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Entire population experiencing "high levels of acute food insecurity", with about 32% experiencing catastrophic levels; confirmed famine in Gaza governorate[36]
By August 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry had reported that at least 60,138 people in Gaza had been killed—1 out of every 37 people—averaging 91 deaths per day.[52] Most of the victims are civilians,[53][54] of whom at least 50% are women and children.[55][56] Compared to other recent global conflicts, the numbers of known deaths of journalists, humanitarian and health workers, and children are among the highest.[57] Thousands more uncounted dead bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings.[54][58] A study in The Lancet estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries by June 2024, while noting a larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included.[59][34] As of May 2025, a comparable figure for traumatic injury deaths would be 93,000 (77,000 to 109,000), representing 4–5% of Gaza's prewar population.[29][e] The number of injured is greater than 100,000;[35] Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world.[60]
The government of South Africa has instituted proceedings, South Africa v. Israel, against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging a violation of the Genocide Convention.[65] The Israeli government has denied South Africa's allegations and has argued that Israel is defending itself.[66][67] In an initial ruling, the ICJ held that South Africa was entitled to bring its case, while Palestinians were recognised to have a right to protection from genocide.[68] The court ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of acts of genocide, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and to allow basic humanitarian service, aid, and supplies into Gaza.[69][70][66] The court later ordered Israel to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza and to halt the Rafah offensive.[71][72]
"Intent to destroy" is a necessary condition to meet the legal threshold of genocide. Various scholars have argued that intent to destroy is proven by the statements of Israeli officials and by Israel's policies and conduct,[73][74][75] while various others disagree.
A September 2023 United Nations map of Gaza, showing its border barrier and checkpoints into Israel and Egypt and Israel's Maritime Exclusion Zone —illustrating the geographic scope of the preexisting blockade and the physical constraints on movement and access.
Since 2007, Israel and Hamas (and other Palestinian militias in Gaza) have engaged in conflict, [77][83][84] including four wars in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021.[85][86] On 7 October 2023, Hamas led an attack into Israel from Gaza,[87][88][89] resulting in at least 1,139[90][91][f] deaths, most of them civilians.[96]Israel responded with a highly destructive[97]bombing campaign followed by an invasion of the Gaza Strip on 27 October.[98] Some scholars argued that there was genocide against Palestinians before the 7 October attacks, but the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has been characterised as genocidal by South Africa and other supporters of the genocide argument.[99][100] B'Tselem considers the 7 October attack a triggering event, after which Israel's government policy changed "from oppression and control to destruction and annihilation" of the Palestinians.[101]
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, including killing, causing harm, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children.[113][114] The International Court of Justice has never held a state liable for genocide,[115] and the International Criminal Court faces political pressure and sanctions, particularly from Israel and the US during the Gaza war.[116] The legal threshold for genocidal intent remains a major barrier to prosecution.[117]Raphael Lemkin's broader definition included cultural and social destruction, while scholarly definitions emphasise large-scale, organised actions targeting a group's survival.[118][119] No minimum number of victims is required for a genocide ruling, as seen in the Gambia v Myanmar Rohingya genocide case.[120][121][122]
In the ICJ's Rohingya genocide case, several states supported a looser standard of evidence for supporting genocidal intent than the ICJ had used in the past—which is often the most difficult part of legally proving genocide. The states contended that the ICJ should "adopt a balanced approach that recognizes the special gravity of the crime of genocide, without rendering the threshold for inferring genocidal intent so difficult to meet so as to make findings of genocide near-impossible".[123]
During the first two months of bombing, Israel dropped 25,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip. Many of these were unguided "dumb bombs" dropped in densely populated areas obliterating entire neighbourhoods.[124] Since 7 October 2023 the IDF has been accused of extrajudicial killing of unarmed Palestinian detainees[125][126] and healthcare personnel.[127] Israeli soldiers have summarily executed Palestinian civilians, often in front of their families.[128] They have killed Palestinians waving white flags.[128] In April 2024, mass graves were found containing corpses with their hands tied,[129] including women and the elderly.[129]
The UN and many news outlets have estimated that about 70% of Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children, with at least 20,000 Palestinians having been killed in Gaza by December 2023.[130][g] By 14 January 2024, over 23,900 had been confirmed killed.[132] By 10 May, deaths had topped 35,000, a third of them unidentified, with over 10,000 more estimated to be buried under the rubble.[133] Within the first three weeks, the Israeli assault killed more children in Gaza than were killed worldwide across all conflict zones in any year since 2019.[134][135] Over 52,000 people had been wounded by December 2023,[136][137] and by May 2024 this had risen to over 77,700.[30][138]
+972 Magazine and Local Call reported that the IDF decided early in the war to authorise killing up to 15 to 20 civilians per low-ranking militant, while for a senior militant killing more than 100 civilians was authorised. An intelligence officer said that Israel was not interested in killing Palestinian operatives in a military context only, but preferred to bomb them in their family homes, saying "It's much easier to bomb a family's home" where they are easier to target.[139] Another intelligence officer said that in targeting junior militants, Israel used only dumb bombs, which can destroy entire buildings, to not "waste expensive bombs on unimportant people".[140]
In March 2024, Haaretz reported that some Israeli commanders had set up "kill zones" in which soldiers were commanded to kill anyone on sight, even if they were unarmed.[141][142] In June 2024 the Associated Press found that Israel's campaign in Gaza was killing entire bloodlines of Palestinians to a "degree never seen before".[143] According to testimony given to the Israeli Knesset, Israeli soldiers driving armoured bulldozers have been ordered to "run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds".[144]
The proportion of women and children among the dead has been disputed.[145][146] As of 7 May 2024, total deaths quoted by the UN are 34,735, of which 24,686 are fully identified: 52% women and children, 8% elderly of all genders, and 40% men.[145] In November 2024 the UN published an analysis covering only victims verified by at least three independent sources between November 2023 and April 2024. It found that 70% of the 8,119 verified fatalities were women and children.[147] As of 31 August 2024, per the Gaza Ministry of Health, the number of fatalities had risen to 40,691, 34,344 identified by name: 17,652 (51%) women and children, 2,955 (9%) elderly of all genders, and 13,737 (40%) men.[148][149][150] In November 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 1,410 Gazan families had been completely erased from the civil registry as a result of Israeli bombings.[151]
Data collection has become increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of infrastructure.[133] The ministry has had to supplement its usual reporting based on hospital dead with other sources of information,[133] including reports by the media and first responders as well as families and widows, who must formally register their husbands' deaths to qualify for government assistance.[152] Professor Mike Spagat found an urgent need for a transparent methodology to reconcile its top-line death numbers—34,535 as of 30 April—with its detailed breakdowns summing to 24,653 on the same date.[55] The ministry's figures for the total number killed have also been contested by Israeli authorities, but have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and the World Health Organization.[133]
A 2025 paper on the Gaza war estimated 64,260 deaths from traumatic injury between October 2023 and 30 June 2024, and likely exceeding 70,000 by October 2024, with 59.1% being women, children and the elderly. It concluded that the GHM undercounted trauma-related deaths by 41% in its report, and also noted that its findings "underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation."[27] A comparable estimate for traumatic injury deaths would be around 80,000 for January 2025,[28] while it is 93,000 (77,000 to 109,000) for May 2025, which represents 4–5% of Gaza's prewar population.[29]
A February 2025 study in The Lancet estimated that life expectancy in the Gaza Strip between October 2023 and September 2024 decreased by 34.9 years, excluding indirect deaths. The study also used census and registration data to assess the reliability of the Gaza Health Ministry's death count, and found no substantial errors.[153]
In May 2025, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed that Israel was targeting Hamas's civilian workers, saying, "We're eliminating ministers, bureaucrats, money handlers—everyone who holds up Hamas's civilian rule."[154]
Starting in June 2025, Israeli forces were ordered to shoot into crowds of Palestinians at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites, killing over 1,000 people.[155][156][157] Amnesty International alleged Israel was trying to restrict aid to starve and inflict genocide upon the Palestinians.[158]
As reported by the Gaza government media office in August 2025, a minimum of 18,885 children have lost their lives since October 2023.[159] According to classified Israeli figures, 83% of the dead are Palestinian civilians. This exceeds the civilian death rate of any global conflict except the Rwandan genocide, the Siege of Mariupol, and the Siege of Srebrenica.[160]
Mother cries for her 4-year-old daughter, who died due to malnutrition and lack of treatment
Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, and Salim Yusuf published an estimate of the number of deaths that the conflict may indirectly cause in the coming months and years. Indirect Palestinian deaths from disease are expected to be much higher due to the intensity of the conflict, destruction of healthcare infrastructure, lack of food, water, shelter, and safe places for civilians to flee, and reduction in UNRWA funding. They estimated that the total conflict-related deaths in Gaza will likely be three to 15 times higher than the reported death toll. By multiplying the reported deaths by five, they argued that "186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza".[133] Spagat wrote that their estimate "lacks a solid foundation and is implausible",[161][162] but it was "fair to call attention to the fact that not all of the deaths are going to be direct violent ones", and has called the death toll in Gaza "staggeringly high".[145][162]Donald Bloxham also notes that most deaths have been "indirect deaths" in various wars and that the "systematic obstruction of supplies into Gaza" is an Israeli policy, which makes calling these deaths "indirect" incorrect.[34]
According to an October 2024 letter[163] by American healthcare workers who had served in Gaza since 7 October 2023, the most conservative estimate was that at least 62,413 people in Gaza had died from starvation, most of them young children, and at least 5,000 people had died from lack of access to care for chronic diseases.[164][165][166] The indirect death estimates in two studies reviewed by The Economist implied that the life expectancy in Gaza has fallen by 35 years, rivaling the Rwandan genocide in absolute terms.[167][168]
4-year-old Palestinian girl, died due to malnutrition and lack of treatment
Displaced Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
Displaced Palestinians receive food from charitable Tekiya during Ramadan in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
In February 2024, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both released statements declaring Israel had failed to comply with the ICJ's 26 January ruling to prevent genocide by blocking aid from entering Gaza.[169][170][171] A Refugees International report found that Israel had "consistently and groundlessly impeded aid operations within Gaza".[172] The historian Melanie Tanielian argues that starvation and blockade should be foregrounded as methods of genocide alongside mass bombing.[173] In an April report, B'Tselem called the unfolding famine "the product of a deliberate and conscious Israeli policy".[174][175]
