The Hague: In a report released on Thursday, Amnesty International accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians during the Gaza war, an allegation that Israeli leaders have repeatedly refuted.
The London-based human rights organisation claimed it came to this conclusion after months of investigating instances and statements made by Israeli officials.
Amnesty International stated that the legal threshold for the crime had been met, marking the first such decision during an active armed conflict.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, created in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust's mass slaughter of Jews, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group".
Israel has continuously denied any accusation of genocide, claiming that it has followed international law and has the right to defend itself following the cross-border Hamas attack from Gaza on October 7, 2023, Reuters reported.
Israeli officials could not immediately be contacted for comment on Amnesty's allegations. Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza 14 months ago, when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli settlements across the border, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel's military operation since then has killed over 44,400 Palestinians and injured countless others.
According to Palestinian and United Nations officials, there are no safe areas left in Gaza, a small, densely populated, and heavily built-up coastal enclave. The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been internally relocated, some up to ten times.
During hearings earlier this year before the United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where Israel is accused of genocide by South Africa, Israeli lawyers refuted the charges. They contended that Israel's conduct of the war, whose avowed goal is the abolition of Hamas, lacked both genocidal intent and genocide.
When presenting the study to journalists in The Hague, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard stated that the judgement was not reached “lightly, politically, or preferentially.”
She told journalists after the presentation: "There is a genocide being committed. There is no doubt, not one doubt in our mind after six months of in-depth, focused research.”
According to Amnesty, these activities were carried out with the intent required by the convention. The organisation evaluated over 100 statements from Israeli officials.
Israel's military accuses Hamas of putting militants in inhabited areas to provide operational cover, which Hamas rejects while accusing Israel of indiscriminate attacks.
Callamard stated that Amnesty did not set out to prove genocide, but after evaluating the data and statements collectively, the only conclusion that can be reached is that "Israel is intending and has intended to commit genocide".
She added: "The assertion that Israel's war in Gaza aims solely to dismantle Hamas and not to physically destroy Palestinians as a national and ethnic group, that assertion simply does not stand up to scrutiny.”
Amnesty International urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, who has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ex-defence minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza - charges they deny - to look into allegations of genocide.
The prosecutor's office said in a statement that it is still investigating alleged crimes committed in the Palestinian territories and cannot speak further.