted that in multiple instances Israeli forces and authorities had committed three of five acts prohibited under the United Nations' Genocide Convention: "killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction" with the "specific intent to destroy Palestinians".[433] In its 2025 State of the World's Human Rights report, Amnesty called Israel's actions a "live-streamed genocide" and criticised the complicity of Israel's allies, chiefly the United States, which it said "claimed that or acted as if international law did not apply to" it by "willfully ignoring" the orders and proceedings of the ICC and ICJ.[434]
The law professor and senior fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Orde Kittrie claimed that Amnesty had altered or otherwise made up a new definition of genocide,[435] while the law professor Amichai Cohen and the human-rights scholar Yuval Shany called the report an "attempt to move the normative goalposts regarding these evidentiary standards".[436] Other experts defended the report, telling TheJournal.ie that Amnesty was using the term consistently with international law. The genocide scholar A. Dirk Moses called the accusation against Amnesty International "vexatious".[437] Amnesty International's Israeli branch rejected the report and a "group of Jewish employees, in Israel and in several branches around the world" said that its authors "reached a predetermined conclusion". A minority of Amnesty Israel members said that "according to the available information, it can be determined that Israel is committing or has committed genocide in Gaza".[438][439] In January 2025 Amnesty International suspended its Israeli branch for two years, in part because of disagreements about research and findings Amnesty published.[440]
On 10 December 2024 the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights announced that it had been investigating the question of genocide in Gaza and concluded that there was a "legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza".[441]
A December 2024 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report said its "firsthand observations of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe inflicted on Gaza are consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza."[442][443] In July 2025, MSF said that Israel was committing genocide. They argue that statements by senior Israeli officials demonstrate genocidal intent, writing the "only reasonable inference is that the intention is to erase the Palestinian people from Gaza."[444]
In May 2025, during Israel's total blockade of Gaza, NIOD director Martijn Eickhoff told NOS, "If an entire population is denied access to food, that is potentially genocidal."[445]
On 28 July 2025 the Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem[446] and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel released reports calling Israel's campaign in Gaza a genocide. The B'Tselem report also claimed that European and US leaders were enabling the genocide.[447][448][449]
United Nations
In November 2023 a group of UN special rapporteurs wrote, "We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide."[450][451] UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation Pedro Arrojo said that based on the Rome Statute, which counts "deprivation of access to food or medicine, among others" as a form of extermination, "even if there is no clear intention, the data show that the war is heading towards genocide".[452] A group of UN human rights experts said there was "evidence of increasing genocidal incitement" against Palestinians.[453][454]
In response to a January 2024 Times of Israel report that the Israeli government was in talks with the Congolese government to take Palestinian refugees from Gaza, the UN special rapporteur Balakrishnan Rajagopal said, "Forcible transfer of Gazan population is an act of genocide."[455][456]
In May 2024 UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Reem Alsalem said that Palestinian women "are experiencing a full-blown genocide. They are being exterminated. There are few places in the world where we've seen something like this."[457][458] The UNHCR Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, said that Israel's destruction of Gaza "constitutes an act of genocide as well because the purpose of that destruction, exceeding 70 to 80 per cent across Gaza, is to make the place uninhabitable".[459]
In October 2024 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report that accused the Israeli military of "the crime against humanity of extermination" for killing health workers and targeting health facilities.[460][461]
On 8 November 2024 the United Nations human rights office condemned many violations of international law that "could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even 'genocide'", calling on third states to prevent "atrocity crimes".[462][463] On 14 November 2024 the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices concluded that they are consistent with the characteristics of genocide.[464][12]
In February 2025 UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri said that Israel is committing a genocide and is working to "slow down its genocide through a starvation campaign", concluding that the United States and Germany were complicit in the ensuing famine.[465]
In May 2025 twenty UN independent experts and four working groups issued a statement accusing Israel of genocide and criticising the debate over the genocide terminology:
While States debate terminology – is it or is it not genocide? – Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity ... States must act swiftly to end the unfolding genocide, dismantle apartheid, and secure a future in which Palestinians and Israelis coexist in freedom and dignity.[466]
Also in May 2025, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Tom Fletcher urged world leaders to act decisively to prevent genocide in Gaza.[467][468] The US has vetoed UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions on Gaza six times, remaining the sole opponent while all 14 other members backed the calls.[469][470]
In September 2025 the UN Human Rights Council's Independent International Commission of Inquiry issued a report concluding that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Commission found reasonable grounds to determine that Israeli authorities and security forces have committed, and continue to commit, four of the five genocidal acts defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births.[13][471]
The Commission further determined that genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference from the totality of evidence, and that Israeli political and military leaders have incited the commission of genocide.[13][471] The Commission has characterised its findings as the most authoritative UN determination to date on the Gaza war.[471][472][473] Israeli officials, the US State Department, and the US-and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) condemned the report. Netanyahu denied its core findings on starvation, while the GHF called the report a collection of "falsehoods" that "rewards bad actors and undermines" humanitarian efforts.[472][473]
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Cultural discourse
Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza has been a contentious topic in cultural discourse, with celebrities, athletes, public intellectuals, activists, cultural institutions and ordinary people weighing in on the events in Gaza, as well as on the cultural and societal implications of viewing those events through the framework of genocide.[474]
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Legacy
Summarize
Perspective
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The Britsh sociologist Martin Shaw has called the Gaza genocide "the genocide that changed the world" because of mass mobilisation against genocide. He also highlights some political victories by Israel, but "at huge cost to its global legitimacy and that of the West".[476] Some scholars, particularly those associated with Third World approaches to international law, have argued that the international community's failure to treat Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide and respond accordingly has harmed the principles of the international order and international law and exposed the deficiencies of international governance.[477][478][479][page needed] José Manuel Barreto argues that "the Palestinian genocide has unveiled the deep colonial structure of the international legal order", placing the Gaza genocide in a long list of colonial genocides the international system has tolerated.[478] The journalist Colin Jones interviewed lawyers affiliated with the US military and concluded that they see Gaza as a test case for what military conduct might be acceptable in a hypothetical future war between the US and a peer power such as China.[480] Mark LeVine argues that Israel's actions have destroyed respect for international law and weakened the taboo against large-scale violence in response to perceived threats.[481]
See also
- Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks – Characterization of massacres by Hamas
- Casualties of the Gaza war
- Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany
- Effect of the Gaza war on children in the Gaza Strip
- Gaza Strip mass graves – Mass graves found during the Gaza War
- Gaza–Israel conflict – Part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- Human rights violations against Palestinians by Israel
- Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip – Israeli military operation since 2023
- Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war – Violations of international criminal law
- List of genocides
- Palestinians as animals in Israeli discourse
- Timeline of the Gaza war
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Footnotes
- This start date is the beginning of the war. Sources disagree on when the genocide started, see Background.
- Per the Gaza Health Ministry and Government Information Office,[4] which has previously been deemed reliable by prominent and independent organisations.[5][6]
- Average of 77,000 to 109,000.
- It is unclear how many of the deaths were a result of friendly fire or of the Hannibal Directive. As for the civilian deaths, there are up to 15 known deaths of civilians from these causes: up to 13 in Be'eri, 1 from helicopter gunfire on a vehicle carrying a hostage,[69] and 1 in Kibbutz Alumim.[70] An Ynet article stated that there was an "immense and complex quantity" of friendly-fire incidents on the part of IDF during the 7 October attack.[71][72][73][74]
- Per the Gaza Health Ministry and Government Information Office by 3 January 2024, over 22,300 people had been confirmed dead.[156]
- In vitro fertilisation
- The use of white phosphorus against military targets located among civilians is contrary to Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, of which Israel is not a signatory.[277]
- Amnesty International
- Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke
- Al-Haq
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References
External links
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