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"But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians." "Indeed, Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed."
Various scholars, most of whom in relevant fields.
TWAILR (Third World Approaches to International Law Review)
"we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." "Language used by Israeli political and military figures appears to reproduce rhetoric and tropes associated with genocide and incitement to genocide." "Evidence of incitement to genocide has also been present in Israeli public discourse."
"As if to spit on the post-Holocaust moral clarion call of 'never again', Israel, a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, has in effect declared its intention to commit an act of genocide by cutting off all 'water, electricity, and food supplies' to the 2.2 million people in Gaza."
"This settler ideology is supported by Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is committed to further settlement expansion. Like the American ideology of 'manifest destiny', this settler ideology is used to justify forced displacement of Palestinians who have lived in the occupied territories for thousands of years." "Dehumanization of the enemy is common in wars and genocides. It is already evident in this war, with Hamas militants spitting on and mutilating bodies of their victims and the Israeli Defence Minister calling Hamas 'human animals'. Dehumanization is a stage of genocide." "Genocide Watch considers the war in Israel and Gaza to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 9: Extermination."
Maybe
Yes
Genocide Watch later changed their public opinion in February 2024 to yes, see below
"La directrice exécutive de Jewish Voice for Peace a lancé un vibrant « plaidoyer juif », appelant à « se dresser contre l'acte de génocide d'Israël ». Couper l'eau, l'électricité et le gaz, interrompre l'approvisionnement en nourriture et envoyer des missiles sur les marchés où les habitants tentent de se ravitailler, bombarder des ambulances et des hôpitaux déjà privés de tout ce qui leur permet de fonctionner, tuer des médecins et leur famille : la conjonction du siège total, des frappes aériennes et bientôt des troupes au sol condamne à mort un très grand nombre de civils – par les armes, la faim et la soif, le défaut de soins aux malades et aux blessés." ["The executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace has issued a vibrant 'Jewish plea', calling for 'standing up against Israel's act of genocide'. Cutting off water, electricity and gas, interrupting food supplies and sending missiles into markets where residents are trying to get supplies, bombing ambulances and hospitals already deprived of everything that allows them to function, killing doctors and their families: the combination of total siege, airstrikes and soon ground troops is condemning a very large number of civilians to death – by weapons, hunger and thirst, and the failure to care for the sick and wounded."] "Du premier génocide du XXe siècle, celui des Herero, en 1904, mené par l'armée allemande en Afrique australe, qui, selon les estimations, a provoqué 100 000 morts de déshydratation et de dénutrition, au génocide des juifs d'Europe et à celui des Tutsi, la non-reconnaissance de la qualité d'êtres humains à ceux qu'on veut éliminer et leur assimilation à des animaux a été le prélude aux pires violences." ["From the first genocide of the 20th century, that of the Herero in 1904, carried out by the German army in southern Africa, which, according to estimates, caused 100,000 deaths from dehydration and malnutrition, to the genocide of the Jews of Europe and that of the Tutsi, the non-recognition of the quality of human beings of those who are to be eliminated and their assimilation to animals has been the prelude to the worst violence."]
"[Dehumanizing rhetoric] is horrifying and it all leads us to where we are at right now, which is the fact that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide."
Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;
Special Rapporteur on Violence against women and girls;
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory;
Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons;
Special Rapporteur on the right to food;
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health;
Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing;
Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
"'We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza. Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People,' the experts said."
Maybe
Yes
Albanese, Alsalem, and Mofokeng later changed their public opinions to yes in March 2024, February 2025, and January 2025 respectively, see below
"Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney with CCR and a legal representative for victims in the pending ICC investigation in Palestine, told The Intercept. 'U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel's unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it.'"
Yes
Yes
There is then also the CCR's full 44-page briefing declaring it genocide and naming the US as a complicit party (not in article).
"As the Israeli genocide in Gaza unfolds and global public awareness is becoming increasingly acute, it is becoming clearer that the myths surrounding the colonial conflict in Palestine serve not as guides to understanding, but as barriers. These myths, perpetuated by pro-Israel propagandists, Western powers, and Arab regimes have had dire consequences – ones measured in lost lives, crushed hopes, and a perpetually destabilised region." "Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza serves as a tacit admission of Israel's fragility".
"A director of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights has resigned, issuing a lengthy letter condemning the organization, the U.S., and Western media companies for their positions on the war between Israel and Hamas, which he described as a 'text-book case of genocide.'" "'Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it,' wrote Craig Mokhiber, the group's New York office director, who had worked with the U.N. for more than three decades."
"Today, more than ever, we need to reaffirm, without any caveats, the right of Jews to live in Israel and to defend themselves against those who deny Israel and Jews the right to exist. We deplore the humanitarian catastrophe of the Palestinian people in Gaza and note that it derives directly from the use of civilians as human shields by the Hamas. We, the scholars of the Holocaust assembled in Prague at the Lessons & Legacies conference, as well as other Holocaust scholars and persons devoted to Holocaust memory, unequivocally condemn the politics of terror pursued by Hamas and denounce the forces of global antisemitism."
"Only five posts were positive about Israel, some refuting the accusation that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. Notorious Jewish critics of Israel, such as Norman Finkelstein (Figure 11), Gabor Maté, and Jane Hirschmann were repeatedly used to accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide, often with embedded videos." "It is worth noting that according to the United Nations definition of genocide, the Hamas massacre is genocide, while the Gaza war is not."
"The contention that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in retribution for Hamas' October 7 massacres is a false claim not founded in international law."
"To be sure, some of the deeply disturbing rhetoric coming from senior figures in the Israeli government [..] raises the risk of genocidal actions. [..] However, to claim that genocide is already occurring requires stretching the concept too far, emptying it of any meaning."
Maybe
Yes
Already in article via Vox article; Waxman later changed his public opinion in October 2024 to no, see below
"Israel has no greater ambition than to coexist with the Palestinians as peaceful neighbors; [The genocide claims] 'threaten future attempts to identify, prevent, and prosecute that crime. It is equally damaging to the legitimacy of Holocaust and Genocide Studies as a field when such false claims are presented in the guise of scholarly expertise.'"
International relations prof, Sociologist specialising in genocide
New Lines Magazine
"[Israel's] war, driven by both security and revenge (including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's need to expunge his humiliating failure to protect Israelis), nevertheless demonstrates genocidal intent."
...
"'Genocide' is generally under-deployed because states wish to avoid the responsibilities to 'prevent and punish' that the convention imposes on signatories, but there is a special aversion to investigating its implications for Israel's conduct. Western states continue to protect it out of a misplaced belief that Jews, having been prime historical victims of genocide, cannot also be its perpetrators. Israel's current policies are rapidly destroying that conceit, however, and bringing closer the day when its leaders — as well as those of Hamas — will be brought to account for their crimes."
"the Israeli state is employing its extensive and advanced military capacity to inflict violence on Palestinian peoples on such a scale that it is accurate to frame it as the annihilation phase of genocide." "Israel's announcement of a state of 'total siege' of Gaza, cutting off water, food, electricity and medical supplies, amounted to a clear statement of intent to commit genocide against the Palestinian people by 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part' (Genocide Convention 1948, Article 2)."
"The mere fact that Israel and the Palestinians have been waging a bloody war between them for four generations, and they are both committing war crimes and hair-raising acts of violence, still does not mean that a genocide began in Gaza in October 2023."
Maybe
No
Later joined Goldberg in saying it is a case of genocide.
"What is happening in Gaza fits the definition of genocide." "To understand what is transpiring in Gaza, we must turn to the key legal frameworks that define genocide: Article 6 of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court and Article 2 of the Genocide Convention. […] Gaza's devastating reality mirrors these components of genocide. Despite claiming to target only Hamas, Israel is engaged in an all-out assault on the whole population of Gaza."
[By denying their historical connection with Palestine and by attributing a genocidal intention to those who built a state to protect themselves from any genocidal recurrence, Didier Fassin reactivates a classic anti-Semitic gesture that always proceeds by inversion: accusing the Jews of being guilty of what one is preparing to do or fantasizes about doing to them.] [And yet, one must choose sides on the question of whether or not one recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist. If one recognizes it, then the massacre of civilians, intentionally targeted on its sovereign territory, gives it the right not only to defend itself, but to take the necessary measures to ensure that this can never happen again, and therefore to eliminate Hamas, whose program this is.]
[The Hamas massacre with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general has prompted Israel to strike back. How this retaliation, which is justified in principle, is carried out is the subject of controversial debate; principles of proportionality, the prevention of civilian casualties and the waging of a war with the prospect of future peace must be the guiding principles. Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgement slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel's actions.]
"Euro-Med Monitor renewed its calls on all countries across the world to take decisive action to end the Israeli genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip, citing their legal obligations to stop this horrifying crime against humanity."
"Verdeja says Israel's actions in Gaza are moving toward a 'genocidal campaign'. While he notes that it is clear Israeli forces intend to destroy Hamas, 'the response when you have a security crisis ... can be one of ceasefire, negotiation, or it can be genocide.'"
"City University of New York professor Victoria Sanford compares what's happening in Gaza to the killing or disappearance of more than 200,000 Mayans in Guatemala from 1960 to 1996, known as the Guatemalan genocide"
"Israel has only explicitly said they want to exterminate Hamas, and has not directly stated intent to 'destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group'. Simon says it's possible a court could conclude that either Hamas or some elements of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) could be found guilty of committing an act of genocide, but 'it's certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy ethnic group as such is difficult.'"
"Beyond killing civilians en masse, Israel appears to be inflicting 'conditions of life calculated to bring about [the targeted group's] physical destruction', as prohibited by the convention, said Adam Jones, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia who has written a textbook on genocide. He pointed to Israel's decisions to let in only limited humanitarian assistance that is far from sufficient to provide for the needs of 2.2 million people; to cut off fuel, water, and electricity; and to deprive people of adequate access to medical care."
"Israel's retaliatory bombing of Gaza, however indiscriminate, and its current ground attacks, despite the numerous civilian casualties they are causing among Gaza's Palestinian population, do not meet the very high threshold that is required to meet the legal definition of genocide."
"Many accuse Israel of genocide. These accusations undermine the meaning of what they allege. It might be appealing to toss such accusations about but, as Justice Stewart warned, the significance of the concept of war crimes and credibility of the law is eroded by such overbroad and often invalid accusations.
One need only consider the genocide accusation. Palestinians make up 20 percent of the Israeli population with the same civil rights and legal privileges as any other Israeli citizen. How this aligns with the accusation that Israel is engaged in a systemic effort to destroy this ethnic group is perplexing. Nor do casualties in Gaza support even suspicion of genocide."
No
No
"The view that Palestinians enjoy the 'same civil rights and legal privileges' is highly contested by other legal experts. See 2010 report, 2022 report, 2023 report"
Q: "Welche Reaktion erhoffen Sie sich als Unterzeichnerin des offenen Briefes 'Philosophie für Palästina'?." ["What reaction do you hope to get as a signatory of the open letter 'Philosophy for Palestine'?"]
A: "Ich hoffe, dass der Völkermord an der Zivilbevölkerung in Gaza ein Ende hat. Es gibt Menschen, die sich von einem Völkermord abwenden, wenn er geschieht, und später bereuen, dass sie sich geweigert haben, das zu benennen, was sie sehen und wissen. Ich schließe mich denen an, die diese bösartige und vorsätzliche Gewalt als 'Völkermord' bezeichnen, denn sie entspricht der Definition der Völkermordkonvention." ["I hope that the genocide of the civilian population in Gaza will come to an end. There are people who turn away from genocide when it happens, and later regret that they refused to name what they see and know. I join those who call this vicious and deliberate violence 'genocide' because it corresponds to the definition of the Genocide Convention."]
"Israel's targets are military: Hamas's soldiers, tunnels, headquarters and weapons stocks. By placing military targets in and under civilian structures, it is Hamas that violates laws of war.
The 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention mentions demonstrable intent to destroy a national, racial or religious group. Mr. Bartov is mute about Israel's hundreds of phone calls to Gazans warning them to leave buildings in which Hamas fighters were located. Israel has urged civilians to evacuate to the south to escape battle. A government intent on genocide would do the opposite."
"Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians." "If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics." "Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that 'these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent,' as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes."
"It's not an easy case because you have to have that smoking gun. So, you know, I respectfully disagree with his [Mokhiber's] approach on this. If you look at both parties in this tragedy that is unfolding, the prime minister of Israel has to specifically state that, I intend to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people. And I would suggest, respectfully, that that has not been said. Now, they have a long-term problem politically, practically and legally related to their treatment of the Palestinians. But I would beg to differ. I don't think one would categorize that as genocide."