In October 2023, the World Food Program warned of Gaza's dwindling food supply,[176] and in December, alongside the UN, it reported that more than half of Gaza's population was "starving", fewer than one in ten were eating every day, and 48% were suffering "extreme hunger".[177][178][179] Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki referred to "Israel's deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war against the people it occupied"; an Israeli official called the charge "blood-libellous" and "delusional".[180] In December 2023 Human Rights Watch found that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war by deliberately denying access to food and water.[181] In January 2024, UN experts accused Israel of "destroying Gaza's food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people".[182] In February 2024 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich personally blocked US-funded shipments of flour from entering Gaza, in violation of promises Israel had made to the US government.[183]
In early 2024, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri said that Israel is "culpable" of genocide because "Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian" and because Israel was denying food to Palestinians by halting humanitarian aid and "intentionally" destroying
small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza ... We have never seen a civilian population made to go so hungry so quickly and so completely, that is the consensus among starvation experts. Israel is not just targeting civilians, it is trying to damn the future of the Palestinian people by harming their children.[184]
After the ICJ ruling, the number of aid trucks Israel allowed into Gaza dropped by 40%.[185] In the ICJ's March reaffirmation of provisional measures, the court highlighted the "unprecedented levels of food insecurity experienced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over recent weeks, as well as the increasing risks of epidemics",[186] acknowledging that since the Court's January order there had been a "lack of Israeli compliance" resulting in "the catastrophic living conditions" deteriorating further.[187]
In March 2024, 12 Israeli human rights organisations signed an open letter accusing Israel of failing to abide by the ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid.[188][189] In April the UN special rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng said Israel was "killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its bombardments", adding, "They are also knowingly and intentionally imposing famine" and accusing Israel of "genocide".[190]
In October 2024, Israel had reportedly adopted a modified version of the Generals' Plan.[191][192][h] The proposed plan included orders for all residents of northern Gaza to leave within a week; a full siege on water, food, and fuel; and then the arrest or killing of all who remained.[194][195] By mid-October 2024 Israel had ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza and prevented the entry of humanitarian aid for almost two weeks.[196][197] According to Stephen Devereux, avoidable deaths due to starvation as a result of Israeli policies "almost certainly constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity".[198]
On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former defence minister Yoav Gallant, asserting that the two "bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare".[199][200][201]
Israel lifted restrictions on aid into Gaza in January–February 2025 during the first stage of the January ceasefire. But on 2 March, Israel announced that all humanitarian aid would be blocked indefinitely unless Hamas agreed to alter the terms of the ceasefire deal, which Hamas refused to do.[202][203] Within four days, food supplies in Gaza had rapidly depleted while the price of food had more than doubled. Aid agencies such as Oxfam and UNICEF warned of mass starvation if the aid freeze continued. Oxfam policy lead Bushra Khalidi predicted "the total collapse of systems that sustain life".[204] Lawyer Salah Abdel-Ati said Israel's actions were illegal under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the destruction or withholding of essentials such as food in combat zones.[205]
In May 2025, after blocking the import of all food, medicine, and fuel for two and a half months,[206] Netanyahu announced that Israel would allow "minimal humanitarian aid" into Gaza due to international pressure.[154] Israel has proposed using private companies to distribute aid to the south of Gaza only. The plan is backed by the US, which has created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to deliver aid without "Hamas stealing, looting or leveraging this assistance for its own ends". The United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher criticised the plan, saying it "forces further displacement" and "makes aid conditional on political and military aims".[207] Numerous Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while approaching GHF aid distribution points.[208]
In August 2025, it was reported that Israel planned to surge aid to other parts of Gaza while cutting off all aid to Gaza City to force residents to evacuate while Israel takes over the city.[209] As of August 2025, projections show the entire population is experiencing "high levels of acute food insecurity", with about 641,000 people experiencing catastrophic levels.[36] The IPC confirmed famine is taking place in the Gaza Governorate.[36][210]
An aerial view showing destruction in Rafah after Israeli forces withdrawal and as the ceasefire took hold, Gaza Strip
Damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023.
Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City
Mark Levene and Elyse Semerdjian locate the mass destruction of infrastructure within Israel's Dahiya doctrine, implemented against Gaza since 2006, with Levene calling it urbicide and a tool of genocide.[211][212] In October 2024, Forensic Architecture concluded, "Israel's military campaign in Gaza is organised, systematic, and intended to destroy conditions of life and life-sustaining infrastructure".[213]The Guardian reported in July 2025 that "about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged". Israel is reportedly paying contractors up to 5,000 shekels per building demolished.[214]
In a December 2024 report, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of committing acts of genocide in Gaza by targeting water and sanitation infrastructure and depriving Palestinians of adequate access to water. The report alleges that Israel intentionally damaged solar panels powering treatment plants, a reservoir, and warehouses, while blocking repair materials and fuel for generators, cutting electricity supplies, and attacking workers.[215][216] Over the winter, at least 15 children died of hypothermia due to Israel's destruction of housing and power facilities.[217] In May, Netanyahu said "we are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip."[218]
In July 2025, the BBC reported that Israel had engaged in controlled demolitions of civilian infrastructure, potentially in violation of the Geneva Convention.[219] The BBC reported an IDF spokesperson saying, "Hamas and other terrorist organizations conceal military assets in densely populated civilian areas. The IDF identifies and destroys terrorist infrastructure located, among other places, within buildings in these areas."[219]
Return of displaced people via Al-Rasheed Street after ceasefire, January 2025, Gaza Strip
An aerial photo of displaced Palestinians waiting in northern Nuseirat to return to their homes in Gaza
An aerial view of Al-Mawasi area where displaced Palestinians live in tents, Gaza Strip
On 6 October 2024, Israel designated northern Gaza as a combat zone and ordered the civilian population to evacuate.[220][221] Both Israeli military analysts and the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights alleged that this was the first stage of the "Generals' Plan", a policy proposed by the former Israeli general Giora Eiland to force Palestinians out of Gaza.[222]
Human Rights Watch reports that Israel's systematic forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since October 2023, Israel's evacuation orders have displaced 1.9 million people—nearly Gaza's entire population—through unclear, inconsistent directives, often issued amid bombings, leaving civilians with no safe routes or destinations. Humanitarian zones were repeatedly attacked, while Israel blocked aid, leading to starvation, destroyed infrastructure, and uninhabitable conditions. Senior Israeli officials openly declared intentions to reduce Gaza's territory and push Palestinians out, reinforcing policies of ethnic cleansing and permanent displacement.[223][224] The UN Human Rights Office said that Israel may be causing the "destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza's northernmost governorate through death and displacement."[225] South Africa and others have criticised the Gaza Strip evacuations as a key component of the genocide.[226] B'Tselem mentions statements by Israeli high-ranking officials that a "central objective of the war" was ethnic cleansing.[218]
Destruction of UNRWA el-Sheikh Radwan health center, February 2024
Palestinian Red Crescent Personnel inspect a destroyed ambulance in Deir el-Balah , Gaza Strip
In November 2023 in The Lancet and in February 2024 in BMJ Global Health, multiple doctors detailed how the targeting of Gazan health infrastructure and medical personnel coupled with Israeli politicians' rhetoric amounts to genocide.[227] Legal scholars have supported this assessment.[228][142]Gaza's healthcare system faced humanitarian crises as a result of Israel's assault: hospitals began shutting down by 23 October as they ran out of fuel.[229] When hospitals lost power, multiple premature babies in NICUs died.[230][231][232] Israeli airstrikes have killed numerous medical staffers, and ambulances and health institutions have been destroyed.[233]Médecins Sans Frontières reported that scores of ambulances and medical facilities were damaged or destroyed,[234][235] and Médecins Sans Frontières staff were killed.[236][237] The Gaza Health Ministry said the healthcare system had "totally collapsed".[238] In April 2024, UN special rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng said, "The destruction of healthcare facilities continues to catapult to proportions yet to be fully quantified."[190]
As of February 2025 at least 160 healthcare workers from Gaza are believed to be detained by Israel, with another 24 missing after being taken from Gaza hospitals. Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia, detained for seven months and released without charges, detailed the abuses he faced and said that "no day passes without torture" in Israeli prisons.[239]
In March 2025, a UN investigation concluded that Israel had committed genocidal acts in Gaza by systematically destroying its reproductive healthcare facilities while imposing a siege preventing necessary medications for deliveries, pregnancies, and neonatal care, causing "irreversible" harm to Palestinians' reproductive prospects in Gaza. The commission also found that Israeli forces intentionally destroyed Al-Basma IVF[i] Centre, Gaza's main in-vitro fertility clinic, which served 2,000 to 3,000 patients a month. Israel destroyed about 4,000 embryos and 1,000 specimens of sperm and unfertilised eggs in the attack.[240][241] No evidence that the building was used for military purposes was found. The commission concluded that the destruction of the clinic "was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act".[21][242][243]
Also in March 2025, UN experts reported that they had found that Israel had systematically destroyed women's health care facilities and used sexual violence as a war strategy, thereby carrying out genocidal acts against Palestinians.[242][243]
Destruction of cultural, religious and educational sites
Amnesty International notes that "while the destruction of historical, cultural and religious property or heritage is not considered a prohibited act under the Genocide Convention, the ICJ has established that such destruction can provide evidence of intent to physically destroy the group when carried out deliberately."[244]
Since 7 October 2023, the IDF has been accused of using excessive force against dozens of schools[245] and hospitals;[246] theft;[247] cruel and unnecessary desecration and mutilation of deceased Palestinians;[127] and making no, or an inadequate, distinction between Hamas forces and civilians.[248] The targeting of cultural and educational sites have also been cited as genocidal acts, as has the use of white phosphorus.[j][250]
On 18 April 2024, UN experts in Geneva condemned Israel for its "scholasticide" in Gaza, finding that it had destroyed more than 80% of schools and killed 5,000 students, 261 teachers, and dozens of professors.[251]
Amnesty identified at least four instances in which there was "no imperative military necessity" for the deliberate destruction of Gazan cultural and religious sites:[252] the destruction of the Al-Mughraqa campus of Al-Azhar University, the Al-Zahra campus of Israa University, the Al-Dhilal mosque and Bani Suheila cemetery in Khan Younis, and the Al-Istiqlal mosque in Khan Younis.[253] Amnesty pointed to the attitudes and behaviour of Israeli soldiers involved in the demolitions of these sites in videos posted on social media as evidence that these actions demonstrated genocidal intent. Amnesty also noted the overall volume of destruction of Gazan cultural, historical and religious sites, including Gaza's central archives.[254]
As of January 2025, Israel had destroyed 815 mosques and 19 cemeteries during the Gaza war.[255]
In June 2025, UN experts published a report saying Israel had committed the crime against humanity of extermination for "killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites". According to the report, Israel has destroyed over 90% of educational buildings in Gaza.[256]
Serious bodily and mental harm, and sexual violence
Yamen was injured in his leg during his sixth displacement in Jabalia refugee camp, and he was forced to flee while wounded.
