Amnesty International accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza

Amnesty International has concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The report, titled “You Feel Like and You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, accuses Israel of deliberately inflicting death, destruction, and starvation on Gaza’s population during its military campaign launched after the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.

The attack and subsequent hostage crisis also killed 46 Thai workers. At the time of the Hamas attack, 31 Thais were taken hostage and 23 were released two months later.

Today, more than 34,000 Thais are working in agriculture, construction, and service sectors in various kibbutzim throughout the country.

It said that Israel’s actions meet the threshold of genocide under the UN Genocide Convention, citing mass killings, widespread injury, psychological trauma, and the deliberate creation of life-threatening conditions in Gaza.

“Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of rights and dignity, demonstrating intent to destroy them,” said Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

Amnesty’s nine-month investigation documents acts that include direct attacks on civilians, indiscriminate bombings, forced displacement, deprivation of humanitarian aid, and conditions leading to disease and hunger.

By October 2024, the Israeli offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured nearly 100,000 others. Entire families were wiped out in single airstrikes, and vast swathes of Gaza were rendered uninhabitable through the destruction of homes, hospitals, agricultural land, and cultural sites.

Amnesty examined 15 airstrikes between October 2023 and April 2024, none of which it found were directed at military targets. One attack in April destroyed the home of the Abdelal family in Rafah, killing 16 children and wiping out three generations in their sleep.

The group also found evidence of dehumanizing rhetoric by Israeli officials. It reviewed 102 statements made between October 2023 and June 2024, 22 of which appeared to call for or justify genocidal acts. Soldiers on the ground were recorded echoing such language, celebrating the destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure.

“It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction—which is part and parcel of Israel committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” according to the report.