"The left that expresses these ideas have no intellectual knowledge of international laws making clear distinctions between different ways of killings" "Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza that entails urban house-to-house fighting that regrettably creates many civilian casualties, as in other wars of this type".
"Une situation humanitaire même effrayante ne suffit pas à définir un génocide" ["Even a frightening humanitarian situation is not enough to define genocide."]
"Charging Israel With Genocide in Gaza Is Inflammatory and Dangerous. Historians must be guided by the facts, not political agendas. But when Omer Bartov in The New York Times charged Israel with 'verging' into genocide and ethnic cleansing, he grounded his argument in assertions, not evidence."
"The siege of Gaza itself, that is extermination or persecution as a crime against humanity, and it's a form of genocide... Inflicting conditions to destroy the group, that itself is a genocide. So creating a siege itself is a genocide, and that is very clear, that Israel want the siege is very clear. And the intentions to destroy the people, many officers from the Israel government are expressing genocidal intentions. That's why it's easy to say — under reasonable basis to believe — Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza."
"'The intent that we have observed is extensive and it comes from all quarters of the Israeli state,' said Anisha Patel, a legal researcher with the group Law for Palestine — which provides legal analysis on international law as it relates to Palestinians."
"'I believe that the events of Oct. 7 qualify as a genocidal massacre of Israelis. I also think that the Israeli response, and indeed long standing Israeli policy towards the Gazan population, evinces elements of genocidal thinking and increasingly practice,' he said."
"We, scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, feel compelled to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza." "Moreover, dozens of statements of Israeli leaders, ministers in the war cabinet, and senior army officers since 7 October—that is, people with command authority—suggest an 'intent to destroy' Palestinians 'as such,' in the language of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
"Cela enfreint gravement les Conventions de Genève et équivaut à des crimes de guerre, à des crimes contre l'humanité et à un génocide" ["This seriously violates the Geneva Conventions and amounts to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide."]
"Beaucoup de chercheurs en France et en Europe se refusent à parler de génocide et évoquent, au mieux, le terme de nettoyage ethnique. Faut-il leur rappeler que de nombreux génocides ont été perpétrés dans la continuation du nettoyage ethnique et lorsque celui-ci a été rendu impossible ? Combien de cases faudra-il cocher avant que les puissances occidentales se décident à réagir fermement et que les intellectuels se saisissent vraiment de ce sujet ?" ["Many researchers in France and Europe refuse to talk about genocide and, at best, use the term ethnic cleansing. Should we remind them that many genocides have been perpetrated in the continuation of ethnic cleansing and when it has been made impossible? How many boxes will have to be ticked before Western powers decide to react firmly and intellectuals really take up this subject?"]
"Today, international law on genocide is working as it was designed to: allowing states to ruthlessly exterminate security threats while making it difficult to apply that law. By the reasoning of international lawyers supporting Israel's war in Gaza today, there are no limits to the number of Palestinian civilians who can be killed incidentally in the pursuit of Israeli military objectives." "The grotesque nature of the law of genocide, however, is that victim numbers are irrelevant. All that counts is intent. If the intention is military rather than genocidal, many will argue not only that legitimate self-defense rather than genocide is taking place, but also that it is legal and even moral."
Professor of criminal law and head of the Department of Foreign and International Criminal Law
Hard to group into a clear category
"Bartov chooses his words carefully. He warns of possibly impending genocide without claiming it is happening already. Some statements of certain Israeli policymakers are indeed worrisome. Yet, while they may be relevant for proving the necessary specific intent, they cannot automatically be attributed to the persons who are taking the military decisions."
No
Yes
Ambos updated his opinion to "likely" in June 2025
"As far as I am concerned, the charge of genocide against Israel is particularly shocking. It betrays a wilful refusal to recognise that Hamas has openly stated its genocidal aims, and has perpetrated acts which fall quite clearly within the definition of genocidal acts according to the Convention."
"The genocide being perpetrated by the State of Israel is embedded in a complex historical, political, and strategic context that seems to have fostered and, ultimately, devolved into a pervasive genocidal dynamic on both sides of the conflict – Israel, on the one hand, and the Islamist militant organization known as Hamas, on the other – as well as among segments of their respective populations, especially, as will be explained below, in the case of Israel." "The Lemkin Institute believes that Israel's retaliation against Palestinians amounts not only to war crimes and crimes against humanity, but also to genocide, as also asserted by, among others, the former Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber."
"The essay contends that Israel and its allies' claim of self-defence to justify their genocidal actions in Gaza and to marginalize moral judgements is a blatant lie." "In this case, shared identity is a motive for rejecting Israel's monopolization of the conversation, its claim to speak in the name of the Jews while committing genocide, and its distortion of that identity with its criminal practices against the Palestinian people."
Yes
No
Includes specific responses to Habermas' arguments.
"Undoubtedly, the State of Israel is an Occupying Power and subject to the law of the Geneva Conventions in the manner of its treatment of the Palestinian people. In relation to international positive law (the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, etc.) and the morality central to the jus gentium, the State of Israel is by no means to be excepted in the way it decides to conduct itself vis-à-vis the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, including Gaza. The Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories are entitled as a matter of jus gentium to the full protection the international community of nations can muster on those grounds. Thus, Louis Rene Beres (1989, 29) is entirely correct to remind that, the Genocide Convention, along with other 'human rights "regime"' treaties and declarations, 'represents the end of the idea of absolute sovereignty concerning non-intervention when human rights are in grievous jeopardy.' And, this certainly applies in the case of Israel's war being waged against the Palestinian people in Gaza (with spillover effects in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the IDF supports settler Israelis in their hostile acts of dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians in those quarters)."
"The raising of even more serious charges – such as the commission of genocide, the 'crime of crimes' – requires an even higher commitment to factual analysis, which should include all relevant facts, including those 'inconvenient' to whoever is making such claims. Many of the allegations made in this regard, including those found in the recent South African application to the ICJ appear to fall short of this standard. Still, we do consider the South African application as potentially useful in drawing more attention to the positive obligations of the State of Israel to suppress incitement to genocide and to address potentially genocidal statements made in public by Israeli influencers and politicians."
"Likewise warning of the potential for genocide as a maximal end-state obscured the genocidal process that was already occurring, [...] Moreover, if the United Nations Genocide Convention was an inevitable reference point, the choice to hew close to a legal tick-box exercise not only allowed defenders of Israel's violence to argued that the criteria had not been met. It also sidelined the Convention's manifold defects, recognized in the field since its inception, and those of the subsequent jurisprudence, recently exposed in the case of Ukraine." "It was therefore essential to recognize that in genocidal war, policies radicalize. Israel's initial genocidal thrust contained the potential for a greater genocide, which might turn the right's most ambitious ideas into reality."
"urging governments across the globe to formally support South Africa's International Court of Justice case against Israel, accusing the government of genocidal violence in Gaza.",
"Sfard said he was stunned by the speed with which incitement to genocide and other extreme speech had been normalised in Israel." "The gap between that and the freedom and impunity for those who advocate all kinds of things – ethnic cleansing, killing civilians, bombarding civilian areas, and even genocide – doesn't square up, and that's something for the authorities to explain."
"Before October's escalation of violence, the effect of the Israeli siege of Gaza had already been described as a 'slow-motion genocide'." "We situate this violence in relation to the definition of genocide as described in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, focusing on physical elements including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating life-threatening conditions, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children." "As public health and humanitarian professionals, we the authors state emphatically that the grave risk of genocide against the Palestinian people warrants immediate—and now overdue—action."
"In view of the attorney general's failure to enforce the law or any accountability in the Huwwara case, it is no surprise that Israeli officials and politicians took advantage of the climate, following the Hamas attack, in order to incite deadly harm against the entire civilian population in Gaza." "Given that senior members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and those in the parliament have explicitly supported violence, terrorism and genocide against the Palestinians, any criminal proceedings initiated against them would be seen across the political spectrum in Israel as an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government."
"The word genocide is used willy-nilly by people all over the world, but genocide, as it has evolved since 1948 when the genocide convention was first adopted by the UN General Assembly, is a legal concept. And whatever else Israel is doing, and has done, it is not intending to destroy the Palestinian people; either on the West Bank or in Gaza" "Even Netanyahu, with whom I fundamentally disagree on most issues, is not planning to evict the Palestinians from Gaza. So the term genocide does not work." "October 7 was a deliberate action by a genocidal organization that targeted Israeli — meaning Jewish — civilians: women, men, children, and the elderly."
"Nous nous opposons aux graves violations par Israël des droits humains et de la liberté académique des Palestiniens, à la guerre génocidaire en cours à Gaza ainsi qu'aux arrestations et détentions arbitraires en particulier celles subies par les étudiants et le personnel palestinien dans les universités de Cisjordanie." ["We oppose Israel's grave violations of Palestinian human rights and academic freedom, the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, and arbitrary arrests and detentions, particularly those suffered by Palestinian students and staff in West Bank universities."]
"Professor William Schabas, an elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, was one of the world's first experts to sound the alarm, citing 'serious risk of genocide' as early as late October 2023. 'The evidence today is even more compelling,' he told ITV News. 'To me it is increasingly clear that Israel is not aiming to defeat Hamas, but rather to uproot or erase the population of Gaza.'"
"Professor Francis Boyle, who won the first case ever under the genocide convention at the ICJ for the republic of Bosnia Herzegovina against Yugoslavia, said he is confident South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians. He told ITV News: 'When I submitted my case, I had to work on it on my own. South Africa has an impressive team of experts who have managed to put together the most comprehensive and impeccable application.'"
Yes
No
News article is in the article, but Boyle is not mentioned.
Legal Consultant in Public International Law, with a focus on armed conflict
EJIL:Talk! – Blog of the European Journal of International Law
"Despite having been firmly established in international law for three quarters of a century, the definition and requisite elements of the international crime of genocide appear to have been misunderstood or, in some cases, deliberately misapplied, seemingly by both scholars and laypersons." "Labelling Israel's military operation against Hamas as an act of genocide may threaten to undo 75 years of work to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, by diluting and diminishing the effect of the Genocide Convention."
"but is usually very difficult to prove" "The destruction of the group must be the sole aim of the perpetrator" "under international law, there is a right to self-defence"
"That is a claim that is very difficult to prove, because you have to prove that Israel is acting with the specific purpose of exterminating the Palestinians."
"I think there's not much question that the level of killing, the level of deprivation is sufficient to meet that predicate part of the crime of genocide." "This is all genocidal intent. [South Africa] also kind of worked backwards from the acts on the ground to say that, because Israel is bombing so indiscriminately, because it's using these massive 2,000-pound bombs in heavily populated areas, that this also shows an indifference to Palestinian civilian life, which itself is indicative of genocidal intent."
"Although the high number of civilian deaths and the enormous material damage are horrific, they do not necessarily prove an intent to commit genocide. For example, the repeated calls for the civilian population to leave certain parts of the area or the observance of the obligation to warn and set a deadline before withdrawing protection from a civilian hospital because it is being used outside its humanitarian purpose to commit acts harmful to the enemy speak against such an intent."
"But while it's easy to second-guess the actions of Israeli forces, there is no evidence that they have engaged in a deliberate campaign to 'destroy, in whole or in part,' the Palestinian people — which is what 'genocide' means in international law. Awful as the civilian deaths in Gaza have been, they still constitute less than 1 percent of the territory's population. If Israel, with all the firepower at its disposal, had been trying to commit mass murder, the death toll would have been higher by orders of magnitude." "That's why the charge of genocide has been rejected not only by the United States but also by Canada, Britain and Germany, among others."
"If the (televised) Syrian genocide was the first internationally tolerated series of atrocities, then the recent genocidal violence in Gaza is the first with active input from the 'international community.'" "One maxim it should state is: if a series of actions approach genocide sufficiently to occasion a debate on whether they are genocide or not, then they are evil enough to be denounced without ifs or buts."
"Thus, inhered within this strategy, within Israel's retaliatory campaign on Gaza, is a transtemporal logic of genocide that attempts to neutralize the Gazan Palestinian in the present so as altogether displace and/or eliminate its presence and foreclose the possibility of its future." "Because of the legal impunity that Israel has enjoyed, the question of genocide in Palestine transcends the applicability of the Genocide Convention (though, arguably, present violence in Gaza includes nearly every act outlined in Article II) and can be better sociologically understood through the eight techniques of genocide outlined by Lemkin himself."
