Video released by Israel purporting to show Sinwar’s final moments was met by his supporters as a rousing example of their leader’s battlefield bravery.
While one can debate whether Israel is genocidal, (and I don’t believe they are,) Hamas has been unequivocally calling for genocide since their creation and has taken actions to that end.
Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
Starvation
Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and over 80 percent were reliant on humanitarian aid. Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including over the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, as well as the registry of the population. This leaves Gaza’s population, which Israel has subjected to an unlawful closure for 16 years, almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to fuel, electricity, medicine, food, and other essential commodities.
After the imposition of a “total blockade” on Gaza on October 9, Israeli authorities resumed piping water to some parts of southern Gaza on October 15 and, as of October 21, allowed limited humanitarian aid to arrive through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 18 that Israel would not allow humanitarian assistance “in the form of food and medicines” into Gaza through its crossings “as long as our hostages are not returned.”
That’s quite a citation spam. You had that all prepared? Hm, curious.
I don’t really want to debate every aspect of this conflict with you, so I’ll stick to the matter I was discussing, whether Israel is committing genocide or not:
Israel could destroy Gaza in a day if they didn’t care about civilians. They haven’t. In fact they often do things to reduce civilian casualties that no other nation does, even at the expense of their operational effectiveness. (Roof knocking, warning people to evacuate in advance.) I find that inexplicable if they intended to commit genocide and maximize civilian deaths.
Self-defense is not genocide. Collateral damage is not genocide. Genocide, the crime, is a very specific claim of intent to destroy in whole or in part a protected group. Hamas, what Israel has been clear they intend to destroy, is not a protected group under this law. I do not believe evidence has been sufficiently established to make a credible accusation that Israel is attempting to destroy Arabs, Palestinians, or Muslims in whole or in part, (which are the relevant protected groups in this accusation,) especially considering 21% of Israeli citizens are Arab/Muslim, (i.e., the same heritage as Palestinians,) with full rights.
There have been some terrible and indefensible statements made by judeofascist members of the Israeli government that might qualify as genocidal, (Ben-Gvir, Eliyahu,) but not by people actually waging this war, and not sufficient to establish genocidal intent by the IDF at large. A while back I actually dug into the quotes SA provided in their IJC case from the ones waging this war, many of which are included in your “law4palestine” citation, (mostly by Gallant and Netanyahu.) When I read them in their original context it was clear they were stripped of important context and/or interpreted in the least charitable way possible to make their case. For example, acknowledging that war takes a toll on civilians and suggesting they should want to avoid conflict is not the same as stating intent to commit genocide via targeting civilians, nor is spouting rhetoric about how their side are the good guys, even though many such statements appear on that list.
Your links about statements from XX scholars remind me of the tactics climate change deniers use; cite a handful of experts to appeal to authority even when they may hold a minority opinion. The fact of the matter is the IJC did not find that SA’s claims of genocide were plausible, and did not order Israel to stop the war, which is what they would have done if this were a clear case of genocide. Actual judges in positions of authority applying the law is far more compelling to me than a petition by, “legal scholars,” or one individual’s opinion.
At this rate perhaps Hamas will soon no longer be viable and Gazans will have the option to choose non-genocidal leadership instead.
How would they be able to influence Israeli leadership? Those are the people committing genocide currently.
The Atlantic: Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology
While one can debate whether Israel is genocidal, (and I don’t believe they are,) Hamas has been unequivocally calling for genocide since their creation and has taken actions to that end.
Israel is committing genocide and an ethnic cleansing. Claiming otherwise is incredibly callous and cruel.
Apartheid
Amnesty Report
Human Rights Watch Report
B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer
Genocide
Holocaust scholar to discuss his conclusion that Gaza campaign constitutes genocide
UN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank
“A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza
800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza
Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated
AP News, Time, Reuters, Vox, CBC
Human Shields
Hamas:
HRW on Laws-of-War Violations 2009
Agency Demands Full Respect for the Sanctity of Its Premises in Gaza - July 2014
HRW - Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel
Israel:
Israel/OPT: Israeli attacks targeting Hamas and other armed group fighters that killed scores of displaced civilians in Rafah should be investigated as war crimes
HRW - Gaza: Unlawful Israeli Hospital Strikes Worsen Health Crisis
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:
IDF uses Human Shields,
Including Children (2013 Report)
Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds 2024
Breaking The Silence - Testimonies from IDF Veterans
Deliberate Attacks on Civilians
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:
The Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force
‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Lavender
Where’s Daddy
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
Starvation
Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza
That’s quite a citation spam. You had that all prepared? Hm, curious.
I don’t really want to debate every aspect of this conflict with you, so I’ll stick to the matter I was discussing, whether Israel is committing genocide or not:
Removed and temp banned for repeated genocide denial and misinformation.
To be 100% clear here, the precise definition of a genocide has five criteria, it only takes ONE to be declared a genocide.
Israel’s actions in Gaza meet ALL FIVE requirements.
https://iccforum.com/genocide-convention
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) 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;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.