On December 5 Amnesty International issued a 32 page report, 'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza which found that Israel committed genocide in Gaza according to the strict criteria of international law. Amnesty International argues that Israel’s war crimes in Gaza became genocide in May 2024 when Israel began to attack the last “safe zone,” Rafah. Israel made Rafah the main aid point and instructed civilians to go there. Rafah was the key to demonstrate Israel’s intent. As an occupying power Israel is legally required to provide the essentials of life for the occupied population. Amnesty demonstrated a “pattern of conduct” of the obstruction of aid, the attacks on water, food, power, sanitation, healthcare systems, and the repeated displacement of the civilian population all under conditions of occupation and blockade of Gaza.
The organization’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, said, “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call: this is genocide and it must stop now!” This is the first time that Amnesty International has made the charge of genocide in Gaza and builds on the March 2024 report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese which found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
The Amnesty International report states that Israel “committed prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention, namely 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.” The report examined events in Gaza from October 2023 until July 2024 and found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the civilian population of Gaza. The report also accused Hamas of committing an “atrocity” on October 7, 2023, but stated that this did “not justify genocide.”
Amnesty International has been calling on the United Nations to enforce a ceasefire in Gaza, impose sanctions on Israel, and for countries such as the US and the UK to stop sending weapons and support to Israel. Amnesty has also called on the November 2024 International Criminal Court arrest warrants on Israeli leaders, Netanyahu and Gallant to also include the charges of genocide.