A Palestinian refugee carries his injured grandchildren from the Israeli bombing of Nuseirat Camp, Gaza Strip
Israel has been accused of indiscriminate mass detentions[257][258] and has been documented making threats of mutilation,[259] death, arson, and rape,[260] and torturing Palestinians detained without charges.[261]
In August 2024, the UN OHCHR reported receiving testimony from Palestinians imprisoned at Sde Teiman detention camp about rape and sexual assault perpetrated on detainees.[17] The Lemkin Institute considers this and similar reports to be indicative of "Sexualized Violence During Genocide", or sexual violence being used to destroy a group.[18]
As of 25 August 2024, the UN estimates that most of Gaza's 2.2 million people are confined to roughly 15 square miles (39 km2), causing a critical lack of basic services, like clean water, and diseases spreading widely, such as Hepatitis C.[263]
The number of injured since 7 October 2023 due to Israeli military actions is greater than 100,000,[35] and Gaza has the most child amputees per capita worldwide.[60]
Amnesty reported that the pattern of abuses inside Israeli prisons "underscores the systematic dehumanization and mental and physical abuse of Palestinians in Gaza and may also be taken into account with a view to inferring genocidal intent from pattern of conduct."[264] According to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, gender-based and sexual violence were committed "to dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part."[19]
Experts have identified genocidal intent as part of their genocide assessment.[74] Amnesty International listed many types of actions that establish a "pattern of conduct" demonstrating genocidal intent,[265] concluding that genocidal intent is the "only one reasonable inference that can be drawn from the evidence presented".[266] As part of Defense for Children International – Palestine et al v. Biden et al, historian Barry Trachtenberg testified that there is a consensus among genocide historians that the situation in Gaza is a genocide, mainly because Israeli officials' statements make this clear. He urged action to stop the genocide.[267] In an open letter published in October 2023, scholars wrote that Israeli officials' statements since 7 October indicate intent to commit genocide.[268]
On 7 October, Netanyahu said that Israel would "exact a huge price from the enemy" and turn Hamas hideouts "into rubble".[269][270] Professor Omer Bartov interprets these statements as genocidal intent.[271] Scholar Mark Levene noted the increasing rhetoric of genocide and ethnic cleansing under the preceding Netanyahu governments.[8] The Israeli historian Raz Segal and legal scholar Luigi Daniele also pointed to increasing genocidal rhetoric before October 2023,[272] highlighting a May 2023 Times of Israel article that said that the only way to achieve peace is to "obliterate" Palestine.[273] Segal and Daniele draw parallels between that article's rhetoric and scholarship that points to Russian media outlets' rhetoric in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as genocidal.[273]
Segal and Daniele also point to previous comments by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the former Knesset member Ayelet Shaked, and Smotrich, who in February 2023 called for the destruction of Palestinian villages in the West Bank.[274] The genocide scholar Shmuel Lederman detailed how these comments by Smotrich, alongside others denying Palestinian nationhood and calling for their destruction or removal from territory claimed by Israel, was in the forefront of political discussions by Hamas leadership in Gaza before October 2023.[275] News outlets at the time of Smotrich's comments also highlighted their genocidal nature.[276][277] Segal also mentioned how children were targeted, similar to the Rohingya genocide case.[74]
"Davidster" (Star of David) by Dick Stins, a.k.a. "the Amalek monument", is a Holocaust memorial in The Hague. The text at the side (in Dutch and Hebrew) is from Deuteronomy 25:17, 19 – "Remember what Amalek has done to you ... do not forget."[278][279]
In a report presented to the UNHRC in March 2024, Francesca Albanese concluded that Israel was committing genocide.[280][281][282] She wrote that genocidal intent can be inferred from "the totality of conduct targeting the totality of Palestinians, in the totality of the occupied Palestinian territory".[283] Israel rejected the report.[284][281][282] Albanese later accused Israel of "carrying out a systematic campaign of forced displacement, destruction, and genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank".[285][286] Albanese and Amos Goldberg have said an aim towards a Greater Israel is a factor.[13][14]
Professor Maryam Jamshidi cites Israel's stated goal to "destroy Hamas including both the extermination of its political and administrative leadership and the annihilation of its civilian police force and military wing", and its targeting of the "intellectual, cultural, and religious leadership of Gaza". She writes that genocidal intent can be proven "through evidence that the protected group's civilian leadership, as well as its military and law enforcement, have been targeted for elimination" when this renders the rest of the group more vulnerable to illegal abuses such as forced migration. Targeting civilian organisations controlled by Hamas is illegal under international law.[287]
Professor John B. Quigley argued that the living conditions the war has inflicted on Gaza could be used as proof of genocidal intent in the absence of direct evidence, as they are so destructive that Israel should have known they would result in the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza.[289] Melanie O'Brien said that, in addition to statements by Israeli leaders, "patterns of conduct" such as large-scale loss of life, mass bombings, and aid blockade show intent.[74] Iva Vukusic pointed to the "systematic deprivation of basic needs".[74]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated invocation of Amalek and the phrase "remember what Amalek did to you"[290] during the war has been considered evidence of genocidal intent by many critics,[291] including South Africa.[292] "Remember what Amalek did to you"[k] is used at Holocaust memorials, including Yad Vashem.[278] Amalek was "the foe that God ordered the ancient Israelites to genocide",[293] and scholars have called the verse an instance of "divinely mandated genocide".[294][292][271]
According to scholars Mark Levene and Abdelwahab El-Affendi, since 7 October 2023, official and semi-official sources have engaged in rhetoric suggestive of genocidal intent.[295][296] The Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard said that the 7 October attacks, the Gaza war hostage crisis, and Hamas's war crimes "generated rage that transformed what has been the rhetoric of marginalised groups into a flood of statements now made by politicians, journalists and celebrities,... provid[ing] a tailwind" for others to find such speech acceptable. He added:
We have become accustomed to genocidal rhetoric that comes from Hamas. The Hamas covenant has obvious severe antisemitic articles, and also some that could be interpreted as expressing desire to eliminate the Jews in Israel.... In the past, it was seen inside Israel as something that was beyond the borders of legitimacy to talk that way about Palestinians.... But October 7th broke that red line.[297]
On 9 October 2023, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said:
I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.[298][299]
The statement was characterised as dehumanisation.[271][237] According to Kenneth Roth, while some excuse this remark as referring only to Hamas, the context makes clear that "human animals" refers to everyone in Gaza.[300] On 10 October, Gallant said: "Gaza won't return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate everything."[301][302][278]
In May 2025, Netanyahu said in closed-door testimony to members of the Knesset that Israel was "destroying more and more houses [in Gaza, and Palestinians accordingly] have nowhere to return", and that "the only obvious result will be Gazans choosing to emigrate outside of the Strip".[303] The International Commission of Jurists characterised these statements as support for forced displacement,[304] and former UK Supreme Court justice Jonathan Sumption said that they would be likely to substantiate a case of genocidal intent.[l][305]
In July 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to relocate all Gazans to a "humanitarian zone" in the destroyed city of Rafah, in preparation for an unspecified "emigration plan".[306][307] Legal experts condemned this as a violation of international law, including crimes against humanity,[306] and an open letter by Israeli legal scholars said that the plan "could amount to the crime of genocide".[308]
Israeli Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter called for the war to be "Gaza's Nakba".[309] Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu called for dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza.[309][310] Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi advocated for the forced removal of civilians and for Israel to settle the region, a position that other ministers endorsed.[311]Dov Waxman said that some of the rhetoric right-wing ministers use can be seen as "potentially genocidal" in its dehumanisation of Palestinian civilians. He added that these statements can have only limited impact on Israeli policy, as they were made by ministers "not in the war cabinet", but are still concerning.[309][312]
I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did when they murdered their families, raped them and kidnapped their citizens! Neither a dove nor an olive leaf, only a sword—to cut off Sinwar's head![313]
Israeli energy (later defense) minister Israel Katz said: "All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world."[314][315]
On 29 April 2024 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, "There are no half measures ... Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total annihilation. 'Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.'"[316] The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described his comments as a call to genocide.[317] In August, Smotrich said that "it might be justified and moral" to "starve 2 million people", lamenting that the world would not allow it.[318][319] The Knesset member Ofer Cassif claims the plan for genocide dates back to Smotrich's Subjugation Plan in 2017, which he called the "prime exhibit" of Israel's genocidal intent.[320] On 6 May 2025 Smotrich said that Gaza would be "entirely destroyed" and that Palestinians would "leave in great numbers to third countries".[321][322]
Israeli president and members of Israeli parliament
An aerial view of the Flour Massacre captured by an Israeli drone. Aid trucks and Palestinian pedestrians (some dead) are visible.[323]
President Isaac Herzog blamed the "entire nation" of Palestine for the 7 October attack.[324] He added: "It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians being not aware, not involved."[268] Herzog later claimed that his remarks had been taken out of context, saying that he was attempting to highlight "the involvement of many residents" and that he accepted that there are innocent Palestinians in Gaza.[325]
Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Nissim Vaturi wrote that the government was allowing too much aid to enter Gaza and that the IDF should "burn Gaza now".[326] He said that Israel's goal was "erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth."[327] When asked to clarify his statements by Kol BaRama, Vaturi reiterated that Gaza and its inhabitants must be destroyed, saying: "I don't think there are any innocent people there now... If there is an innocent person there, we will know about them. Whoever stays there should be eliminated, period."[328] In 2025, Vaturi called Palestinians "scoundrels" and "subhumans" and called for the adult men in Gaza to be killed.[329][330]
