Afrasianet - For more than a year, Israel has been trying to convince its allies and much of the world that its efforts to annihilate the Gaza Strip are legitimate acts of self-defense, and it is launching a brutal and relentless military offensive on the occupied territory in response to the attacks of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7, 2023.
Amnesty International's Secretary General, Agnes Callamard, opened an article in Newsweek magazine in which she said that the claim that Israel's war on Gaza aims only to dismantle Hamas, not to physically destroy Palestinians as a national and ethnic group, even partially, does not stand up to scrutiny, as her organization recently published conclusive evidence that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and continues to do so.
The conclusion that Israel committed genocide is based on painstaking research and rigorous legal analysis, as our research shows that Israel has committed acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention against Palestinians in Gaza, including killing, causing serious physical and psychological harm, and deliberately imposing living conditions aimed at their physical destruction.
Israeli forces have devastated Gaza quickly and on a scale not seen in any other conflict in this century, demolishing entire cities and destroying vital infrastructure, agricultural land, cultural and religious sites, and the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in one year, and the toll of famine and disease, is a stunning tragedy.
But what makes these acts genocide under international law is the intention, the official says, and the evidence presented in the organization's report clearly shows that the deliberate aim of the Israeli military campaign is to destroy Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where statements made by high-level Israeli officials have dehumanized Palestinians and called for acts of genocide, revealing Israel's true intentions.
Extermination
Israel has repeatedly issued waves of arbitrary and confusing mass "evacuation" orders, forcibly displacing civilians to smaller, less habitable areas, attacks on vital life-sustaining infrastructure, deliberately obstructing and preventing humanitarian access, ignoring calls from the international community, humanitarian organizations, and even legally binding International Court of Justice orders to take immediate steps to avoid genocide.
Agnes Callamard concluded that determining the intention of genocide in armed conflict is complex, difficult, but not impossible, and that genocide in the context of armed conflict must be recognized for what it is, that war should not be allowed to justify it, and that the "heat of battle" should not obscure the facts on the ground.
Callamard explained that the evidence in the organization's report clearly shows that the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza was and remains a goal for Israel, to achieve its other goals, and only one plausible conclusion can be drawn from the evidence: that the genocidal intention was an integral part of the war on the Gaza Strip.
Failure
"No matter how uncomfortable our outcome may be, Callamard says, inaction in the face of such cruelty is indefensible, because the evidence we have published means there is no room for hiding, and therefore Israel's allies must stop pretending that international crimes have not been committed."
The official went on to say that it was time to defend humanity, calling for addressing Israel's longstanding policies and practices of apartheid and illegal occupation, and to stop the impunity that Israel has enjoyed for decades, which paved the way for the genocide we are witnessing today.
Callamard called on the international community, which has shielded Israel from accountability by its stalemate, to push for an immediate end to Israel's illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza, and said that those who continue to send weapons to Israel must suspend arms transfers now and realize that they risk complicity in genocide.