"All that said, if the utterance of genocide too obviously sticks in the craw for those like Illouz, who might read an inherent dissonance in the implication of a post-Holocaust state committing the act – arguably the ultimate Jewish taboo – there might be other routes by which we could overcome a semantic disagreement." "The reality of the situation, whatever nomenclature genocide scholars may consider most appropriate – genocide, genocidal warfare, permanent security, urbicide, social death –the Israeli state this time has dissolved any remaining vestige (if ever there was one) of moral unassailability and given other (liberal or illiberal) states who might have their own unfinished reckonings with communal adversaries the respectability of open season to do their worst."
"Luego de rechazar cualquier discurso de odio o discriminación, llamaron a los universitarios de todo el país a apoyar diversas acciones, entre ellas sumarse al exhorto que lanzaron mas de mil 600 académicos de todo el continente a los gobiernos progresistas de América Latina para que actúen de forma conjunta contra el 'genocidio' y presionen por un alto al fuego inmediato." ["After rejecting any hate speech or discrimination, they called on university students throughout the country to support various actions, including joining the exhortation launched by more than 1,600 academics from all over the continent to the progressive governments of Latin America to act together against the 'genocide' and press for an immediate ceasefire."]
"Israel did not commit genocide, the number of civilians who were killed is proportional to the number of combatants, it is lower than any war in modern history. Israel is trying its best to preserve civilian life, whereas Hamas is doing its best to take civilian lives."
"Furthermore, as the civilian/combatant distinction has collapsed, and given the scale of civilian destruction, it appears the distinction between the targeted bombing promised by 'humane war' and indiscriminate bombing has largely vanished. Since everything from taking shelter in hospitals or fleeing for safety is declared a form of human shielding, the entire civilian population has been transformed into a legal target. This too is the logic of genocide." "Terms like 'civil war', 'conflict', and even 'counterinsurgency' frequently serve as legal cover for genocide, and in its wake, form the repertoire of genocide denial." "For many, the killing of Palestinians in Gaza is justifiable self-defense. In the wake of 7 October, America and European allies offered support for Israel's unrestrained 'right to defense' for 'permanent security' in the tradition of America's own War on Terror. The problem is, genocides are also premised on the right to security and self-defense against an existential threat."
"Didier Fassin joue un rôle de lanceur d'alerte lorsqu'il écrit le 1er novembre 2023 : « Alors que la plupart des gouvernements occidentaux continuent de dire 'le droit d'Israël à se défendre' sans y mettre de réserves autres que rhétoriques et sans même imaginer un droit semblable pour les Palestiniens, il y a en effet une responsabilité historique à prévenir ce qui pourrait devenir le premier génocide du XXIe siècle. »" ["Didier Fassin plays the role of whistleblower when he writes on November 1, 2023: 'While most Western governments continue to say "Israel's right to defend itself" without any reservations other than rhetorical ones and without even imagining a similar right for the Palestinians, there is indeed a historical responsibility to prevent what could become the first genocide of the 21st century.'"]
"The good news was the International Court of Justice did not effectively order us to wait to be tortured and murdered, by demanding a halt to the Gaza War. That is certainly good – but only in the twisted world where the ICJ is putting Israel, not Hamas, on trial for the absolutely absurd charge of genocide."
"The dynamic of violence since 7 October then is not a qualitative transmutation, but a corollary of the path-dependent history of the conflict: asymmetrical power relations, and annihilatory attitudes towards civilians." "It is also evident to most observers that the Israeli reaction is unmistakably counter-genocidal in terms of the quantity, quality, and dynamic of mass violence. Even if we disregard the quantitative dimension of the ongoing death toll, an analysis of the qualitative elements of the violence indicates a complex process of destruction."
"On 7 October, Gaza became a laboratory for genocidal violence. I use this term to distinguish it from genocide per se, to refer to violence that has certain genocidal characteristics but not others." "Considering the importance of settler colonialism as a frame of analysis in genocide studies, we may do well to consider Gaza as a laboratory not just for the dynamic of settler colonialism and its contemporary relevance as underlying hegemonic legal, political, and moral frameworks, but also for the politics of applying this frame and its moral implications."
"The people who surround him —Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — are more overtly fascist. They believe in violence. Their camp murdered Yitzhak Rabin. They hold and defend Jewish supremacist views. Their declarations after Oct. 7 amounted to calls to genocide (even though I do not think Israel is committing genocide)."
"Israel is fighting back legitimately in Self-Defense in Response and in Self-Defense against Future Genocidal Attacks that Employ Citizens as Human Shields. The Geneva Conventions specifically outlaw use of human shields and justify fighting back in response. Self-Defense does not include genocidal intent."
"Increasing partisanship in Genocide Studies threatens the field itself" "An endless stream of interventions in the media accompanied and followed these initiatives, exhibiting mounting polarisation and politicization" "This public split among scholars prompted the Journal of Genocide Research, the leading and oldest periodical in the field, to organise a forum on the topic 'Israel-Palestine: Atrocity Crimes and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies'. It invited a small number of leading figures in the field" "Overall, in the forum, there was uneven worry about the health of the field, but near consensus that what Israel is doing in Gaza is certainly 'genocidal' if not outright genocide" "I also stand by my point that the increasing polarisation and partisanship in the field, together with the 'major democracies' simultaneously assuming the role of participants and deniers, is a very serious blow to the whole endeavour of genocide prevention."
"Indeed, for 40 years now, Israel has been regularly accused of committing genocide by its ideological opponents. But apart from thunderous declarations, no evidence of genocide has ever been produced. Today, of course, it's being brought up again, mostly by people who have no particular expertise in the field."
"The IDF campaign has left much of Gaza in ruins, displacing people and creating a massive refugee and humanitarian crisis. However, the use of excessive force stems from an aversion to [Israeli military] casualties, not genocidal intent. If the massive assault on Gaza is not genocide, it may constitute a war crime, although that will be hard to prove.
"Trachtenberg testified to a consensus opinion among historians of genocide that what is happening in Gaza can indeed be called a genocide, largely because the intent to cause death on a massive scale has been so clear in the statements of Israeli officials. 'We are watching the genocide unfold as we speak,' he said. 'We are in this incredibly unique position where we can intervene to stop it, using the mechanisms of international law that are available to us.'"
"It should be noted that genocide is an incredibly difficult crime to prove. Genocide refers to any of a series of acts – such as the killing or the transfer of children—undertaken with 'intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.' Historically, courts have struggled to prove the relevant intent, which is not just murder but a concerted policy to destroy a people as a whole. For South Africa to win this case, it will need to find and provide evidence that the Israeli government's intent was not merely to prevent attacks such as those of October 7 or to degrade the capability of Hamas, but rather to annihilate the Palestinian people as a whole."
"It is a similar exercise that I want to propose here about the arguments used by those who have championed the right of Israel to defend itself at whatever cost for Palestinian civilians and have attacked those who have alerted the world to the risk of a genocide being perpetrated in Gaza" "As the destruction of public infrastructures, including hospitals and schools, and the tally of civilian casualties, mostly children and women, increased in Gaza on a scale never seen before in Palestine, the qualification of the war crimes committed by Israel as possibly a genocide by scholars, lawyers, experts from international organizations and even governments has generated hostile reactions in Israel and among supporters of the Israeli politics of retaliation, mostly in Western countries." "The critics of this qualification, many of them academics, maintained that a state created for a people victim of the quintessential genocide could not be suspected of committing a similar crime" "Alerting to the prospect of a genocide being perpetrated in Gaza is stigmatized as an unconscious desire to have a genocide perpetrated against the Jews."
"The ongoing genocide of the Palestinians is a defining moment, with white supremacists supporting the genocide of non-white peoples, and the people of the rest of the world who understand Israel to be a genocidal European settler colony, supported by current and former white colonial countries, opposing them."
"Just two months after this special issue was finalized Israel launched its catastrophic, genocidal assault on Gaza." "As this timely and crucially important volume demonstrates Israel's genocide of the Palestinians is bound both to the logic of settler colonialism and to the necessity of its abolition." "What we are witnessing now, not only in Gaza but across historic Palestine is the denouement in Israel's genocide of the indigenous Palestinians...a second Nakba and as Knesset member Arial Kallner demanded one that dwarfs the Nakba of 1948."
"I imagine most of us who have been watching the genocide unfold on our screens day after day, while one national, and then international institution after the other has so blatantly and brazenly upheld its bias in favour of Israel in ways that has shown Empire's full nudity to the world. And yet, watching the ICJ this morning in its hallowed halls I WANT TO believe that law can save Gaza. That 'legal order' can be restored against the genocidal chaos."
"These are the signs of the genocidal process in Israel's war in Gaza: Israel's leaders persist in conflating all Palestinian people with Hamas. [classification]; Israel's leaders incite genocide against Palestinians by dehumanizing Palestinians as 'human animals' and by summoning Biblical justification for genocide [dehumanization, polarization]; Israel collectively punishes all Gazans for the actions of Hamas. Israel's leaders deny that there are any innocent civilians in Gaza. This falsehood denies any duty to obey the laws of war, which require avoidance of attacks on civilians. [dehumanization, polarization]; This collective punishment is used to justify the bombing and killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian women, children, and noncombatants, including at least 85 journalists [persecution, extermination]; Israel has forcibly displaced 1.7 million Gazans from their homes into tent cities [persecution]; Israel bombs and assaults hospitals where wounded civilians seek medical care and shelter [persecution, extermination]; Israel bombs Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza [persecution, extermination]; Israel bombs and attacks areas in Gaza to which it has directed civilians for their 'safety' [persecution, extermination]; Israel bombs 'escape routes' it has designated for Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks [persecution, extermination]; Israel's blockade and siege of Gaza is producing widespread famine [persecution, extermination]."
"This pattern is quite extraordinary because the states supporting Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high moral and legal ground for themselves and have long lectured the states of the Global South about the importance of the rule of law, human rights, and respect for international law. This is instead of urging compliance with international law and morality by both sides in the face of the most transparent genocide in all of human history. In the numerous pre-Gaza genocides, the existential horrors that occurred were largely known after the fact and through statistics and abstractions, occasionally vivified by the tales told by survivors. The events, although historically reconstructed, were not as immediately real as these events in Gaza with the daily reports from journalists on the scene for more than three months."
"The Israeli government is starving Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court's binding order" "The Israeli government has simply ignored the court's ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid"
"One month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered 'immediate and effective measures' to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Israel has failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply, Amnesty International said today."
"Michael Fakhri says denial of food is war crime and constitutes 'a situation of genocide'" "In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide."
"While the International Court of Justice judgment should be welcomed, it is hard to imagine why there isn't an immediate call for a cease-fire and a full-fledged acknowledgment of Israel's committed war crimes and acts of genocide." "Higher education may be one of the few sites left where prominent issues such as the genocidal war on Gaza can be analysed, engaged, and subject to the rigours of history, a comprehensive analysis, and relevant evidence."
"Israel's assault on Gaza appears to include both acts and intent stated in the definition of genocide.", "President Biden, do not let the United States go down in history as the enabler of genocide"
"Finkel reasonably concluded that it was 'hard to imagine a more actionable template to destroy a national group', and that the 'combination of official statements denying Ukraine and Ukrainians the right to exist, and mounting evidence of deliberate, large-scale targeting of Ukrainian civilians' left 'little room for doubt' that 'the threshold from war crimes to genocide' was crossed." "Applying the same standard indicated by Finkel to the Israeli mainstream political and media discourse about Palestinians, the threshold from war crimes to genocide has been crossed before 7 October. In May 2023, a clear template to destroy a national group was proposed by Jeffrey Camras in an article in the Times of Israel. Camras proposed that 'in order to right a wrong, in order to make peace and move forward, Palestine must be obliterated.'" "Nonetheless, no Holocaust scholar viewed this situation in the way Finkel saw Russia's attack on Ukraine. Most Holocaust scholars, in fact, never even mentioned the large body of evidence of Israeli international crimes in the fifty-six years of Israeli occupation." "The very different ways in which Holocaust scholars, on the one hand, and those working in Genocide Studies, on the other, have responded to the unfolding mass violence in Israel and Palestine after 7 October point to an unprecedented crisis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. We argue that the crisis stems from the significant evidence for genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza, which has exposed the exceptional status accorded to Israel as a foundational element in the field, that is, the idea that Israel, the state of Holocaust survivors, can never perpetrate genocide."