Yitzhak Kroizer, who represents the extreme-right Otzma Yehudit party in the Knesset, said that the "Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death."[331]Tally Gotliv of the Likud party called for the use of nuclear weapons against Gaza.[331]Moshe Saada, also of the Likud party, approvingly quoted an acquaintance who told him that everyone in Gaza should be killed.[332]Ariel Kallner of the Likud party wrote that there is "one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of [1948]. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join".[333]
In January 2025, eight members of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee signed a letter to Defense Minister Israel Katz proposing that Katz order the destruction of all of Gaza's food and power supplies and "kill anyone without a white flag".[334][335] The Palestinian official Rawhi Fattouh said of the letter, "The Knesset has become a den for bloodthirsty extremists...now they are astonished that Palestinians in Gaza are still alive".[336]
The Knesset members Amit Halevi and Limor Son Har-Melech disagreed with a doctor who argued that suffering children in Gaza should receive "painkillers or minimal medical treatment". Halevi said, "When fighting a group like this, the distinctions that exist in a normal world don't exist." Halevi and Son Har-Melech both also claimed that reports of starvation in Gaza were Hamas lies.[337] Halevi had previously said: "We want to occupy the territory to cleanse it of the enemy; otherwise, it will kill your children and kidnap your grandchildren again."[338][339]
Ghassan Alian, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, said: "There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell."[297]Giora Eiland wrote, "Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist" and "Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal."[271] The Israeli scholar Omer Bartov noted that no Israeli politician nor anyone in the IDF denounced this statement.[271]
Of Israel's bombing of Gaza, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said, "while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we're focused on what causes maximum damage".[340] Legal scholars interpreted this as intention to destroy Gaza.[268]
The legal scholar Nimer Sultany highlights statements by Israeli army commanders leading ground operations in northern Gaza that call for depopulation and a "scorched earth" approach.[341] Soldiers have echoed such sentiments on social media.[341] Former Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya'alon said, "The path we are currently being led down involves conquering, annexing, and ethnic cleansing."[342]
In comments published in August 2025, Aharon Haliva, the former head of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate, said that 50 Palestinians should be killed for every Israeli killed on 7 October, "regardless of whether they are children or women", and called the killing of 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza "necessary and required so that future generations will say to them: you humiliated us and killed us, but that was the price".[343][344][345]
On 11 June 2024, the official Israeli Twitter account posted that "Gazan civilians participated in the horrific events of October 7", later citing a statement that "there are no innocent civilians there".[346] Far-right politician Moshe Feiglin said: "There is one and only solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza before invading it."[347][348] In May 2025, Feiglin said, "every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy".[349][350]
According to B'Tselem, incitement and dehumanization play a role in the genocide.[351] Dehumanization of Palestinians has been a long-term issue in Israel,[352] with the Israeli media contributing to it.[353] A January 2024 Tel Aviv University poll of Israeli Jews found that 51% believed the IDF was using an appropriate amount of force in Gaza and 43% believed it was not using enough.[354][355] In a February 2024 Israel Democracy Institute survey of Israelis, 68% of Jewish respondents supported preventing all international aid from entering Gaza.[356][357]
A March 2025 poll of Israeli Jews found that 82% supported the forced expulsion of Gaza residents;[358][357] 47% responded affirmatively to the question: "When conquering an enemy city, should the IDF act like the Israelites led by Joshua when they conquered Jericho, that is, kill all its inhabitants?"[358][359] A June 2025 poll by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that 64% of Israelis largely agreed with the statement "there are no innocent people in Gaza".[360][353] A July 2025 Israel Democracy Institute poll found that 79% of Israeli Jews were "not so troubled" or "not troubled at all" by reports of famine and suffering in Gaza.[361]
In late 2023, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that "A growing number of academics, legal scholars and governments are accusing the Israeli government of carrying out a genocide".[362] Human rights lawyer Susan Akram said, "The opposition is political, as there is consensus amongst the international human rights legal community, many other legal and political experts, including many Holocaust scholars, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza".[363]
While Israel and its supporters, including the US, deny the accusation, "a growing list of genocide scholars and international law experts" use genocide to describe Israeli actions.[364] A December 2024 Amnesty International report "adds an influential voice to a growing list of players that have accused Israel of committing genocide".[365][366] The law professor Adil Ahmad Haque said that the report describes serious violations of international humanitarian law, that Amnesty "correctly applies existing law", based on "its extensive factual findings".[367] Following the Amnesty report, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of "genocidal acts" in Gaza, but it did not say definitively whether genocidal intent existed.[368]
Former UK Supreme Court justice Jonathan Sumption said that a court would be likely to regard Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide due to Israel's explicit use of starvation as a weapon of war, the scale of human casualties and indiscriminate destruction in Gaza, and statements in support of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Katz, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir.[m] He said: "The most plausible explanation of current Israeli policy is that its object is to induce Palestinians as an ethnic group to leave the Gaza Strip for other countries by bombing, shooting and starving them if they remain."[305]
Omer Bartov, a leading Israeli-American Holocaust and genocide scholar who has written extensively about Israel's actions in Gaza
The debate over Gaza has polarized the field of Holocaust studies. Some scholars have defended Israeli violence and contended that the charge of genocide is based in antisemitism, in some cases comparing Hamas and Palestinians to Nazis—although many of these went silent as the war escalated. Others, primarily those who reject the uniqueness of the Holocaust and Jewish history, have argued that Israel's actions should be analysed as a case of genocide, along with other genocides in history.[369][370][page needed] In May 2025, NRC wrote that leading scholars in genocide studies are "surprisingly unanimous" that Israel is committing genocide. Uğur Ümit Üngör told NRC that "the gap between Holocaust historians and their colleagues who view genocides in a broader context is shrinking".[371]
Other academics also called Israel's attacks on infrastructure, food, and water genocidal.[372] Shmuel Lederman has called Israel's actions genocidal violence, but does not use the term "genocide", critiquing the simplification of intent in the term. He locates the situation in Gaza within a long and ongoing history of oppression, including mass surveillance, collective punishment, restrictions on travel and work, and settler-colonialism.[373]Amos Goldberg has said that Israel's actions in Gaza exhibit all the elements of genocide, citing explicit intent by high-ranking officials, widespread incitement, and pervasive dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli society.[374][375] He said, "What is happening in Gaza is a genocide because Gaza does not exist anymore."[376] His colleague Daniel Blatman agreed.[377][378] Goldberg has also accused mainstream Holocaust studies of abandoning universal human rights and becoming an "enabling factor" of the genocide.[379]
In 2023, Omer Bartov said, "My greatest concern watching the Israel-Gaza war unfold is that there is genocidal intent, which can easily tip into genocidal action."[271] In response to Bartov, five Holocaust scholars, while acknowledging Israeli officials' "despicable statements that cannot be ignored",[380] said that only a few officials made such statements and justified them by pointing to Hamas's crimes.[381] The scholars argued that the dehumanising language was "not evidence of genocidal intent".[381] Bartov later said that as of May 2024 it was "no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions", while noting that very few in Israel (apart from Palestinians) held this view.[382] In July 2025, he said "My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people... this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could".[383]
Martin Shaw argues that states avoid the term genocide to dodge their responsibility to end it; moreover, he argues, Israel avoids the term out of "a misplaced belief that Jews, having been prime historical victims of genocide, cannot also be its perpetrators."[384][385] In January 2024, Shaw noted that while the application of the framework of genocide to Palestine had, in the words of one commentator, "habitually evoked fanatical pushback", the nature of Israel's assault on Gaza "represented a strategic choice" rather than an inadvertent consequence, and thus calling it genocide was both warranted and inescapable.[386][387][388]
Professor Victoria Sanford compared the events in Gaza to the Guatemalan genocide.[324] Sanford and scholars Barry Trachtenberg and John Cox detailed the similarities between statements Israeli government officials and ministers made and those made during the genocides in Guatemala, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, northern Iraq, and Myanmar.[98]Didier Fassin compared Israel's actions in Gaza to the Herero and Nama genocide.[389] The Holocaust historian Tal Bruttmann [fr],[390] the sociologist Luc Boltanski, and others have criticised Fassin's arguments, calling his analogy to German colonialism inappropriate.[391] In response to these critiques and others, Fassin highlighted three rhetorical formations that he says have repeatedly occurred: presenting 7 October 2023 as the beginning of events, ignoring any history before that;[392] hyperbolic claims;[393] and distortion.[394]
In January 2024, the scholar Mark Levene detailed how Israel's actions are ethnic cleansing at the very least, in line with the Israeli intelligence ministry's policy paper for a forcible and permanent transfer of all Gazans, supported by Netanyahu's government.[8] Levene also argued that Israel's actions and its politicians' statements show that it is engaging in genocide.[395] The historian Donald Bloxham wrote that he is uninterested in the debate as "it makes no moral difference", "though much of what has transpired is eminently consistent with genocide".[396] Segal said Jewish supremacism plays a role in the Gaza genocide and Israel's settler colonialism.[10]
According to the intellectual and Holocaust historian Enzo Traverso, the Genocide Convention's definition of genocide "describes exactly what is happening in Gaza".[397] The Holocaust historian Tal Bruttmann has criticised Traverso's analysis, saying he lacks expertise on the subject.[390]
In February 2025, Norman J. W. Goda argued that there is insufficient evidence of genocidal intent.[398][where?]
