? Landmark report says speed and extent of damage to infrastructure totally without precedent in the 21st century
? Israel’s invasion of Palestinian territory yielded highest death tolls of children, journalists, health & humanitarian workers than any other in recent history

KARACHI: Amnesty Inter-national has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel committed prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention, namely: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.

In a landmark research-based report, titled ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, the global human rights watchdog concludes that these acts were committed with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, who form a substantial part of the Palestinian population.

Amnesty International conducted most of the research for this report between October 2023 and July 2024. In doing so, it focused on the situation on the ground during the nine-month period.

In a statement issued alongside the report, Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said their research demonstrates that “Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them”.

In the report, Amnesty Inter-national considers the possible commission of genocide by Israel from the perspective of state responsibility. It notes that Israel is a party to the Genocide Convention, and the commission of genocide by organs of the state or persons or groups whose conduct is attributable to the state accordingly gives rise to state responsibility.

For the assessment of state responsibility, the report takes two elements into account: attribution of allegedly wrongful conduct to a state and a breach of an applicable international obligation.

In the report, Amnesty notes that the conflict in Gaza has seen some of the highest known death tolls among children (13,319 by October 7, 2024), journalists, as well as health and humanitarian workers of any recent conflict in the world.

According to the latest AFP tally, a total of 44,532 Palestinians have been killed in nearly 14 months, which includes 30 deaths in the previous 24 hours. In addition, 105,538 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli offensive began last year.

“The level and speed of damage to and destruction of homes and infrastructure across all sectors of economic activity has similarly not been seen in any other conflict in the 21st century,” it notes.

By July 2024, around 63pc of the total structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed, according to a UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) satellite imagery-based assessment.

The report focuses on the Israeli authorities’ policies and actions in the occupied Gaza Strip in the context of the military offensive launched in the wake of attacks carried out by Hamas and other armed groups on Oct 7, 2023.

It assesses them within the framework of genocide under international law to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that Israel’s conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide.

But the exhaustive 296-page report — chock full of first-hand accounts, interviews, satellite imagery and analysis of videos and photos taken by journalists — covers only a small fraction of the allegations of violations and crimes under international law perpetrated by Israel. A fuller assessment, Amnesty notes, will only be possible after Israel’s current offensive has ended.

The report does address Israeli violations perpetrated against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the context of Israel’s increased repression through arbitrary restrictions on movement, an alarming spike in state-backed settler violence, the unlawful use of lethal force, mass arrests, torture and other ill-treatment, and forcible transfer, as well as aggressive settlement construction and expansion. It says that this issue is the subject of a separate investigation.

Definition of genocide

The Genocide Convention enumerates five specific acts that constitute the underlying criminal conduct of genocide.

These are: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

In terms of the mens rea, in addition to the specific intent characterising the crime of genocide, each of these acts must be committed with general intent to commit the underlying act.

The Amnesty International secretary general noted that Israel is fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza and continues to do so in defiance of countless warnings and legally binding decisions from the ICJ.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” Ms Callamard noted in her statement, released alongside the report on Thursday.

Actions urged

In its recommendations, Amnesty stresses the need for “an immediate, sustained ceasefire to save and protect civilian life, and to allow for safe, consistent and predictable routes to bring aid into and across Gaza for those who need it”.

The Amnesty report asks Israel to “immediately end and refrain, in the future, from all conduct that amounts to crimes under international law and other serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including… unlawful attacks carried out through air strikes and ground operations; the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare; the destruction of houses, land, cultural, religious and other civilian objects without imperative military necessity; collective punishment through movement restrictions and limitations on essential services; enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrest; torture and other ill treatment; and unlawful and arbitrary restrictions on other human rights, including the rights to health, education and family life.”

It calls on Israeli authorities to immediately stop the commission of acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention against Palestinians in Gaza; suspend, investigate and prosecute any governmental or other state officials suspected of responsibility for genocide; and, engage and cooperate fully and in good faith with the proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

It also calls for the unhindered passage into Gaza of humanitarian aid and other life-saving supplies, including sufficient quantities of food, medicine, fuel, electricity and other necessities. It demands that Israel immediately open all available aid routes and access points, and urgently and significantly increase the amount of aid able to move through all of Gaza’s crossings and to all areas within the besieged territory.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2024