"Israel's efforts to defend itself against Hamas, even if found to involve killing disproportionate number of civilians, do not turn Israel into a genocidal actor comparable to the Nazis or the Hutu regime in Rwanda. The genocide charge depends on intent. And Israel, as a state, is not fighting the Gaza War with the intent to destroy the Palestinian people." "These relevant facts matter for putting the genocide charge into the context of potential antisemitism. Neither South Africa nor other states have brought a genocide case against China for its conduct in Tibet or Xinjiang, or against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. There is something specifically noteworthy about leveling the charge at the Jewish state—something intertwined with the new narrative of the Jews as archetypal oppressors rather than archetypal victims. Call it the genocide sleight of hand: if the Jews are depicted as genocidal—if Israel becomes the very archetype of a genocidal state—then Jews are much less likely to be conceived as a historically oppressed people engaged in self-defense."
EJIL:Talk! – Blog of the European Journal of International Law
"South Africa will be able to present considerable evidence of knowing destruction, from the mouths of UN officials and representatives of non-governmental aid organizations." "The 'conditions of life' were imposed not merely on discrete sectors of the group, but on its entirety. Israel had control over both egress and ingress from the relevant territory. No intent alternative to that of destruction was apparent."
"By analysing the patterns of violence and Israeli policies in its onslaught on Gaza, the present report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that Israel has committed genocide has been met. One of the key findings of the report is that the Israeli executive and military leadership and Israeli soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people"
"The scale of violence of the recent Israeli war has already exceeded the initial stages of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and is becoming an immense ethnic cleansing comparable with the Armenian case. In light of the bellicose discriminatory discourses of the Israeli leaders, systematic destruction of civilian targets, forced starvation, and rapidly deteriorating hygiene conditions in Gaza, there are ample grounds to believe that the war on Gaza will develop into a full-fledged genocide if unchecked."
"These facts demonstrate a pattern of behaviour giving rise not only to specific violations of IHL and of crimes against humanity but also, when taken together with the evidence of genocidal intent in statements by senior Israeli officials cited by the ICJ in its Provisional Order, a serious risk of genocide. That risk relates in particular to the Genocide Convention Article II (a) 'killing members of the group'; (b) 'causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group'; and (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part". "In light of the infant and maternal mortality rates and the destruction of Gaza's healthcare system described above, these facts may also give rise to violations of Article II(d), i.e. 'imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group'."
"Il n'y a pas de génocide à Gaza, il n'y a pas de massacre délibéré des populations civiles" ["There is no genocide in Gaza, there is no deliberate massacre of civilian populations."]
"Of course this is not a genocide. It is absolutely clear. But it doesn't mean that I justify what Israel does in Gaza. I think the killing that we cause there is what is called in academic language mass atrocities crimes. But obviously all comparisons to genocide are baseless."
"Este viernes, Docentes con Palestina ha convocado concentraciones a mediodía en todos los centros de enseñanza de Galicia en solidaridad con el pueblo palestino, para alertar una vez más del genocidio y para que el alumnado educado en el siglo XXI sea consciente de que está viviendo en directo uno de los peores horrores que han ocurrido en la historia de la raza humana." ["This Friday, Teachers with Palestine has called for midday rallies in all educational centres in Galicia in solidarity with the Palestinian people, to warn once again of the genocide and so that students educated in the 21st century are aware that they are living in directly one of the worst horrors that have occurred in the history of the human race."] "'Explicar que ahora mismo está ocurriendo un genocidio y exigir su final es difícil, pero es una tarea absolutamente pedagógica', sostiene." ["'Explaining that a genocide is happening right now and demanding its end is difficult, but it is an absolutely pedagogical task,' he maintains."]
"No. There is no genocidal intent on the Israeli side. Some members of the Israeli government want to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza and relocate them. But fortunately, they are not the decisive force in government."
"Israel's conduct in Gaza, and the US's active legal support for it, forces us to grapple with the seemingly unthinkable: a perfectly legal genocide, that is a genocide legitimized via a permissive interpretation of IHL." "By turning to Gaza, I show that Israel has mobilized a deeply permissive account of IHL to justify its use of starvation as a tool of genocide." "Notably absent from Power's statement was the stance for which she became famous: moral condemnation of a US administration that responds to genocide by rendering 'the bloodshed two sided and inevitable, not genocidal.'"
"Genocidal pressures were building up against the Palestinians well before the siege of Gaza that began in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. In Israel it is now perfectly normal to call for genocide against the Palestinians; whereas to the contrary, it is looked upon as treason to defend Palestinian life."
Literary critic, philosopher, and historian specialising in genocide
Law for Palestine
"The genocide of Gaza, a region with a history of remarkable artistic and intellectual creativity that spans centuries, is therefore harming humanity collectively. Meanwhile, Zionism's aggressively escalating settler colonialism is disgracing Israel's own position in history."
"Last month, our organisation, Law for Palestine, made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, characterising the crime of genocide committed by Israeli leaders against the Palestinian people. The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases." "We also refer to the database we have put together of more than 500 instances of Israeli incitement to genocide as additional proof. While the statements form a substantial part of the intent component of the crime of genocide, the submission goes beyond and highlights the various actions and official policies that additionally prove intent."
"The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court. It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide – and this is something where I'm correcting what's often said in the media – it didn't decide that the claim of genocide was plausible. It did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide. But the shorthand that often appears, which is that there's a plausible case of genocide, isn't what the court decided."
"The law professor does not expect a clear conviction of Israel in the South Africa-Israel case, nor a clear dismissal of the lawsuit." "According to Article II of the Convention, a breach occurs when an actor implements the intention to destroy a group of people in whole or in part by killing, injuring or restricting the living conditions of said group. In the case of Israel, there is no 'smoking gun' that clearly proves such an intention, explained Goldmann. Statements by Israeli politicians in the media are 'non-authoritative sources'"
"Her lawyers and international academics have condemned Hebrew University for fuelling months of political attacks on one of their faculty in the run-up to her detention. The rector called on her to resign in late 2023 after she signed a letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and describing Israel's campaign as genocide, and she was briefly suspended over the podcast cited in her interrogation."
"That application was preceded by weeks of public debate and insistence by Palestinians and others – including genocide scholars – that Israel was either already committing genocide against the residents of Gaza or risked committing genocide [...] The law of genocide often tells us to disregard what our eyes leave little doubt is happening. This creates a profound disconnect between the legal definition of genocide and popular and historical experiences and understandings of the term. By situating the catastrophe in Gaza both within Israel's long history of eliminationist violence towards Palestinians and fine-tuned legal arguments, South Africa has brought the law into line with the historical reality and lived-experiences of the victims of genocide, forcing a dialectical conversation between two, often, opposing planes – the law on genocide and the reality of genocide."
"Legal discourse needs to match the reality of horror to maintain its relevance. Although legal scholars and commentators were slow to recognize the severity and urgency of the situation, this article sought to show that there is an emerging consensus that Israel's actions in Gaza are not another instance of armed conflict but instead amount to genocide. This genocide is committed against an integral component of the Palestinian people, a protected group under the Genocide Convention. The preceding discussion shows that obstacles facing a legal determination of genocide (namely, assessing the credibility of military logic and the existence of genocidal intent) are not insurmountable. The emerging consensus described here may not be overwhelming and will have to face opposition and potential judicial disagreement. Yet an overwhelming body of evidence supports it and a consistency in the application of standards requires it."
"La introducción al texto presentado por los catedráticos enumera cinco peticiones dirigidas al rector de la UCM: una condena 'clara y explícita' de la destrucción deliberada de las universidades palestinas y el ataque a profesores, estudiantes y personal universitario; la petición de alto al fuego 'inmediato y permanente'; la cancelación de toda colaboración con universidades israelís 'que se relacionen con el genocidio de Gaza'; financiar programas para acoger a estudiantes y maestros palestinos; y la cancelación de toda colaboración con empresas o instituciones 'que otorguen un apoyo directo o al genocidio en Gaza'." ["The introduction to the text presented by the professors lists five requests addressed to the rector of the UCM: a 'clear and explicit' condemnation of the deliberate destruction of Palestinian universities and the attack on professors, students and university staff; the request for an 'immediate and permanent' ceasefire; the cancellation of all collaboration with Israeli universities 'that are related to the genocide in Gaza'; funding programmes to welcome Palestinian students and teachers; and the cancellation of any collaboration with companies or institutions 'that provide direct support or genocide in Gaza'."]
"This paper traces the continuity of Israel's settler colonial policies and practices of massacre and genocide, beginning with the 1948 Nakba, continuing up to today's Genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. It argues that genocide is a fundamental feature of the structure of settler colonialism. It is a process and not an event. Since 1947, Israel's settler colonialism has been accompanied by unrelenting military, juridical, geographical, economic, ideological, psychological, and cultural violence against Indigenous Palestinians."
"What we see now are massacres which are part of the genocidal impulse, namely to kill people in order to downsize the number of people living in Gaza"
"I ultimately do not see sufficient grounds for genocide if one takes the legal term seriously." "Even if individual actions by the Israeli armed forces can be described as war crimes, they do not [necessarily - added by me] at the same time constitute genocide."
"«Certain statements by Israeli politicians were genocidal». There was talk of extermination. «But the actions of the Israeli army are, in my opinion, directed against Hamas and not against the entire population»" "He does not believe that the International Court of Justice will find a generational[sic]intent to commit genocide in the South Africa v. Israel case."
"S'agissant de Gaza, la qualification de génocide peut également être sérieusement envisagée au regard, notamment, de la systématicité des attaques, de leur sens, et de leur inscription dans une offensive plus large contre la population civile." ["With regard to Gaza, the qualification of genocide can also be seriously considered in view, in particular, of the systematic nature of the attacks, their meaning, and their inclusion in a broader offensive against the civilian population."] "C'est à ce moment qu'un élément inédit a été avancé en faveur d'Israël : une interview de l'ancienne présidente de la Cour internationale de justice, Joan Donoghue, affirmant que la juridiction n'aurait pas reconnu une affaire plausible de génocide (a « plausible case of genocide »). Rappelons ici que, dans son ordonnance du 26 janvier 2024, la cour affirme que le droit des Palestiniens d'être protégés contre les actes de génocide est plausible (§§ 36, 54), et qu'il existe une urgence, c'est à dire un « risque réel et imminent » de préjudice irréparable causé aux droits revendiqués (§ 61, 74). Il s'agit bien d'un risque de génocide, même si la cour n'emploie pas la formule « affaire plausible de génocide ». Les médias se sont précipités sur les propos ambigus de Joan Donoghue pour minimiser le sens de l'ordonnance et réfuter l'emploi du terme génocide." ["It was at this point that a new element was put forward in Israel's favour: an interview with the former President of the International Court of Justice, Joan Donoghue, stating that the court would not have recognised a plausible case of genocide. Let us recall here that, in its order of 26 January 2024, the court affirms that the right of Palestinians to be protected against acts of genocide is plausible (§§ 36, 54), and that there is an emergency, that is to say a 'real and imminent risk' of irreparable harm caused to the rights claimed (§§ 61, 74). This is indeed a risk of genocide, even if the court does not use the phrase 'plausible case of genocide'. The media rushed to seize on Joan Donoghue's ambiguous remarks to minimize the meaning of the order and refute the use of the term genocide."]
"A fierce military response facing unprecedented challenges in the history of warfare – because of a highly densely populated urban area, an underground city built below a civilian population – has become in the eyes of many a bona fide case of genocide" "Jews, Zionists and moderate people from all political parties and religions have watched the campus protests unfold in amazement, unable to believe the unselfconscious double standards, the baselessness of the historical parallels" "these protests give me no choice but to ask myself if, after all, something like the phantasmagoric irrationality of antisemitism is at work here."
Professor of social welfare; Professor of social work
Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work
"Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the most-read article published in 2023 was a special editorial on Justice for Palestine included in issue four (Ballantyne et al., 2023). This was a statement by editorial collective members on the situation in Palestine. In the context of the genocide, we were all witnessing on our television screens and the silence of the IFSW on this matter, we felt compelled to comment. Since that editorial was published in December 2023, the horrifying death toll has not stopped climbing, and despite the statements made by the International Criminal Court to halt the ground invasion of Rafah, Israel continues its assault on Gaza and the West Bank unabated. The editorial collective continues to express our utmost solidarity with the Palestinian people and our deep concern for the future prospects of an international rules-based order that respects all peoples' human rights, including the right to self-determination."
