On Thursday, two major humanitarian groups joined the chorus of experts and other human rights organizations saying that Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians and leveling of Gaza for the past 14 months is consistent with genocide under international humanitarian law.
In a 179-page report, Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel’s deprivation of water for Palestinians in Gaza is one of the five “acts of genocide” under the Genocide Convention.
Israel cut off Palestinians’ water access by directly cutting off electricity for three pipelines carrying water into Gaza, while also attacking and rendering inoperable wastewater and water desalination facilities via Israel’s blockade of fuel, the report detailed. Israeli forces have also relentlessly targeted and killed water, sanitation and humanitarian aid workers.
Through these acts, “Israeli authorities have intentionally inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza ‘conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,’” the report says. “This definition is nearly identical to that of the crime against humanity of extermination.”
Human Rights Watch, one of the most prominent human rights groups in the world, additionally notes that, even considering that genocidal intent is difficult to establish in the international legal framework, “genocidal intent may be inferred” from Israel’s acts and Israeli officials’ remarks over the course of the assault. This means that “these acts may amount to the crime of genocide,” the report says.
The report finds that Israeli forces have also committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the crime of extermination.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, also released a report on Thursday finding that Israel is committing acts consistent with genocide. The report, entitled “Gaza: Life in a Death Trap,” specifically highlights how Israel has “targeted and destroyed” Gaza’s health system, including attacks on medical humanitarian aid groups like MSF.
The report details how Israel has systematically dismantled hospitals in Gaza, leaving 19 of the hospitals in the region out of service and 17 only partially functional, with three of the latter rendered inaccessible.
Meanwhile, MSF found that Israel is using “evacuation orders as another weapon” of war, with the orders amounting to forced displacement, and the promise of safety elsewhere a “blatant lie” told by Israeli forces, the report says.
“What our medical teams have witnessed on the ground throughout this conflict is consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza,” said MSF Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear.
The groups are the latest to join the large number of prominent voices who say that Israel is guilty of genocide or genocidal acts — nearly a year after the International Court of Justice found that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Israeli forces to stop.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International concluded after a sprawling investigation that Israel is, indeed, committing genocide and is guilty of three of the five acts of genocide, as laid out in the Genocide Convention. And, last month, a UN special committee investigating Israeli human rights practices concluded that Israel’s actions are “consistent with genocide.”
These reports came long after many in the human rights field and anti-Zionist advocates had come to the consensus that Israel’s assault of Gaza is a genocide, including genocide scholars and numerous UN special rapporteurs appointed for their expertise on international humanitarian law.
The reports also come after Israel has massacred untold numbers of Palestinians in Gaza and permanently altered the lives of the rest of Gaza’s population. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials’ counts — but the true death toll is likely far, far higher, experts have said.
For instance, in July, public health researchers estimated that the true death toll, including so-called indirect deaths due to factors like disease, could be 186,000 people. Using the same method to estimate both indirect and direct deaths — a calculation researchers said is highly conservative — the death toll could now be well over 225,000 people.
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