In March 2024, the Middle East Studies Association condemned the "accelerating scale of genocidal violence being inflicted on the Palestinian population of Gaza", saying that Israel's conduct constituted cultural genocide.[399] A May–June 2024 Brookings Institution survey asked 758 Middle East scholars, most in the US: "How would you define Israel's current military actions in Gaza?" The responses were: "major war crimes akin to genocide", 41%; "genocide", 34%; "major war crimes but not akin to genocide", 16%; "unjustified actions but not major war crimes", 4%; "justified actions under the right to self-defense", 4%; and "I don't know", 2%.[400][401] In January–February 2025, a follow-up Brookings Institution survey of 614 Middle East scholars indicated a growing consensus toward defining Israel's military campaign in Gaza as genocide.[402]
The genocide scholar Uğur Ümit Üngör calls Israeli actions "unmistakably counter-genocidal in terms of the quantity, quality, and dynamic of mass violence".[403]Norman Finkelstein argued that Netanyahu's description of the Palestinians as "Amalek" was a call for genocide;[404] he accused Israel of engaging in "genocidal war".[405]
The historian Ilan Pappé said, "What we see now are massacres which are part of the genocidal impulse, namely to kill people in order to downsize the number of people living in Gaza."[406] Historian Yoav Di-Capua charted a history of increasing genocidal ideology among Hardal, identifying Smotrich and Ben-Gvir as politicians who seek the adoption of this ideology as national policy and are using the Gaza war to implement their plan.[407]
The Israeli historian Benny Morris contended that Israel was not committing genocide,[408] but added that genocide against Palestinians was possible in the future unless certain steps were taken.[408]
In November 2023, scholar Craig Mokhiber said the Gaza war was "a textbook case of genocide", citing various statements made by Israeli cabinet and military leaders. But scholar David Crane dismissed these statements as "political rhetoric" and said they do not show genocidal intent.[409]
In December 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, told Al Jazeera that the siege of Gaza was a form of genocide due to Israel's imposing conditions that would lead to the deaths of Palestinians.[410] In January 2024, a number of prominent Israelis, represented by the human-rights lawyer Michael Sfard, sent Israel's attorney general and state prosecutor an open letter detailing examples of "the discourse of annihilation, expulsion and revenge".[331] The signatories said that the Israeli judiciary was ignoring incitement to genocide in Gaza.[331]
William Schabas, an expert in international criminal law,[411] wrote in January 2024: "To me it is increasingly clear that Israel is not aiming to defeat Hamas, but rather to uproot or erase the population of Gaza."[412] In June 2024, Schabas said that South Africa's case was the strongest of all recent genocide cases at the International Court of Justice, citing the destruction of Gazan infrastructure and statements made by Israeli politicians that Gazans are "human animals" and that Israel would deny them electricity, water, and medical care.[413][414] In a May 2024 interview, the Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier detailed how Israel's blocking of aid and the subsequent starvation of Gaza's population is indicative of genocide.[415] Historian Barry Trachtenberg said, "What Israel has been doing since October 7 is clearly in strong violation of international law—of the Conventions on Genocide, and Geneva Conventions on the pursuit of war."[416] A June 2024 report by the University Network for Human Rights and Boston University School of Law found that "Israel has committed genocidal acts".[363]
In May 2024 the scholar Nimer Sultany supported Forensic Architecture's assessment that Israel had weaponised international humanitarian law into "humanitarian violence".[417] This was supported in July by Professor Neve Gordon and the anthropologist Nicola Perugini, who argued that Israel used "the law itself as a tool legitimizing genocide".[418] Luigi Daniele, a lecturer at Nottingham Law School, noted a link between the IDF's justification for its conduct in Gaza and the Rapid Support Forces rationale in the Sudanese civil war, saying it "reveals the emergence of a template to commit mass extermination and even genocide".[419]
In April 2024 the scholar Stefan Talmon told Süddeutsche Zeitung that Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza, but conceded that Israel had committed war crimes.[420] Professor Sabine Swoboda also argued that although Israel may have broken international law, it had not committed genocide because its intent was not genocidal.[421] In January 2024 the Israeli lawyer Eugene Kontorovich called the genocide allegations "absolutely absurd" and called for Israel to end its acceptance of the ICJ's jurisdiction in response to South Africa's case.[422] In an op-ed in August 2024 the lawyer Eli Rosenbaum wrote that Israel's actions in Gaza are not genocidal but seeking to "prevent genocide" by Hamas.[423]
In December 2023 Kai Ambos, a professor and judge at the Kosovo Special Tribunal, warned that statements by politicians, while potentially beneficial for proving intent, could not necessarily be applied in evaluating military decisions.[424] In January 2024, Christian Walter [de], a professor at LMU, argued that the extent of harm to both civilians and infrastructure were inconclusive, and that attempts to evacuate civilians were an indication against genocidal intent.[425] In June 2025, Ambos and scholar Stefanie Bock [de] wrote that it has become more difficult to deny genocidal intent.[426]
Professors Marco Sassoli and Oliver Diggelmann [de] argued in May 2024 that while some statements by politicians may be genocidal, the same did not apply to the actions of the Israeli military; Diggelmann believes a conviction for genocide is unlikely.[427] Professor Andreas Müller [de] said that the term "genocide" was being used as a criticism instead of according to its legal definition, adding, "there was no sufficient ground of genocide if one takes the legal term seriously".[428] Professor Daniel-Erasmus Khan [de] said in June that there was no clear evidence of a special intent among Israeli leadership.[429]
In a speech in October 2024, Professor Conor Gearty called Israel genocidal, pointing to the continued attacks on schools and hospitals and the lack of internal investigations by Israeli authorities into potential crimes.[430] In April 2025, the barrister Michael Mansfield said there was "no question" that genocide was occurring.[431]
In June 2025, Melanie O'Brien, a professor and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, said that, according to international law, Israel is committing genocide. She added, "even if self-defence is invoked, that does not justify genocide. There is no legal defence for genocide under international law."[432] According to Mia Swart, a growing consensus is emerging "in international legal circles that Israel is committing genocide".[433]
Some scholars, particularly those associated with Third World approaches to international law, have argued that the international community's failure to treat Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide and respond accordingly has harmed the principles of the international order and international law itself, and exposed the deficiencies of international governance.[434][435][436][page needed]
José Manuel Barreto argues that "the Palestinian genocide has unveiled the deep colonial structure of the international legal order" and identifies events in Gaza with the history of genocides in the colonised world, which he says the Westphalian system has historically failed to prevent.[435]
El-Affendi wrote, "increasing partisanship in Genocide Studies threatens the field itself, as well as the very act of genocide prevention."[388]
Bartov wrote that the reluctance of many scholars of the Holocaust and Holocaust commemoration institutions to identify events in Gaza as a genocide threatens universalist interpretations of Holocaust studies and Holocaust commemoration and may lead to a decline in the relevance of Holocaust education.[437][438]
Journalist Colin Jones interviewed lawyers affiliated with the US military and concluded that they see Gaza as a test case for what military conduct might be acceptable in a hypothetical future war between the US and a peer power such as China.[439]Moustafa Bayoumi wrote that "Israel's acts of extermination and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, funded and enabled at every turn by a complicit west, [have] contributed the most to the demise of the global, rules-based order."[440]
On 13 November 2023, the German social theoristJürgen Habermas and three colleagues at Goethe University Frankfurt published a statement in which they said that attributing genocidal intent to Israel's actions in Gaza was a misjudgement,[441] triggering public debate in Germany.[442]
In December, in correspondence published in The Lancet, multiple specialists in international medicine and humanitarian aid reiterated warnings of the risk of genocide, while detailing how Israel's blocking of humanitarian support and aid were leading to unnecessary deaths, and how the death rate would continue to worsen. They called on signatories to the Genocide Convention to enforce a ceasefire on Israel.[443] Nimer Sultany argues that, by mid-2024, a growing consensus among legal scholars suggested that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.[444] Multiple public declarations from journals and academic organisations have warned of a potential genocide and declared opposition to an ongoing genocide.[268][445][446]
In January 2024, the American political scientist and international relations scholar John Mearsheimer wrote that, while he had believed during the first two months of the war that Israel was "guilty of serious war crimes", once the 2023 Gaza war ceasefire ended, it "became clear" to him "that Israeli leaders were in fact seeking to physically destroy a substantial portion of Gaza's Palestinian population".[447] In July 2025, 1,300 professionals and academics in public health, health care, and the social sciences signed a letter acknowledging the Gaza genocide.[448] According to professor Ernesto Verdeja, even by "the most inflexible interpretation of genocide, Gaza qualifies as genocidal".[449]
In an application filed in December 2023, South Africa argued that Israel's actions "are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group".[65][455] South Africa requested that the ICJ issue a legal order on an interim basis requiring Israel to "immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza".[65].[455]
On 26 January 2024, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling finding that the rights asserted in South Africa's filing were "plausible" and issued an order requiring that Israel take all measures in its power to prevent acts of genocide, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and allow basic humanitarian services into Gaza.[69][68] Later that year, South Africa asked the ICJ to order additional measures against Israel because Gazans are facing mass starvation,[456] and in May, the court issued what some experts considered to be an ambiguous order but which was widely understood as requiring Israel to immediately halt its offensive in Rafah.[457] Israel rejected this interpretation and continued its offensive.[71]
The Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy rejected the allegations "with disgust"[451] and accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas,[450] calling South Africa's claims "blood libel".[458] On 2 January 2024, Israel decided to appear before the ICJ in response to South Africa's case, despite a history of ignoring international tribunals.[455] On 13 January, Netanyahu said, "No one will stop us. Not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, no one."[459] Israeli officials called the court antisemitic.[460][461] Israel's position is that "while unfortunate, the mass killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians is necessary, unavoidable, and justifiable self-defense."[462] South Africa's actions found support from some Israeli politicians, including Ofer Cassif.[463]
In May 2024, Khan applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, saying he had reasonable grounds to believe they bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza strip.[464] The list of crimes did not include genocide, which is legally distinct from extermination.[465] The warrants were issued in November 2024.[201]
As part of a December 2024 report accusing Israel of genocide, Amnesty International called on the ICC "to urgently consider the commission of the crime of genocide by Israeli officials since 7 October 2023 in the ongoing investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine".[466][467] Also in December 2024, the Israeli law professor Omer Shatz filed a complaint with the ICC naming eight Israeli political and media figures he believed were responsible for incitement to genocide.[468]
In November 2023, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.[469][470][98] The suit alleges that Israel's "mass killings", targeting of civilian infrastructure, and forced expulsions amount to genocide,[294][469] writing that the United States is capable of deterring Israel from committing these acts due to the close relationship between the countries.[294]