"this research will also contribute to the related field of the social sciences as being the first clear example of genocide acts perpetuated by Israel so far in one of the whole Palestine territory like the Gaza Strip." "At first, it will not be wrong to claim that the Palestinian cause regarding recent Israeli Gaza assaults is a trickling genocide, slow but relentless."
"Conditions for the emergence of a Jewish genocidal mindset in Israel evolved gradually since the 1970s." "Positioned at the core of rural Palestinian life, these settlements serve as intellectual incubators and experimental laboratories of genocidal politics, chief of which is ethnic cleansing." "By and large, though the IDF avoids drafting the most radical and violent members of Hardal, given the growing size of this demographic within the army, including among the officers' corps and the growing number of soldiers who sympathize or directly belong to these genocidal circles especially on the field level, their influence is growing." "A decade later, and in the context of the current war in Gaza, the rhetoric of a genocidal Jewish Holy War is being pushed into the mainstream like never before and is featured in many of its ground operations, especially among the ranks of the more popular infantry and armoured divisions."
Q: "For all of the condemnation of Israel's actions, there is also strong opposition to Israel's actions being labeled a genocide. Where does that pushback come from?".
A: "The opposition is political, as there is consensus amongst the international human rights legal community, many other legal and political experts, including many Holocaust scholars, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza."
"Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population of Gaza, and its extensive network of tunnels provides its combatants the ability to move around quickly. Even if Israel's bombers were intent on minimizing harm to civilians, they would have had difficulty doing so in their effort to destroy Hamas. And yet, even believing this, I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."
Yes
No
Comments about how these actions are "indicative of genocide" are already in article attributed to Neier via this CNN interview
"'Given the extent of the war crimes and the military operations carried out by the Israeli army on the ground, this situation can be considered genocide according to a growing number of international lawyers,' Jacquet said."
"US president Joe Biden, along with British foreign secretary David Cameron, were also isolated in their backing for Israel's genocidal offensive in Rafah."
"I firmly believed, and continue to do so, that the Israelis had every right to retaliate against Hamas and to free those Israelis being held hostage by Hamas." "Under the cover of the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli 'settlers' on the West Bank are attacking Palestinian villages, forcibly removing the occupants from their homes and land, beating them (and in certain cases killing them), and stealing said land. And those Israeli thugs are doing so while under the protection and support of the Israeli army and police." "It is crystal clear that both Hamas and the Israelis have already perpetrated, at the least, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Various others have also accused both Hamas and the Israelis of genocide. An international court will adjudicate this."
Professor of social work;
Professor of social work;
Professor of social work;
Professor of social work];
Organizer;
Professor of social work
Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work
"Since October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed Israel's unrelenting mass assault against the people of Gaza, killing more than 37,000 Palestinians. The response to this genocide in most sectors of professional society has largely been one of denial and suppression of solidarity with Palestine, unveiling extremes of the longstanding Palestine exception in progressive politics. This article contextualizes the social work profession's response to Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinian people after October 7, 2023, including responses from schools of social work, social work agencies and organizations, and academic journals."
"'The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza,' Mr Mordechai said in the introduction to a report he published."
Yes
No
The report, he previously wrote an article in Jacobin in April 2024 about the ongoing war crimes of the IDF, available here.
"A majority of Middle East scholars see Israeli motives in Gaza to be about forcing Palestinians out [57%]" "How would you define Israel's current military actions in Gaza? Response: Major war crimes akin to genocide (41%), Genocide (34%), Major war crimes but not akin to genocide (16%), Unjustified actions but not major war crimes (4%), Justified actions under the right to self-defense (4%)".
"He emphasised that, despite Israel's own repetition of genocidal intent, 'Western leaders are guilty of viewing Palestine and Israel through the prejudiced prism of a merciless Palestinian terrorists against the gentle Jewish victims who are desperately maintaining the only democracy in the Middle East.'"
"Después de ocho meses de genocidio en Gaza y más de 37.000 muertos palestinos, son cada vez más las voces que llaman al boicot académico a las universidades israelíes." ["After eight months of genocide in Gaza and more than 37,000 Palestinian deaths, there are more and more voices calling for an academic boycott of Israeli universities."] "Existen ya diversos casos particulares de represión directa desde las universidades contra profesorado crítico con el genocidio." ["There are already several particular cases of direct repression from universities against professors critical of the genocide."] "Al contrario, las universidades israelíes han sido una fuerza activa en la legitimación y mantenimiento de un sistema de segregación que ha sido considerado equivalente al apartheid sudafricano. Ahora mismo son colaboradores necesarios en el genocidio en curso." ["On the contrary, Israeli universities have been an active force in legitimizing and maintaining a system of segregation that has been considered equivalent to South African apartheid. Right now they are necessary collaborators in the ongoing genocide."]
"There have been several genocide cases now at the International Court of Justice. I think the case that South Africa is setting out is easily the strongest case of genocide. The differences between, for example, the situation in the Balkans where the borders were largely open and porous and where people could flee, we don't have that in Gaza. The statements made by politicians in Israel, the notorious statements about how the Gazans are inhumane or 'human animals' was one of the terms, statements like, we're going to deny you electricity, water, medical care. The destruction of the institutions, all of these things add up and make for a very strong case... I can't entirely predict what the judges are going to do. And you certainly could exaggerate the importance of these provisional measures orders and suggest that they represent some kind of a determination of the issue, that is yet to come."
"The genocide in Gaza is an opportunity for Canada to change that. A majority of Canadians may want to see a ceasefire in Gaza, but are they or their political representatives prepared to condemn the genocide?"
"In my view, the criteria for genocide are not fulfilled, because the intention to commit genocide is not the only plausible motive for the use of violence. Israel justifies its attacks in the Gaza Strip with the right to self-defense and with the aim of freeing the hostages. This is permitted under international law, albeit perhaps within narrower limits than Israel is currently exercising."
"I admit that, at first, I was reluctant to call it genocide, and sought any indication to convince myself that it is not. No one wants to see themselves as part of a genocidal society. But there was explicit intent, a systematic pattern, and a genocidal outcome — so, I came to the conclusion that this is exactly what genocide looks like. And once you come to this conclusion, you cannot remain silent."
"We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza. We call upon the international community to prioritise the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel's siege, and establish a ceasefire."
"By comparing contemporary examples of starvation warfare in Artsakh and Gaza, I seek to reintroduce the concept of genocide by attrition formulated by Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (1944). Helen Fein's 1997 essay 'Genocide by Attrition, 1939–1993: The Warsaw Ghetto, Cambodia, and Sudan', gave formal nomenclature to this genocidal tool." "The carceral conditions produced by the 2006 enclosure of the Gaza Strip could be called Gazification. Land and territory are not only bifurcated with a discrete line separating two parts, but are fractured several times over through the creation of physical and digital checkpoints, 'safe zones', and border inspections designed to make life suffocatingly unlivable. In order to survive, superfluous beings who resist these necropolitical forces live fugitive lives. Gazification should, therefore, be understood as an instrument of genocide by attrition that predates Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7."
"the moment Israel invokes international law to frame everything above ground in Gaza as a potential shield, it operationalizes the law itself as a tool legitimizing genocide. It's hard to overstate the frightening consequences of this maneuver. If the international legal apparatus can be used to justify acts that can destroy a people, 'in whole or in part', then the rules-based order created in the aftermath of World War II to regulate war according to humanitarian principles becomes a tool for its own undoing."
Postdoctoral researcher in Politics, Philosophy, and Religion
SEPAD: Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation
"I have listened to academics in these different disciplines explore sovereignty, and after much reflection on the current genocide in Gaza, I am now convinced that sovereignty, in itself, is a concept weaponized to order and maintain European and Western hegemony over the global majority."
"The Law for Palestine project, a UK based human rights organization has so far documented over 500 statements made by Israeli officials which could potentially amount to incitement of genocide, which is prohibited under international law." "Are these individuals advocating for nuclear war or inciting? Is calling for the use of nuclear weapons, the same as calling for genocide?"
"Like anti-antisemitism, anti-colonialism too, instead of unsettling the purity of Western conscience, becomes a powerful tool for generating a perfect logos of absolute humanity that condemns its enemies as evil and unleashes holy wars. This is a danger that should be considered in countering the Israeli genocide narrative with a Palestinian genocide, or by depicting the Hamas attacks on 7 October as a ghetto uprising instead of as a pogrom." "ongoing exterminatory violence by Israel in Gaza"
"By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions."
"This brings me to the comparisons between two recent cases: the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Notwithstanding the vastly different histories leading up to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, they both share an important similarity: the allegations of genocide against Russia and Israel." "If Israel was using self-defence as its mode of reasoning, Russia was protecting the populations in Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic and Ukraine from violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Russian actions rendered immaterial whether Ukraine was in fact committing acts of genocide or not, as do Israeli arguments of self-defence. Russian and Israeli 'responsibility to protect' those in its (former) colonies was a strategy of empire that is not unknown."
"'The case for the US's complicity in genocide is very strong,' said Dr Shahd Hammouri, lecturer in international law at the University of Kent and the author of Shipments of Death. 'It's providing material support, without which the genocide and other illegalities are not possible. The question of complicity for the other countries will rely on assessment of how substantial their material support has been.'"
"Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been accused of 'massacring' Palestinian civilians, even attempting a 'genocide' on the Palestinian population in Gaza, as stated in a Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor posting on 16 May 2024, and reposted that same day by Relief Web, a news service provided by the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Such accusations lack factual foundation about how the war against Hamas has been conducted." "But there is no evidence whatsoever of any deliberate Israeli policy or plan to kill civilian Palestinians in Gaza that would remotely warrant terms like 'massacre' or 'genocide'."
"The feminist truism that women are always raped in war is relied upon to confirm that mass rapes took place on October 7—a weaponization of feminism designed to shut down questions about evidence and the deliberate circulation of false narratives about rape, and, importantly, to legitimize Israeli state violence and genocide in Gaza."
"Frequently invoking Jewish scriptures as a moral source for claims of just war in Gaza, Netanyahu proclaimed '[n]ow go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' Such genocidal language is further intensified by his Manichean framing of good and evil warfare."
"While the scale and nature of the ongoing Israeli assault against the Palestinians vary by area, the totality of the Israeli acts of destruction directed against the totality of the Palestinian people, with the aim of conquering the totality of the land of Palestine, is clearly identifiable. Patterns of violence against the group as a whole warrant the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) in order to cease, prevent and punish genocide in the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory"
"The only normative definition we have, codified at the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, accurately describes the current situation in Palestine ... describes exactly what is happening in Gaza today" [172]
Professor of colonialism, specialising in the Middle East; Sociologist specialising in race and colonialism
Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies
"This is Israel's genocide, of course, but it is also the latest genocide in the long litany of dispossession, violence, and murder that has made, and consistently remakes global capitalism."
"Lorsqu'il lui est demandé si un génocide est en cours, selon les définitions du droit international, Marie Lamensch, coordonnatrice de projets à l'Institut montréalais d'études sur le génocide et les droits de la personne de l'Université Concordia, à Montréal, répond qu'il faudra encore des années pour déterminer si c'est le cas ou non. Même les plus grands experts juristes le disent, ajoute-t-elle : ils veulent attendre tous les éléments de preuve avant de se prononcer de façon définitive. Car la preuve d'un génocide est complexe, et pour obtenir une condamnation, il faut notamment démontrer devant la Cour l'« intention » précise de le commettre." "When asked whether genocide is occurring, as defined by international law, Marie Lamensch, project coordinator at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, says it will take years to determine whether or not that is the case. Even the greatest legal experts say so, she adds: they want to wait for all the evidence before making a definitive decision. Because proving genocide is complex, and to obtain a conviction, it is necessary to demonstrate before the Court the precise 'intention' to commit it."
Professor of global mobilities, borders, and gender
Gender, Place & Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography
"... and many supposedly decolonial and intersectional feminists have appeared incapable of connecting the realities of Gaza genocide to their previous analyses, at least in public. Above quote from Al Jazeera journalist Maram Humaid's New Year's essay, written amid genocide in Gaza sets the scene in clear terms."
"The so-called Westphalian system has been inveterately depicted and legally defined in the UN Charter as one of 'equal' 'sovereign' 'states.' Against the black letter of positive international law, the Palestinian Genocide has made evident the material reality of the formally liberal (based on the sovereign liberty of states) and democratic (obeying the equal value of the will of each state) international legal order: this is not an order of equals, neither of sovereigns nor states. Rather, as the images of decapitated boys and girls and remains of bodies show up again and again for twelve months on the screens of mobile phones, computers, and televisions, the international legal system has revealed its true core: a colonial order before our very eyes —an order of unequal subjects; sovereigns and colonized; and of states, empires, settlers, and colonies."
