Israel rejects ‘deplorable’ Amnesty ‘Gaza genocide’ report

A new Amnesty International report accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza during its war with Hamas has been rejected by Israel’s foreign ministry as “deplorable”.

The human rights group’s report claims Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre cannot be justified and argues the IDF has sought to deliberately destroy Palestinians with deadly attacks, demolishing vital infrastructure and preventing the delivery of food, medicine and other aid.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” Amnesty International chief Agnès Callamard said in the report.

Examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, the report published on Thursday,claimed Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population.

It said the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.

Responding Israel’s foreign ministry said:”The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.”

Amnesty accused Israel of violating the 1951 Genocide Convention through acts it says are intended to bring about the physical destruction of Gaza’s Palestinian population by exposing them to “a slow, calculated death.”

It claimed that Israel has “committed prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction” with the “specific intent to destroy Palestinians” in the territory.

Amnesty said it reviewed over 100 statements by Israeli government and military officials and others since the start of the war that “dehumanised Palestinians, called for or justified genocidal acts or other crimes against them.”

The report also contains  recommendations for the international community to pressure Israel, including immediately ending arms sales.

But it fails to include a call for Hamas to release the hostages it captured on October 7.

The pro-Israel monitoring group NGO Monitor said Amnesty had pursued an antisemitic agenda seeking Israel’s annihilation.

“Amnesty’s report and recommendations… are not a credible, unbiased, carefully considered analysis of the complex circumstances inherent in the Gaza conflict,” the group said.

An earlier Amnesty report had accused Israel of “likely war crimes” in Gaza.