A federal judge dismissed the case in January 2024, ruling the Constitution prevented his court from determining foreign policy, but writing that "as the ICJ has found, it is plausible that Israel's conduct amounts to genocide"[471]. The judge also commented that he would have preferred to have issued the injunction and urged Biden to rethink US policy.[472][473][469]
In March 2024, Nicaragua initiated proceedings against Germany at the ICJ under the Genocide Convention concerning Germany's support for Israel in the Gaza war.[476][477] It sought provisional measures of protection, including resumption of suspended German funding of the UNRWA and cessation of military supplies to Israel.[477]
In March 2024, Birchgrove Legal referred Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and others to the ICC as accessories to genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, citing the defunding of UNRWA, the provision of military aid, and "unequivocal political support" for Israel's actions during the Gaza war.[478][479]
Third states are obliged "to employ all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible" and must not provide "means to enable or facilitate the commission of the crime".[480]
In January 2024 the former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said that the US and UK are complicit in genocide against Gaza.[481] In March, OXFAM released a statement detailing its intention, alongside several other NGOs,[n] to sue Denmark to prevent arms sales to Israel, warning that by selling arms Denmark is "complicit in violations of international humanitarian law ... and a plausible genocide".[482][483] In August the legal academic Shahd Hammouri said there was a "very strong" case that Western countries, particularly the US, were complicit in genocide.[484]
Legal scholar Matiangai Sirleaf has written that Gaza "is the first 'live-streamed' genocide in history" but that clear information about what is happening has not translated into effective action by the international community.[485] The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Palestine said, "States may be complicit in failing to prevent genocide if they do not act in compliance" with the International Court of Justice's orders or if they directly aid or assist in "the commission of genocide".[486] Other journalists and scholars have written that the actions of the US and other Western countries implicitly give permission for genocide.[487]
Pro-Palestine rally in Austin, Texas, United States, 2023
In November 2023, critics of President Joe Biden nicknamed him "Genocide Joe" for his support for Israel.[488] In response, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, "Israel's trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat."[488] In November 2023, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued Biden for allegedly failing in his duty under national and international laws to prevent Israel from committing genocide in Gaza.[294]
Democratic member of the Florida House of RepresentativesAngie Nixon sponsored a resolution calling for "de-escalation" and a ceasefire. The resolution was rejected by a vote of 104 to 2, but there was controversy during the legislative debate. Nixon said: "We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?" Republican State Representative Michelle Salzman replied, "All of them." Some commentators called Salzman's remark a call for genocide. Nixon and the Florida chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations called for Salzman to be censured or resign.[489][490] Executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USPCR) Ahmad Abuznaid said, "There is a bipartisan effort to dehumanize the Palestinian people".[491]
Republican US Representative Max Miller said in October 2023 that Palestine is "about to get eviscerated... to turn that into a parking lot". He previously called on the Biden administration "to get out of Israel's way and to let Israel do what it needs to do best" and said there should be "no rules of engagement" during Israel's bombardment of Gaza.[492] Miller also questioned the accuracy of the Gaza Health Ministry's claim that 10,000 people had been killed in Gaza.[493]
So it's time that Gaza ends. The two million people who live there, they are clever assassins. They need to be removed from that land. That land needs to be turned into a national park. And since they're the voluntary mercenaries for Iran, they need to be dropped on the doorstep of Iran. Let Iran deal with those people.
She received a round of applause from the audience.[494][495]
On 31 January 2024, Republican US Representative Brian Mast said that Palestinian babies are "terrorists" who should be killed, that more infrastructure in Gaza must be destroyed, and "It would be better if you kill all the terrorists and kill everyone who are supporters."[496] When asked about the deaths of Palestinian children, Republican US Representative Andy Ogles said: "I think we should kill 'em all...Hamas and the Palestinians have been attacking Israel for 20 years. It's time to pay the piper."[497] Supporters of Palestine, including the American Muslim Advisory Council, denounced his comments as a call for genocide.[498][499]
In February 2024, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention said the Biden administration was complicit in genocide in Gaza: "President Biden and key administration officials are on a path to be remembered as the principal enablers of one of the worst genocides in the 21st century."[500]Ali Harb wrote, "US weapons have continued to flow to Israel to arm a military carrying out a suspected genocide in Gaza."[501] In February 2024, after the US vetoed a UN ceasefire resolution, Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez said, "They are accomplices of this genocide of Israel against Palestine."[502] Karen Wells et al. also point to the $14.3 billion as evidence of US complicity in Israel's "genocidal war".[503] Research in 2024 showed that Israel's military relies heavily on fuel imports from the US for its operations in Gaza. Francesca Albanese said the United States' provision of fuel to Israel after the ICJ's provisional ruling was "a breach of the Genocide Convention".[484]
In March 2024, the then presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that Biden "dumped Israel" due to being overly influenced by pro-Palestinian protests, that he supported Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza, that Israel had to "finish the problem", and that the Biden administration "got soft", which some commentators viewed as a call to continue and "double down" on genocidal acts. Trump's campaign also said that, if elected, he would bar Gaza residents from entering the US.[504]
Republican US Representative Tim Walberg said that Palestinian civilians should have nuclear weapons used against them to "get it over quick".[505][506] On 22 July 2025, in response to an ABC News tweet about the rising numbers of Palestinians dying of starvation, Republican US Representative Randy Fine said: "Release the hostages. Until then, starve away." He also called the reports of starvation "Muslim terror propaganda".[507][508]
In a March 2025 op-ed in Newsweek calling for an arms embargo on Israel, US Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman wrote that the US is not "merely witnessing a genocide in Gaza" but is complicit.[513]
Protester holding a sign claiming the UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer (image blurred due to copyright) supports genocide
The UK government does not give weapons directly to Israel but rather issues licences for British companies to sell weapons.[514] On 12 December 2023 Human Rights Watch said that selling weapons to Israel could make the UK complicit in war crimes. UK law says that licences cannot be granted where there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.[515]James Denselow of Save the Children UK said, "By failing to push for a permanent end to the fighting or speak out against the weaponisation of aid, Rishi Sunak and his government are complicit in the horror that is unfolding."[516] In December 2023 Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf condemned the UK's abstention from a draft UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying this would lead to the deaths of more children.[517]
In April 2024 Guy Goodwin-Gill said: "There is a serious risk of genocide, as the International Court of Justice has found. If the UK, with that knowledge in mind, carries on exporting arms to Israel, there is a risk that those arms will be used in the conduct of aggressive activities and in the conduct of genocide."[518] The same month, hundreds of lawyers and legal academics published a legal opinion warning that the government risked complicity in genocide by continuing to arm Israel.[519][520]
On 2 September 2024 Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that he was suspending approximately 30 arms export licences to Israel after a government review concluded that there was a high risk that these exports were being used for severe violations of international humanitarian law.[521] At the time of the suspension, Israel had around 350 arms export licences in the UK.[522]
The human rights groups Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network took legal action against the British government in December 2023, saying that the government risked violating the Genocide Convention by granting export licences for the sale of military equipment to Israel.[523]
In May 2025 a hearing began at the High Court of Justice to determine whether the UK had violated arms export control laws by continuing to supply Israel with components for F-35 jets even after other licences were suspended. Government lawyers said the components were not being supplied directly to Israel and that withholding them could threaten international security.[524][525]
Demonstration in Frankfurt, where demonstrators are holding a banner that reads: "Stop the criminalisation of Palestinian resistance and solidarity"
In October 2023 the political analyst Lena Obermaier argued that Germany is complicit in Israel's war crimes against Gaza.[526] She detailed how most of Germany's most prominent news outlets have "been silent on Israeli genocidal policies". She also highlighted police suppression of pro-Palestine protests[527] as evidence of state complicity.[526] According to Germany's Federal Commissioner for the Fight against Antisemitism, accusing Israel of genocide is antisemitic.[528] Publicly accusing Israel of genocide can lead to arrest in Germany, even when the accusers are Jewish or Israeli.[529][530] In February 2024 a criminal complaint was filed in German courts accusing various senior politicians of complicity in genocide.[474] In March Nicaragua sued Germany for complicity at the ICJ.[476]
The European Union was accused of potential complicity after it did not suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnès Callamard said the EU was giving Israel a "green light" to continue its genocide and was at "risk of complicity in Israel's actions".[531][532]The Rights Forum [nl] said the decision was "shameless complicity in genocide".[533]
Egypt has said that its closure of the Rafah crossing is done in opposition to Israeli plans to displace Palestinians.[534] Egypt rejected an Israeli proposal that Gaza be returned to Egypt for up to 15 years[540] and formally supported South Africa's genocide case against Israel.[541]
On 20 June 2024, UN experts warned that continued arms transfers to Israel could amount to violations of international law and risk state and corporate complicity in potential genocide. They called for an immediate halt to all weapons transfers to Israel, including by such major arms manufacturers as BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Caterpillar. They also warned institutions investing in these companies, such as Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.[546]
In June 2025, a UN expert's report named Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM as "central to Israel's surveillance apparatus and the ongoing Gaza destruction", and Palantir as a source of AI tools for the Israeli military.[547] The report also named Allianz, Barclays, BlackRock, and BNP Paribas for underwriting and purchasing Israeli government bonds, which the UN said are the main source of financing for Israel's military expenditures.[548] Scholars, journalists, media analysts, and human rights advocates have accused various media outlets, mainly western, of complicity through media imperialism.[549]
Statements by political organisations and governments
While some western countries (including the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany) and Israel have rejected the charge of genocide, other states, primarily from the Islamic world and Africa, have supported South Africa's case.[550] The charge of genocide was explicitly endorsed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation[551] and the Arab League.[552]
After Israel started its military operation against Hamas, both Genocide Watch and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued statements warning of the imminent risk of genocide.[553][554] In December 2023, the Lemkin Institute said that it viewed Israel's continuing actions as genocide.[555] In December 2024, Genocide Watch said that Israel was conducting genocide against the Palestinian people.[556]
In November 2023, Defence for Children International (DCI) accused the U.S. of complicity in Israel's "crime of genocide".[557] In March 2024 DCI addressed the famine affecting Gaza: "The starvation of children is a hallmark of genocide and a deliberate political choice by Israel, backed by the Biden administration."[558] Three Palestinian rights groups, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) urging it to investigate Israel for apartheid and genocide and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.[559] The Arab Parliament wrote that Israel "aims to destroy the identity of an entire people".[560]