"What is happening in Gaza is a genocide, in my opinion, because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsion, displacement, deliberate famine, executions, the wiping out of universities, cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians create an overall picture of genocide, of the intentional and conscious shattering of Palestinian existence in Gaza. Palestinian Gaza, as a geographical, political, cultural, and human entity no longer exists. Genocide is the deliberate destruction of a collective or part of it, not of all of its individual members – and that is what is happening in Gaza today."
"The days are largely gone when Israel pretended to be investigating its own atrocities or claimed its latest attack on a school or a hospital or the UN was really the work of Hamas. It just kills away. Meanwhile its supporters in the US and Europe mobilise the law against those determined to oppose the realisation in real time of the genocidal plan against which the ICJ has warned. University departments are coerced or naively fooled into debating the evils of anti-Semitism, a term that the supporters of Zionism have successfully distorted to embrace any criticism of Israel, even it would seem a genocidal Israel."
"Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College, Dublin, said, overall, the above incidents and others mean 'South Africa has an ever-expanding repository of evidence that it can put before the [ICJ] as further evidence of genocidal intent,' which includes evidence suggesting Israel 'has not meaningfully sought to comply' with the ICJ's orders so far."
Professor in Political science, specialization in "comparative genocide studies and gender and international relations"; author of genocide textbook [181]
"Any early hesitation I had about applying the 'genocide' label to the Israeli attack on Gaza has dissipated over the past year of human slaughter and the obliteration of homes, infrastructure, and communities"
"'I fully stand behind my description of Israel's attack on Gaza as a 'textbook case of genocide' because we're still actually seeing, nearly a year into this genocidal assault, explicit and unashamed statements of intent to destroy,' he said. 'The way that intent is expressed here is absolutely unprecedented.'"
"it could be 'called a genocide, even in a narrow legal sense, for several months now' given the accumulation of Israeli attacks clearly and consistently targeting the civilian population in Gaza."
"Waxman has since qualified his stance, but still believes 'Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip — though too often brutal, inhumane, and indiscriminate — do not meet the international legal criteria of the crime of genocide.' ... Of the scholars we cited in our previous story, he was the only one who responded to my request for new comment who still did not think Israel's actions qualify as genocide."
"Aber: Die Anzeichen für einen Genozid verdichten sich. Zumindest das Risiko eines Genozids, von dem auch der IGH spricht, würde ich hier als gegeben ansehen." ["But: the signs of genocide are increasing. I would consider the risk of genocide, which the ICJ also speaks about, to be seen here."]
"The ICJ will likely not rule for years about whether the situation in Gaza meets the narrow legal definition of a genocide. But Bartov believes that the operation in Jabalia is so blatantly genocidal that 'it is possible that the ICJ will find this operation to be genocide even if it hedges on the war in Gaza as a whole.' Which is what happened in the case of Bosnia, where the massacre in Srebrenica was found to be genocide."
"Alarms have been sounded around the world with respect to analyses of the crimes unfolding in Gaza constituting genocide, with a clear trajectory that mirrors historical cases of ethnic cleansing and systemic extermination, as a continuation of decades of occupation, rampant settler colonialism, and the implementation of an apartheid regime" "These are but a handful of over hundreds of documented cases of public incitement and weaponization of genocidal language"
"Le résultat est un nombre considérable de crimes de guerre, crimes contre l'humanité et actes potentiellement génocidaires commis en majorité par l'armée israélienne" ["The consequence is an impressive number of war crimes, crimes against humanity and potentially genocidal acts committed mainly by Israeli army"]
"Ce qui se passe en Palestine – et à Gaza en particulier – est un acte qui va au-delà de la destruction physique et qui s'apparente bel et bien à un génocide culturel. Le musellement des voix créatives palestiniennes s'intègre à une politique générale visant à briser également les Palestiniens sur le plan psychique et émotionnel et s'inscrit dans un processus colonial de destruction qui suppose l'annihilation de l'identité palestinienne. En coupant le peuple palestinien de sa propre culture, en tentant de rompre les liens entre son passé et son présent, Israël cherche à effacer tous ses horizons et à le déposséder de son avenir, tout en créant de nouveaux traumatismes qui perdureront sur des générations" ["What is happening in Palestine—and in Gaza in particular—is an act that goes beyond physical destruction and truly amounts to cultural genocide. The silencing of Palestinian creative voices is part of a general policy aimed at also breaking Palestinians psychologically and emotionally and is part of a colonial process of destruction that presupposes the annihilation of Palestinian identity. By cutting the Palestinian people off from their own culture, by attempting to sever the ties between their past and present, Israel seeks to erase all their horizons and dispossess them of their future, while creating new traumas that will last for generations."]
"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."
"Lorsque toute campagne violente devient génocide, la spécificité de ce crime n'est plus visible et on nie la volonté de le distinguer, ayant justement conduit à l'adoption de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide." ["When any violent campaign becomes genocide, the specificity of this crime is no longer visible, and the desire to distinguish it, which led to the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is denied."]
"I argue that when placed in the context of the broader settler-colonial strategy of the Israeli state towards Palestine, the attack on social reproduction can be understood as a means of ethnic cleansing and genocide."
"Mais la réponse à cette question dépend d'une enquête pénale, qui permettrait de prouver non seulement les actes posés (meurtres, destructions, famine, privation de secours) mais aussi l'intention derrière ces actes, au-delà des chiffres qui eux-mêmes ne sont pas suffisants pour démontrer celle-ci." ["But the answer to this question depends on a criminal investigation, which would make it possible to prove not only the acts committed (murders, destruction, famine, deprivation of aid) but also the intention behind these acts, beyond the figures which themselves are not sufficient to demonstrate it."]
"I am neither a guru nor a judge. The courts will make a ruling, political bodies will decide in time. But I would say: There is a very strong case for arguing that Israel's response constitutes the crime of genocide."
Professor of Genders and Sexualities, specialising in feminism and decolonialism
Ethnic Studies Pedagogies
"I chronicled my teaching of a course called "Palestine Studies 1 – History, Land, Resistance, and Justice" at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in 2024 while the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza was happening in real-time with unending brutality and horror."
"This report focuses on the Israeli authorities' policies and actions in Gaza as part of the military offensive they launched in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 while situating them within the broader context of Israel's unlawful occupation, and system of apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. It assesses allegations of violations and crimes under international law by Israel in Gaza within the framework of genocide under international law, concluding that there is sufficient evidence to believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza following 7 October 2023 amounts to genocide."
"In recent months, ECCHR has been conducting independent research and analysis on the topic of genocide, and analyzing this against the available information and evidence relating to Israel's actions in Gaza (see Question 6). This process has led us to the conclusion that there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza."
"One year ago, the FIDH International Board, its governing body elected by all its member organisations, recognised, after extensive debate and examination, that Israel was carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza"
"Human Rights Watch concludes that Israeli authorities have over the past year intentionally inflicted on the Palestinian population in Gaza 'conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.' This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an 'act of genocide' under the Genocide Convention of 1948.
The crime of genocide requires acts of genocide to be committed with genocidal intent. The ICJ has said that to infer such intent from a pattern of conduct by the state, it needs to be 'the only reasonable inference to be drawn' from the acts in question.130 The pattern of conduct set out in this report together with statements suggesting some Israeli officials wished to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza may indicate such intent."
"Our 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."
"This paper investigates international expert perceptions on the applicability of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect to what has been qualified as a 'slow-motion genocide' unfolding in the Gaza Strip following the 2023 military operation conducted by Israel resulting from the Hamas October 7th attacks against Israeli civilians.", "While some commit to using the term 'genocide', such as Shaw who noted the situation in Gaza is 'inescapably genocidal', others prefer to refer to 'genocidal violence' (pre-empting criticism that the situation does not present all the characteristics of a genocide), speak of 'genocidal intent' or call for going beyond the debates on terminology to protect the people of Gaza before the situation worsens further."
No
Does not take a position, discusses the assessment of others within the framework of the Responsibility to Protect
Researcher specialising in public law at the Kohelet Policy Forum (conservative, libertarian think-tank in Israel)
San Diego International Law Journal
"While reasonable legal debates exist over the scope of permissible siege tactics, conflating lawful military strategy with allegations of war crimes or genocide risks eroding the credibility of international legal institutions."
UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
"For well over a year into the genocide, Israel’s blatant assault on the right to health in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory is plumbing new depths of impunity"
"ההגדרה הראויה לזוועות שמחוללת ישראל בעזה היא סוגיה שנתונה כבר יותר משנה בדיון בין חוקרים, משפטנים, פעילים פוליטיים, עיתונאים ואחרים — דיון שרוב הישראלים לא נחשפים אליו." [A comparative examination of the events of the past year, as we will present below, leads to the painful conclusion that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza.]
"As we assume our responsibility to guide this journal and impact our fields, we would be remiss to ignore the glaring epicenter of the prevailing global order's efforts to reproduce itself: the State of Israel's ongoing campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and its gradual expansion into the West Bank."
"In Rwanda, in Nazi Germany, in the Former Yugoslavia, in Brazil, in the US, and also in Israel, genocidal logics are consistently explained through the paradigm of modernity/coloniality. To empty these genocides from their political and historical context in a pointless search for pure hatred as the only reasonable explanation for the systematic killing of thousands, sometimes millions, of people, seems completely ahistorical and frankly gaslighting."
"It appears impossible not to connect the genocidal discourse, widespread among Israeli politicians and military commanders, and Israel's aggressive and devastating operations in Gaza, with no clear aim other than destruction itself."
"Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. The prosecutor in The Hague and all the learned professors, from Omer Bartov on down, who talk about a genocide, are wrong. The government has no policy of genocide, there is no decision by Israeli leaders to commit genocide, there is no deliberate intention to wipe out the Palestinians, and there are no orders coming from the government to the army, or from the army chiefs to the operative ranks to murder 'the Palestinians.'"
"By looking at the history, which began even before the genocide convention was completed, we can begin to deconstruct the charge itself, how it has been used against Israel over time, and the stunningly bad faith behind the genocide accusation."
No
Yes
Argues that while an accusation of genocide is not antisemitic in itself, every time Israel has been accused of genocide it has been antisemitic.
"In this reflective piece, we look at developments within universities and intellectual circles at the core of the 'liberal order' amidst an ongoing genocide."
"'Israel's attacks on Palestinian women are part of a systematic genocide strategy,' said Alsalem on Sunday. 'When looking at Israel's actions overall, it is clear that targeting the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in particular serves this purpose.'"
"This article addresses the ongoing genocidal war and extended blockade of Gaza that has been in effect since 2007, framing it as a manifestation of colonial violence against space and a collective punishment."
"The eliminatory logic of settler-colonialism, decades of active colonization, as well as the imposition of an apartheid-like regime, have necessitated escalating violence to suppress resistance, coupled with the dehumanization of Palestinians and growing indifference to their lives." "The most violent eliminatory expressions have historically emerged during periods when the Zionist settler community felt existentially threatened, and on two occasions, in 1948 and in 2023–2024, this anxiety has led to the mainstreaming of the genocidal imagination. The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 acted as the missing element for the perfect storm. The mass murder of Israeli civilians reignited deep-seated traumas of annihilation, which were further instrumentalized by political forces with long-standing eliminatory agendas. This convergence of factors resulted in unprecedented levels of revengeful sentiment, enabling genocidal rhetoric to quickly enter the mainstream, adopted by radio broadcasters, journalists, politicians, and even the President of Israel."
Nicola Pratt; Afaf Jabiri; Ashjan Ajour; Hala Shoman; Maryam Aldossari; Sara Ababneh
6 February 2025
Political scientist; Senior Lecturer of Development Studies; Sociologist; PhD researcher in Sociology; Senior lecturer in Human Resource Management; Poltiical scientist and lecturer in International Relations
"Bearing witness to the genocide in Gaza and the broader Palestinian struggle requires feminists, particularly in the West, to speak out, take action, and challenge the systems that perpetuate oppression and dispossession."
"Even with the current suspension in fighting in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, ignited by the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7th, 2023 and Israel's subsequent retaliation against the Palestinian territories beginning in late October 2023, scholars, human rights activists, and international lawyers continue to raise questions about whether the human rights atrocities and attacks on civilian life in Gaza satisfy the legal and conceptual criteria associated with the crime of genocide."
"A failure to acknowledge more fully the impact of direct violence in Gaza by the Israeli military, as sanctioned by the State of Israel, has arguably delayed meaningful global efforts to prevent further death and destruction; this situation, in our opinion, has been to the dereliction of our collective responsibility to prevent what we believe to be genocide."
"I thought – and I still think – that the conduct of Israel in Gaza is grossly disproportionate and there's at least an arguable case that it's genocidal. One can't put it higher than that because genocide depends on intent."
Maybe
No
He previously signed the "Lawyers letter" to Rishi Sunak, that argues it is a case of genocide.
"A growing body of evidence of both intent and effect now lends even greater weight to accusations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people." "Failure to uphold international legal protections and associated political commitments—most urgently in the form of action to prevent genocide—and to safeguard a minimum commitment to health and humanitarian caregiving in situations of armed conflict and genocide, will have profoundly negative consequences that extend far beyond the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine, with widespread ramifications for people the world over."
Author and journalist, focus on race and colonialism
Informed Comment
"We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can't the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy . . . and I would submit to you that if you can't draw the line at genocide, you probably can't draw the line at democracy."
"This article maps out the Gaza genocidal rhetoric onto a genealogy of European-American imaginative re-makings of the geography of Palestine. This tradition, rooted in nineteenth-century visions of ethnically cleansing and repurposing the land according to colonial and theological worldviews"
"What has been happening in Gaza since October 9, 2023, indicates an Israeli will to make the environmental damage in Gaza long-term, widespread and severe (the discourse of turning Gaza into an unlivable area or an area of epidemics and disease), which falls within the definition of the crime of genocide in the sense of murder and forced displacement, but also in the sense of environmental destruction and the slow pace of extermination."
"The first part discusses the Jewish supremacism at the heart of Israeli settler colonialism, focusing on Israel's genocide in Gaza since October 2023. It traces how genocidal rhetoric by state leaders, articulated in the language of Jewish supremacy, shaped the dynamics of violence on the ground, as documented by Israeli soldiers and officers in Gaza who described their own crimes in videos they recorded and uploaded to social media."
Bilal Hamamra; Fayez Mahamid; Dana Bdier; Mai Atiya
26 February 2025
Professor of Literature; Psychologist; Researcher in Mental Health specialising in Gender and Trauma; PhD student in educational and psychological counseling
Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health
"Thematic content analysis of the interview transcripts led to the identification of five main themes: [...] and (5) survival coping employed by Gazans following the on-going genocide against the Gaza Strip."
"Since October 2023, the US-led Western imperial alliance has not only refused to stop the genocidal onslaught, but has provided military, economic, and diplomatic support that is essential to Israel’s ability to carry out its genocidal operation. The USA sees Israel as a critical imperial outpost, which secures Western imperial interests in the region and indeed beyond, and no price including the genocide of non-Western people like the Palestinians is considered too high for achieving that goal."
Professor of Public Policy; Scholar of Internationalisation; Associate Professor of Public Policy
Higher Education
"Given the enormity of the destruction of higher education in Gaza since October 2023, understanding past trends in aid flows to higher education in Palestine and the types of aid provided by donors presents a cautionary tale for what may be coming once the conflict and genocide in Gaza end."
"In summary, it is possible that genocide is occurring in Gaza, and this should be questioned, investigated, and responded to through a precisely enunciated precautionary principle."
"Based on an analysis of various reports from international institutions, Israel's actions against Palestinians show strong indications of serious violations of international law, especially in the context of genocide and war crimes."
"Yes, this horrendous murdering of innocent civilians is not the same as previous Israeli assaults on the people of Gaza. This is ethnic cleansing and genocide."
"our organization ... filed a 172-page legal brief to the International Criminal Court urging it to investigate former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, starvation, and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza."
Muhammad Naveed Noor Sujith Kumar Prankumar Mohammed Alkhaldi Irene Torres
10 March 2025
Professor of Health Policy and Systems Research Senior Research Associate at the Kirby Institute Assistant Professor in Public Health Member of the Expert Advisory Group of the Health Systems in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings Thematic Working Group of Health Systems Global, and a member of the International Council of the Global Society on Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health.
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
"The published literature signalled a deep concern about fatalities, the destruction of infrastructure and the health and humanitarian crises in Gaza among the authors [...] Consistent with the ICJ rulings, the UNCHR.s special report, and Human
Rights Watch reports, almost a quarter of the articles claimed that Israel was
committing 'genocidal acts' in Gaza."
No
Does not take a position, but discusses some of the literature published.
"The Commission finds that the ISF intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic which was the main fertility centre in Gaza. The ISF destroyed all of the reproductive material that was stored for the future conception of Palestinians. The Commission did not find any evidence that this IVF clinic was a legitimate military target at the time that it was attacked by the ISF. The Commission concludes that the destruction of the Basma IVF clinic was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act under the Rome Statute and Genocide Convention. The Commission also concludes that this was done with the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, in whole or in part, and that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question"
"The systematic nature of the current actions against the people of Gaza can be clearly observed in the political agendas, media, and speeches of high-ranking Israeli political and military officials, which is not commonly seen in other cases of genocide or crimes against humanity."
"Gazze'de günümüzde yaşanan soykırım, Hannah Arendt'in 20. yüzyıl-da Nazi partisinin antisemitik politika izleyerek Yahudilere uzun bir dönem çeşitli işkence ve zulümleri ifade eden kötülük kuramından yararlanılarak açıklanabilir." [The genocide taking place in Gaza today can be explained by using Hannah Arendt's theory of evil, which describes the long-term torture and oppression of Jews by the Nazi party following anti-Semitic policies in the 20th century.]
"Genocide manifests itself not only in the creation of 'kill zones', where soldiers indiscriminately shoot Palestinians and in the use of lethal force against non-military targets such as hospitals and schools but also in the systematic destruction of Gaza's entire intellectual, cultural, and civic infrastructure. This calculated erosion seeks to eliminate the very fabric of Gaza's society, extending beyond physical violence to the obliteration of its historical and cultural identity."
Lecturer in International Relations, with a research focus on Mass Atrocities
Cooperation and Conflict
"But the problem is deeper than this: it is not simply that key Western states are 'standing idly by', but rather that these states are directly aiding and abetting genocidal violence."
Maybe
No
Says that genocidal violence is occurring, and compares the facilitating actions of third-states to their actions in other cases of genocide, but does not state outright that it is a case of genocide.
"This official silence around Palestine is even more striking because Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims—as well as those from other faiths, including Jewish anti-Zionists who support Palestinian solidarity and freedom—have been urgently protesting and encamping across US (and western European) campuses for months in an effort to break the institutional silence about the genocide.", "Both the genocidal violence to which Palestinians are being subjected in the twenty-first century and the way in which Palestine is denied as a major moral question in the West are out of sync with how US academic institutions, let alone the US government, like to represent themselves as liberal."
"The age pattern associated with genocide is the closest to the observed death rates due to the war, especially below the age of 40 years." "Of particular concern is the similitude between the age schedule of relative risks in the first 3 months of the current war and the UN IGME schedule of excess deaths reflecting genocide. This highlights the importance of the International Court of Justice’s request for the indication of measures from Israel to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
"Israel's political and military leaders bear the direct and most extensive responsibility for Israel's subsequent actions. I am uninterested in scholastic disputation over whether Israel’s policies include genocide, though much of what has transpired is eminently consistent with genocide through direct killing and "deliberately inflicting on the [victim] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines it."
"Now, though, due to the Houthis' defiance of Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip, the STC doesn't dare say anything against any pro-Palestinian statements from their population"
Q: "Do you classify what's happening in Gaza as a genocide?"
A: "I do, yes, no question. In this particular instance, if you're attacked personally in the domestic sense or in any other, you're entitled to defend yourself but only up to a point.
If you're attacked with somebody holding a wooden spoon, you can't use a machinegun to kill them...This has gone far beyond self-defence."
Clinical Psychologist Psychologist and director of the Alan Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare
"Yet, invoking both resilience and steadfastness may inadvertently serve the purpose of absolving the guilt of outsiders who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but feel profound helplessness while watching the genocide take place. The people of Gaza have been annihilated by starvation, the risk of infectious diseases, the destruction of their built environment and the total destruction of their cultural and religious heritage, and yet no government or state has intervened."
"Israel's deadly 2023 military assault on Gaza – recognised as genocide by humanitarian organisations – is at the heart of this article.", "The live streaming of the genocide has brought us all into a terrible, intimate witnessing of Israel’s brutality and from the perspectives of those being targeted."
International relations professor, Sociologist specialising in genocide
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
"I (believing that genocides are highly variable events, historical in the strong sense of the term), emphasised a distinctive concatenation of the long structure of conflict in Palestine, which over a decade earlier I had been one of the first to discuss in a genocide frame. In this contribution, I discuss why I initially saw (and still see) Israel's post-2023 campaign as genocidal"
"Group analytic discussions of 'chosen trauma' and the 'soldier matrix' are evaluated as analytical resources exploring subjective states enabling the current Israeli state genocide of Palestinians in Gaza."
Associate Researcher in the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics at the Freie Universität Berlin; Associate Researcher at the INTERACT Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research
"With the ever-increasing expansion of destructive military capacity, the deeper ideological penetration of social order, and the envelopment of micro-level solidarities, contemporary warfare is becoming more detached, dehumanizing, dispassionate, destructive, and ultimately genocidal. In this context, war and genocide can become indistinguishable, and Gaza might be a reliable indicator for what many future violent conflicts could look like."
"Als een hele bevolking toegang tot voedsel wordt ontzegd, is dat potentieel genocidaal." ["If an entire population is denied access to food, that is potentially genocidal."]
"NRC sprak zeven gerenommeerde genocide-onderzoekers over Gaza. Zij zijn lang niet zo verdeeld als de publieke opinie: zonder uitzondering kwalificeren ze de Israëlische acties als 'genocidaal'. En volgens hen zijn nagenoeg al hun collega's het daarmee eens." ["NRC spoke to seven renowned genocide researchers about Gaza. They are not nearly as divided as public opinion: without exception, they qualify the Israeli actions as 'genocidal.' And according to them, almost all their colleagues agree with that."]
Clinical professor of law in Human Rights; LAW clinical professor of law and director of LAW's International Human Rights Clinic; Professor of law and Senior Clinical Supervisor at the University Network for Human Rights; Professor of law and executive director of the University Network for Human Rights
"The significance of Israel's apartheid has been overshadowed by its genocidal assault on Gaza. But the two are inextricably linked. The same racial hatred fuels apartheid as much as it does genocide."
"Si les Etats occidentaux sont réticents à reconnaître qu'un génocide est perpétré à Gaza, cela tient à l'assistance qu'ils continuent d'apporter à Israël, mais aussi à la nature spécifique de ce génocide." [Western States are reluctant to acknowledge that a genocide is being committed in Gaza. This reluctance is due in part to the fact that they keep providing aid to Israel. It is also grounded in the specific nature of this genocide.]
"On the exit to the Offer Prison, near Ramallah, on the first day of the release of Palestinian political hostages and prisoners as a part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that paused one phase of the Gaza genocide (8 October 2023–19 January 2025), people noticed a large parting banner prepared by the Security Services written in three languages, with a differentiated final word. The message read: "The eternal nation does not forget. I will pursue my enemies and overtake them." The English word "overtake” appears in Hebrew as "I will get them" (asigam), and it evokes Psalm 18: 28: "I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them; neither did I turn back till they were consumed." In Arabic, the word used is abidahum, meaning "I will extinct them.""
"Serious violations of international law are being committed and are further threatened by Israel in the oPt. First, genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide occurring. The limited aid now allowed into Gaza, after an 11-week blockade on food, medical supplies and the essentials of human existence, remains gravely insufficient to address the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. Israel continues simultaneously to escalate its military operations in Gaza, while senior Israeli Ministers have expressed their intention to “take control of all the territory of the [Gaza] Strip” and “conquer, cleanse and stay – until Hamas is destroyed”, further stating “what remains of the Strip is also being wiped out.”"
"I am not against using the word genocide to describe Israel's massive, indiscriminate, and deadly military attack on Gaza. At the time of finalizing this article, more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed, many more lie still unrecovered under the debris of their bombed houses, and yet even more are under threat of starvation due to an Israeli-made famine. Raz Segal, associate
professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies and professor in the study of modern genocide, was but the first academic to analyze the situation as one of genocide. And the words of public Israelis like Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu8 leave little room to doubt the definition when it comes to "[intent] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnic or religious group.""