In December 2023, the International Federation for Human Rights said Israel's actions in Gaza constituted an unfolding genocide.[48] In February 2024, ahead of the Rafah offensive, Amnesty International head Agnes Callamard wrote: "Amnesty is reiterating that Palestinians in Gaza are at grave risk of genocide. The international community has an obligation to act to prevent genocide."[561] In March 2024 Callamard said the international community "must uphold their obligations under the Genocide Convention and take concrete measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza today".[562] In October 2024, Medical Aid for Palestinians released a statement calling for the protection of Palestinians, saying, "Gaza is being erased in front of our eyes."[563]Oxfam and 37 other humanitarian organisations warned that Israel was failing to comply with the Genocide Convention as it wiped Northern Gaza "off the map".[564] Oxfam added that it was "impossible not to believe" that Israel's aim was the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.[565]
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented evidence of executions committed by the IDF.[566]Jewish Voice for Peace said: "The Israeli government has declared a genocidal war on the people of Gaza. As an organization that works for a future where Palestinians and Israelis and all people live in equality and freedom, we call on all people of conscience to stop imminent genocide of Palestinians."[567]
In December 2024 Amnesty International issued a report declaring that Israel had "committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip".[568][569][44] The report asserted that in multiple instances Israeli forces and authorities had committed three of five acts prohibited under the United Nations' Genocide Convention: "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".[570] In its 2025 State of the World's Human Rights report, Amnesty called Israel's actions a "live-streamed genocide" and criticised the complicity of Israel's allies, chiefly the United States, which it said "claimed that or acted as if international law did not apply to" it by "willfully ignoring" the orders and proceedings of the ICC and ICJ.[571]
The law professor and senior fellow of the Foundation for Defense of DemocraciesOrde Kittrie claimed that Amnesty had altered or otherwise made up a new definition of genocide,[572] while the law professor Amichai Cohen and the human-rights scholar Yuval Shany called the report an "attempt to move the normative goalposts regarding these evidentiary standards".[573] Other experts defended the report, telling TheJournal.ie that Amnesty was using the term consistently with international law. The genocide scholar A. Dirk Moses called the accusation against Amnesty International "vexatious".[574] Amnesty International's Israeli branch rejected the report and a "group of Jewish employees, in Israel and in several branches around the world" said that its authors "reached a predetermined conclusion". A minority of Amnesty Israel members said that "according to the available information, it can be determined that Israel is committing or has committed genocide in Gaza".[575][576] In January 2025, Amnesty International suspended its Israeli branch for two years, in part because of disagreements about research and findings Amnesty published.[577]
On 10 December 2024, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights announced that it had been investigating the question of genocide in Gaza and concluded that there was a "legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza".[578]
A December 2024 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report said its "firsthand observations of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe inflicted on Gaza are consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza."[579][580] In July 2025, MSF said that Israel was committing genocide. They argue that statements by senior Israeli officials demonstrate genocidal intent, writing the "only reasonable inference is that the intention is to erase the Palestinian people from Gaza."[581]
In May 2025 during Israel's total blockade of Gaza, NIOD director Martijn Eickhoff told NOS, "If an entire population is denied access to food, that is potentially genocidal."[582]
On 28 July 2025, Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem[583] and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel released reports calling Israel's campaign in Gaza a genocide. The B'Tselem report also claimed that European and US leaders were enabling the genocide.[47][584][585]
In November 2023, a group of UN special rapporteurs wrote, "We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide."[586][293] UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation Pedro Arrojo said that based on the Rome Statute, which counts "deprivation of access to food or medicine, among others" as a form of extermination, "even if there is no clear intention, the data show that the war is heading towards genocide".[587] A group of UN human rights experts said there was "evidence of increasing genocidal incitement" against Palestinians.[588][589]
In response to a January 2024 Times of Israel report that the Israeli government was in talks with the Congolese government to take Palestinian refugees from Gaza, the UN special rapporteur Balakrishnan Rajagopal said, "Forcible transfer of Gazan population is an act of genocide."[590][591]
In May 2024, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against WomenReem Alsalem said that Palestinian women "are experiencing a full-blown genocide. They are being exterminated. There are few places in the world where we've seen something like this."[592][593] The UNHCR Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, said that Israel's destruction of Gaza "constitutes an act of genocide as well because the purpose of that destruction, exceeding 70 to 80 per cent across Gaza, is to make the place uninhabitable".[594]
In February 2025, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri said that Israel is committing a genocide and is working to "slow down its genocide through a starvation campaign", concluding that the United States and Germany were complicit in the ensuing famine.[602]
In May 2025, twenty UN independent experts and four working groups issued a statement accusing Israel of genocide and criticising the debate over the genocide terminology:
While States debate terminology—is it or is it not genocide?—Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity... States must act swiftly to end the unfolding genocide, dismantle apartheid, and secure a future in which Palestinians and Israelis coexist in freedom and dignity.[603]
Also in May 2025, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Tom Fletcher urged world leaders to act decisively to prevent genocide in Gaza.[604][605] On 4 June, Itamar Eichner reported that the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution against Israel.[606]
The characterization of Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as a genocide against the Palestinian people has been a contentious topic in cultural discourse, with celebrities, athletes, public intellectuals, activists, cultural institutions and ordinary people weighing in on the events in Gaza, as well as on the cultural and societal implications of viewing those events through the framework of genocide.[607]
^Per the Gaza Health Ministry and Government Information Office,[23] which has previously been deemed reliable by prominent and independent organisations.[24][25] In the same period at least 990 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank.[26]
^A larger estimate of 64,260 exists for total direct deaths between the start of the conflict until the end of June 2024, and likely exceeding 70,000 by October 2024.[27] By January 2025, this number would have increased to around 80,000[28] and then to 93,000 (77,000 to 109,000) by May 2025.[29]
Using methods described in The Lancet, Devi Sridhar, the chair of global health at the University of Edinburgh, wrote in a September 2024 editorial that "the total deaths since the conflict began would be estimated at about 335,500 in total".[31]
In addition to direct deaths, armed conflicts result in indirect deaths "attributable to the conflict". Mortality due to indirect deaths could be due to a variety of causes, such as infectious diseases.[32]
Geneva Declaration Secretariat 2008, p. 4: "The ratio of people killed in war to those dying indirectly because of a conflict is explored in the chapter on indirect deaths (INDIRECT CONFLICT DEATHS). Studies show that between three and 15 times as many people die indirectly for every person who dies violently."
^As of January 2025, a comparable estimate for traumatic injury deaths would be around 80,000.[28]
^It is unclear how many of the deaths were a result of friendly fire or of the Hannibal Directive. An Ynet article stated that there was an "immense and complex quantity" of friendly-fire incidents on the part of IDF during the 7 October attack.[92][93][94][95]
^Per the Gaza Health Ministry and Government Information Office by 3 January 2024, over 22,300 people had been confirmed dead.[131]
^Some Israeli officials denied the plan had been adopted; however, an official familiar with the situation stated that some aspects of the plan were already in progress.[193]
^Sumption wrote: "Statements like these from the prime minister and senior ministers in his cabinet have to be considered together with the sheer scale of the human casualties and the indiscriminate physical destruction inflicted on their orders. The most plausible explanation of current Israeli policy is that its object is to induce Palestinians as an ethnic group to leave the Gaza Strip for other countries by bombing, shooting and starving them if they remain. A court would be likely to regard that as genocide."
^Sumption wrote: "The Israeli minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a long-standing advocate of ethnic cleansing. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is another. He announced at a public press conference on 6 May 2025, shortly after the decision to launch Operation Gideon's Chariots, that "Gaza will be entirely destroyed." He went on to explain that Palestinians would be herded into a Hamas-free zone, and from there would leave "in great numbers" to third countries. [...] A week after Smotrich's remarks, Netanyahu, giving evidence to a Knesset committee, reported that Israel was destroying more and more housing so that the population would have nowhere to return to and would have to leave Gaza. More recently, on 7 July, the defence minister, Israel Katz, briefed Israeli media that it was proposed to incarcerate Palestinians in a vast camp to be built on the ruins of Rafah, pending their departure for other countries."
Mackenzie & Lubell 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMackenzieLubell2023 (help): "Israel has tightened its blockade on and bombarded Gaza for three weeks after the Islamist group Hamas' Oct. 7 assault killed 1,400 Israelis ... Abbas ... said, 'Our people in the Gaza Strip are facing a war of genocide and massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces in full view of the entire world.'"
Antonio 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAntonio2023 (help): "Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss rejected the notion that his country is committing genocide in Gaza City, where a two-week war has erupted ... their measures were targeting Hamas members, and they were 'taking all measures to avoid having civilians affected" by attacks. 'We are informing civilians even before attacks: keep away from Hamas' infrastructure and Hamas' facilities,' ... Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians."
Chacar 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFChacar2023 (help)
Smith et al. 2023 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSmithMcCarthyLondoñoJordan2023 (help)
^Abraham 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAbraham2024 (help): '"There was a completely permissive policy regarding the casualties of [bombing] operations – so permissive that in my opinion it had an element of revenge," D., an intelligence source, claimed. ... A. also used the word "revenge" to describe the atmosphere inside the army after October 7.'
^Sultany 2024, pp. 2–3. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSultany2024 (help)
^Bennett, Stephen (23 October 2023). "On the Dehumanization of the Palestinians". palestine-studies.com. Institute for Palestine Studies. Archived from the original on 10 December 2024. Retrieved 3 July 2024. The current genocidal assaults on Palestinians in the Gaza strip have undoubtedly been enabled by decades of anti-Palestinian racism propagated by both government and military officials and by media outlets. ... This has never been clearer than over the course of the last two weeks as U.S. and Israeli political and military leaders sow fear and paranoia, and trot out the worst anti-Arab rhetoric we have seen since the period following 9/11. This racist rhetoric is intended to dehumanize the Palestinians in order to neutralize public outrage at what may amount to the worst ethnic cleansing since the 1948 Nakba and what constitutes a genocide at the hands of one of the most advanced militaries in the world, all while world powers watch and do nothing.