Maybe
No
Won't use the word genocide as she believes it limits the scope, assessment, and understanding of the situation in Palestine to the current Gaza war, but agrees that senior political and military officials show the intent necessary for genocide.
"These harrowing genocide statistics are only partially able to account for, let alone convey, a devastation which is incalculable, and which will continue to produce injuries (both physical and psychic) and deaths for years to come."
"To sum up: While it was relatively easy to dismiss (as indeed done by one of the authors here) the genocide claim in the first few months of this Gaza war invoking the high threshold of the intent to destroy, this becomes more difficult with each day this war continues in this brutal and disproportionate manner. Put differently, on the whole, the dynamics of the conflict now speak more in favour of genocide than against it"
"Israel's assault on Gaza is now widely recognised as genocidal, yet the Responsibility to Protect (r2p) has had little impact on debates over how the international community might respond to protect Palestinian civilians." "Despite the well-documented mass atrocities, now routinely portrayed as genocide, having continued for over 500 days" "We are, therefore, currently faced with the bizarre spectacle of the United States, a current member of the 'Group of Friends of the Responsibility to Protect', actively and publicly embracing genocide and ethnic cleansing as a policy position."
"Applying the legal definitions of genocide as found in the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, I would determine that what is happening in Gaza constitutes genocide"
"As far as I know, Israel is not genocidal. While I deeply, deeply deplore the killing of so many in Gaza's civil population, their death has explanations other than genocide."
"The silence of so many of our medical institutions in the face of this genocide reflects a profound failure to uphold the ethical principles these institutions claim to espouse and seek to instil in their members."
"This steady shift of the acceptable has resulted in criminal policies and practices of forcible displacement, mass suffering and genocide, all conducted under passive acquiescence or active complicity of powerful countries. "
"I have now moved to a position where I believe that we're now witnessing a genocide taking place before our eyes. I was very reluctant to go there because the threshold has to be very high. There has to be specific intent for genocide, but what we're now seeing is genocidal behaviour."
"This is not a term we use lightly. Our decision to describe what's happening in Gaza as a 'genocide' is based on nearly two years of extensive, firsthand information from our teams, who are witnessing massive levels of death and destruction by Israeli forces, a campaign of ethnic cleansing and the almost total dismantling of the health care system."
"The regime of occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and now genocide has eroded Israel’s moral capital, and opposition has not only grown, but has begun to make itself felt in a new generation of progressive activists and politicians."
Mann: "I am becoming increasingly convinced that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza." Dill: "I can imagine the ICJ ultimately ruling: Yes, it is genocide. What is happening in Gaza isn't all that far off from the historical archetype of genocide."
"I was one of the first in Germany to say that Israel was committing war crimes. And now, I say: But it falls legally short of genocide... It will not be possible to prove genocide in Gaza in the legal sense."
"the pressure is not enough on the Israeli government to stop the genocide and the starvation and the operations that the government, that the army takes in the Gaza Strip."
"While it's really slow and frustrating, one of the benefits of [the ICJ's deliberate pace] is that when the court, almost inevitably I think at this point, finds that Israel has been committing genocide, we will be able to say that there is no doubting this conclusion."
"An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
"Today, PHRI is releasing a position paper that documents this assault for what it is: a deliberate, cumulative dismantling of Gaza’s health system, and with it, its people’s ability to survive. This amounts to genocide."
"Since the 7 October massacre, Israeli officials and their accomplices have justified genocidal violence against Palestinians by equating Hamas with Nazism, instrumentalizing the memory of the Holocaust to advance, rather than prevent, mass violence. Meanwhile, too many governments materially support the genocide in Gaza while silencing protest."
"A growing consensus of Israeli and international human-rights organizations, editorial boards, Israeli Holocaust historians and former attorneys-general, as well as Canadian figures like Roméo Dallaire have all come to the same conclusion: What is happening in Gaza is a genocide."
The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:
Hasson, Nir; Yaniv, Kubovich (2024-11-11). "The Israeli Army Is Allowing Gangs in Gaza to Loot Aid Trucks and Extort Protection Fees From Drivers". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2024-11-19. …looting of the convoys reflects the complete anarchy that prevails in Gaza due to the lack of any functioning civilian government. … Defense officials confirmed that the IDF is aware of the problem. (the Israeli government) considered making the clans to which the armed men belong responsible for distributing aid to Gaza's residents, even though some of the clans' members are involved in terrorism, and some are even affiliated with extremist organizations like the Islamic State.
70.000 multiplied by 15 is just over a million. According to the infobox, this is the maximum range of the "likely" number of indirect deaths. That's half the population of Gaza. Is this hyperbole, or do any editors actually believe that there is a chance half of Gaza's pre-war population is dead? Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 13:28, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s certainly inaccurate. The quote provided is from an article written in 2008 says that it there are between "three and fifteen times" more indirect deaths than direct deaths in "recent conflicts", based on the wars in Iraq, Sudan and Sierra Leone, which are completely unrelated (and also different) from the Gaza War, and because something is true for one war does not make it true for another. One of the other sources in the citation, from the Journal of Genocide Research, states that the (total) "death toll is at least 118,908 … as of September 30, 2024". This is the number we should be using, as it's an actual estimate made by academics, and not some arbitrary "this many times" figure based on other unrelated conflicts written 15 years before the Gaza War even started. Tomissonneil (talk) 18:51, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That as many as fifteen times more people have died indirectly in Gaza than directly, the higher end of the scale stated in the 2008 document. Tomissonneil (talk) 20:53, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The three to fifteen times figure does originate from earlier conflicts, but it was used by the Lancet writers (cite 27) specifically in the context of this conflict to derive a 'conservative estimate' at a 4:1 ratio of 'up to 186,000 or even more' eventual indirect deaths resulting from the conflict presuming an immediate cessation to hostilities at the time of writing in June 2024.1 It is a widely misunderstood figure as it does not mean that there are 186,000 indirectly dead already, nor in the most extreme case would it mean that 'half of Gaza's pre-war population is dead' as Mikrobølgeovn incorrectly infers above. The figure includes people who die months and years after the end of the conflict from causes attributable to it (e.g. a post-war famine or epidemic). Several discussions were held about this previously, and consensus was ultimately to include the spectrum of 3–15:1 rather than any set figure such as 4:1. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but it's not "likely" that up to fifteen times as many people have died indirectly than the 70,000+ direct deaths so far, which is what is currently said in the infobox. Regarding the Lancet study, including deaths that have not happened yet may not be accurate, as future deaths can be very difficult to determine, and may give the reader a false impression of the current figures, depending on how it's worded. But even so, my point still stands. The 3 to 15 times as many indirect deaths is from an article written in 2008 about different wars, and even the Lancet Study does not state that up to 15 as many people have died in Gaza. How can there have been consensus to put that figure instead of "up to four times as many" estimated in the Lancet Study, (which is actually about the current Gaza war, unlike the 2008 study) is beyond me. Tomissonneil (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've managed to find the specific discussion I was thinking of in the talk page archives. I've misremembered the outcome, even though I proposed the options. The consensus at that time was to say 'multiple times higher' without specifying either a range or figure. I am unsure if a later discussion modified that outcome or if somebody re-introduced three to fifteen as a bold edit that simply went uncontested thereafter. It took quite a while to find the discussion as there are damn near fifty archive pages now. If the wording wasn't changed as a result of a later discussion, then the consensus wording is 'multiple times higher'. Mr rnddude (talk) 03:47, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to that discussion it seems like beforehand it was "magnitudes higher", which implied that more people died than the sum of the entire population. We're so accurate, I love it.
I'm not bold enough to remove or modify it atm as I had my fair share of contentions topic conversations, but it makes no sense for it to stay. Bar Harel (talk) 15:30, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indirect deaths from starvation, lack of medical care, and infections remain uncountable.76 According to a Lancet paper based on similar recent conflicts, up to 190 000 or even more deaths could be attributed to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is estimated that half a million people will be lost by the end of the year.76
@Mikrobølgeovn Where does the 72,368+ number even come from because a lot of sources on the internet say 50,000 something. Also the 72,368 number is not written even once elsewhere in the article, only in the infobox, and the sources for it are convoluted. Alexysun (talk) 18:58, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seconded. While I'd argue it was a definite contributing factor, saying it was a direct cause (as "led to" implies), seems far too strong, and we would need some strong sources to state that in WikiVoice. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, contributing factor, but a few steps indirectly. Gaza War → Hezbollah war → Israeli attacks on Iran → Syrian uprising. Arguably, even the Ukraine war was a distantly contributing factor, but thats another story for another day. Metallurgist (talk) 03:41, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Gaza war" is a mischaracterization of the war
The article and its title mischaracterize the war by leaving out of its main discussion the direct involvement of the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iran, all of whom have attacked Israel directly and been attacked by Israel in the context of the war.
The sidelining of Hezbollah is exceedingly strange given that:
They attacked on October 8 right at the beginning of the war. Hence, it's misleading to describe that front as a "spillover".
There were at the time credible Israeli fears of a simultaneous Hezbollah invasion.
The Israeli defense minister wanted to launch an attack on Hezbollah at the onset of the war.
There were Israeli attacks in Lebanon against Hezbollah at the very beginning of the war.
The effect of the Hezbollah front in the war has been ~96,000 displaced persons in Israel and ~1.4 million displaced in Lebanon.
The Israeli self-understanding of the war is that it's a war against Iran and its proxies on seven fronts[1][2]
The problem with calling it the "Gaza war" is that many might draw the conclusion that Wikipedia authors and editors can only understand the war from the perspective of a resident of Gaza. Many residents of the West Bank, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iran, and Yemen have weathered attacks in the war as well.
Avisnacks (talk) 04:38, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this has been touched on previously, though it's hard to find the relevant discussions: [291][292] If you would like to gain consensus to move, you will have to weigh the previous discussions and address what was decided there. All these fronts do come under, more properly, the Middle Eastern crisis (2003-present), and each has its own article. The Gaza war focuses chiefly on the fighting in Gaza and Israel (initially). GeoffreyA (talk) 08:35, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is about the Gaza war, not about the other conflicts that broke out related to it. It started with an attack from Gaza and most of the action has been in Gaza, hence Gaza war. Also WP:COMMONNAME. Metallurgist (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The areas of eastern Rafah under control of the Popular Forces currently aren't displayed as such in the infobox- the Popular Forces are backed by Israel but currently the map depicts those areas as being under full Israeli control which is misleading. Additionally, the red areas being described as under "Palestinian control" is misleading- those areas are under Hamas control and Hamas is a Palestinian militant group, but eastern Rafah is also under the control of a Palestinian militant group- just a different one which is allied with Israel- and none of the Gaza Strip is actually under the control of the internationally-recognized government of the State of Palestine.
As a result, I would propose changing the description of the red areas in the map from "under Palestinian control" to "under Hamas control", and using another colour e.g. green for areas under the control of the Popular Forces (and any other Palestinian militias which are allied with Israel). Thoughts?
The naming of "Palestinian control" as opposed to "Hamas control" was discussed earlier when the map was first created, and most editors agreed back then to use the term Palestinian control because there are/were about a dozen or so groups that govern Gaza besides Hamas in the Palestinian Joint Operations Room, most notably Palestinian Islamic Jihad. With regards to the pro-Israel Popular Forces, I could add a new entry to the map regarding it, but considering the territory under their control is minor for the time being, I think they should be colored with the rest of the Palestinian groups as it is right now. Adding a new entry to the legend would also break the translations, which many other editors have done in the past. Ecrusized (talk) 20:55, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because it reached for inflammatory conclusions like “systematically.”
And really, no one reads Talk, at least not in numbers which really count. Let’s please have the debate, whether constructive or not, in the edit summaries themselves. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:58, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you removed a quote from a source within the reference tags because you thought it "reached for inflammatory conclusions"?
Can you tell me where this is in WP:PAGs? I can understand editors may contest the wording of the text, but the quote from a source? That doesn't make sense to me. Bogazicili (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Talk pages are for discussions, it is strongly discouraged to try and work through an edit disagreement over edit summaries-that leads to edit warring. Talk on talk pages or do not engage in contentious topics. Mason7512 (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a need for brevity, even in quotes, even in footnotes, on a hopelessly massive page. But anything more than a minimal or initiated discussion should be on the talk page. Edit summaries are to explain and justify your action, not to debate. Metallurgist (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
85 word quote from a report with like 90 pages should be fine. It's also not part of the prose.
The "brevity" argument especially does not make sense, since FriendlyRiverOtter added lengthy quotes and content in text, increasing the prose word count [298].
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