^ abIndependent International Commission of Inquiry 2025, p. 1: "The Commission also examines the sharp increase in sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by members of the Israeli Security Forces and settlers online and in person across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. It also examines how sexual and gender-based violence has taken different forms when committed against male and female members of the Palestinian community in order to dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part."
^ abIndependent International Commission of Inquiry 2025, p. 39: "175. The Commission finds that the ISF intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic which was the main fertility centre in Gaza. The ISF destroyed all of the reproductive material that was stored for the future conception of Palestinians. The Commission did not find any evidence that this IVF clinic was a legitimate military target at the time that it was attacked by the ISF. The Commission concludes that the destruction of the Basma IVF clinic was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act under the Rome Statute and Genocide Convention. The Commission also concludes that this was done with the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, in whole or in part, and that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question"
^ abc"How many people have died in Gaza?". The Economist. 8 May 2025. Archived from the original on 29 May 2025. The researchers found that the overlap was so small that the true number of deaths was probably 46-107% higher than the official ministry total. If you assume that the ratio has stayed the same since last June (and not fallen, as systems caught up during the ceasefire, say) and apply them to the current tally, it would suggest that between 77,000 and 109,000 Gazans have been killed, 4-5% of the territory's pre-war population (see chart).
^ abcBloxham 2025, pp. 23–24 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBloxham2025 (help): "When considering the total 'excess mortality,' we need to add the Palestinians who have died because of the blockade in combination with the IDF's destruction of health and sanitation and food infrastructure. As public health experts noted, in many wars, 'most deaths' are 'due to the indirect [sic] impacts of war: malnutrition, communicable disease, exacerbations of noncommunicable disease, [and] maternal and infant disorders.'117 'Indirect' would be the wrong word for this conflict given the nature of Israeli policies, including the systematic obstruction of supplies into Gaza."
^Sathar 2023, pp. 82–83 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSathar2023 (help); Qutami 2023, p. 532 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFQutami2023 (help); Semerdjian 2024, p. 4 harvnb error: no target: Semerdjian2024a (help)
^ ab"A genocide is unfolding before our eyes: History will not forgive our inaction, UN Special Committee warns General Assembly 4th Committee report". Question of Palestine. 19 November 2024. Archived from the original on 10 April 2025. Retrieved 9 April 2025. Our report leaves no room for ambiguity. A genocide is unfolding before our eyes. Failing to act now—failing to put an end to this atrocity crime— will tear apart the very foundation of the international rule of law we have collectively built to protect peace, security, and the well-being of all. Our inaction today is setting a perilous precedent for tomorrow. Think about it.
^ abAmnesty International report 2024, p. 13: "This report focuses on the Israeli authorities' policies and actions in Gaza as part of the military offensive they launched in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 while situating them within the broader context of Israel's unlawful occupation, and system of apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. It assesses allegations of violations and crimes under international law by Israel in Gaza within the framework of genocide under international law, concluding that there is sufficient evidence to believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza following 7 October 2023 amounts to genocide."
^Médecins Sans Frontières 2025 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMédecins_Sans_Frontières2025 (help): "Our decision to describe what’s happening in Gaza as a 'genocide' is based on nearly two years of extensive, firsthand information from our teams, who are witnessing massive levels of death and destruction by Israeli forces, a campaign of ethnic cleansing and the almost total dismantling of the health care system."
^B'Tselem 2025, p. 86 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFB'Tselem2025 (help): "The review presented in this report leaves no room for doubt: since October 2023, the Israeli regime has been responsible for carrying out genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Killing tens of thousands of people; causing bodily or mental harm to hundreds of thousands more; destroying homes and civilian infrastructure on a massive scale; starvation, displacement, and denying humanitarian aid — all this is being perpetrated systematically, as part of a coordinated attack aimed at annihilating all facets of life in the Gaza Strip."
Swart 2025, p. 3 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSwart2025 (help): "South Africa's actions led to an ever-growing consensus in international legal circles that Israel is committing genocide"
Dumper & Badran 2024, p. 2 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDumperBadran2024 (help): "In this context we should not overlook the latest turning point in the history of Palestine – the attack by Hamas on 7th October 2023 on Israeli settlements adjacent to Gaza and the subsequent genocidal war that the state of Israel has carried out in the Gaza Strip."
Speri 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSperi2024 (help)
Albanese 2024, p. 1 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAlbanese2024 (help): "By analysing the patterns of violence and Israeli policies in its onslaught on Gaza, the present report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that Israel has committed genocide has been met"
International Federation for Human Rights 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFInternational_Federation_for_Human_Rights2024 (help): "One year ago, the FIDH International Board, its governing body elected by all its member organisations, recognised, after extensive debate and examination, that Israel was carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza"
^Jamaluddine et al. 2025 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFJamaluddineAbukmailAlyCampbell2025 (help): "We estimated 64,260 deaths (95% CI 55 298–78 525) due to traumatic injury during the study period, suggesting the Palestinian MoH under-reported mortality by 41%. ... Our findings underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation."
^ abDonoghue 2024, 5:10 ("The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide, and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court."); Order, S. Afr., No. 192 (ICJ 26 January 2024), ¶ 54 ("In the Court's view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel's compliance with the latter's obligations under the Convention.").
Nebehay 2011 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFNebehay2011 (help): "A panel of five independent U.N. rights experts [said] the blockade had subjected Gazans to collective punishment in 'flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.'"
"Hamas hardliner Yahya Sinwar elected as Gaza leader". BBC News. 13 February 2017. Archived from the original on 22 October 2023. Retrieved 15 October 2023. Israel and Egypt maintain a blockade around Gaza aimed at preventing attacks by militants there, though the measure has been condemned by rights groups as a form of collective punishment.
^Ackerman, Seth (4 January 2024). "There was an Iron Wall in Gaza". Jacobin. Archived from the original on 5 January 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2024. The unemployment rate soared to "probably the highest in the world", four-fifths of the population were forced to rely on humanitarian assistance, three-quarters became dependent on food aid, more than half faced "acute food insecurity", one in ten children were stunted by malnutrition, and over 96 percent of potable water became unsafe for human consumption.
^"Hamas leader Haniyeh: Battle 'will spread to West Bank, Jerusalem'". Arab News. Associated Press and Reuters. 8 October 2023. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. The leader of Hamas' military wing, Mohammed Deif, said Saturday's assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al-Aqsa and increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians, and growth of settlements.
^Zitun, Yoav (12 December 2023). "One-fifth of troop fatalities in Gaza due to friendly fire or accidents, IDF reports". Ynetnews. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 15 December 2023. Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time.
^Bergman, Ronen; Zitun, Yoav (10 January 2024). "hahor'a: lemanoa mimchavlim lechzor le'eza tavivkel mechir, gam am yesh itam hatofim" ההוראה: למנוע ממחבלים לחזור לעזה 'בכל מחיר', גם אם יש איתם חטופים [The instructions: prevent terrorists from returning to Gaza "at all costs" even if there are hostages with them]. Ynet (in Hebrew). Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 12 January 2024. ההערכות הן כי בשטח שבין יישובי העוטף לרצועה נהרגו כאלף מחבלים ומסתננים. לא ברור בשלב זה כמה מהחטופים נהרגו בשל הפעלת הפקודה הזו. [It is estimated that about a thousand terrorists and infiltrators were killed in the area between the settlements of the encirclement and the Strip. It is not clear at this stage how many of the hostages were killed as a result of the operation of this order.]
^Bergman, Ronen; Zitun, Yoav (12 January 2024). "hashe'ot ha'roshonot shel hashevet hischura" השעות הראשונות של השבת השחורה [The first hours of Black Saturday]. Yedioth Ahronoth (in Hebrew). Archived from the original on 18 January 2024. Retrieved 19 January 2024. הוראות לפתוח באש על רכבי מחבלים שדהרו לעזה, גם אם יש חשש שיש בהם חטופים - מעין גרסה מחודשת ל"נוהל חניבעל" [orders to open fire on terrorist vehicles that were racing to Gaza, even if there were concerns that they contained hostages – a kind of renewed version of the "Hannibal Procedure”]
^B'Tselem 2021 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFB'Tselem2021 (help): "A regime that uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another is an apartheid regime. Israeli apartheid, which promotes the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians, was not born in one day or of a single speech. It is a process that has gradually grown more institutionalized and explicit, with mechanisms introduced over time in law and practice to promote Jewish supremacy. These accumulated measures, their pervasiveness in legislation and political practice, and the public and judicial support they receive – all form the basis for our conclusion that the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met."
^ abcdeKhatib, McKee & Yusuf 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKhatibMcKeeYusuf2024 (help): "Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip. In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip."
^Abraham 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAbraham2024 (help): ""It was very surprising for me that we were asked to bomb a house to kill a ground soldier, whose importance in the fighting was so low" said one source."
^Stamatopoulou-Robbins 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFStamatopoulou-Robbins2024 (help): "In addition to killing people directly through traumatic injuries, wars cause "indirect deaths" by destroying, damaging, or causing deterioration of economic, social, psychological and health conditions. Most expansively, this report describes the causal pathways that can be expected to lead to far larger numbers of indirect deaths. These deaths result from diseases and other population-level health effects that stem from war's destruction of public infrastructure and livelihood sources, reduced access to water and sanitation, environmental damage, and other such factors. This report builds on a foundation of previous Costs of War research for its framework and methodology in covering the most significant chains of impact, or causal pathways, to indirect war deaths in Gaza and the West Bank. Unlike in combat, these deaths do not necessarily occur immediately or in the close aftermath of the battles which many observers focus on. While it will take years to assess the full extent of these population-level health effects, they will inevitably lead to far higher numbers of deaths than direct violence."
^"Appendix to letter of October 2, 2024 re: American physicians observations from the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023"(PDF). gazahealthcareletters.org. Gaza Healthcare Letters. 2 October 2024. Archived from the original(PDF) on 7 October 2024. Retrieved 17 October 2024. These are the most conservative estimates of the death toll that can be made with the given available data as of September 30, 2024. It is highly likely that the real number of deaths in Gaza from this conflict is far higher than this most conservative estimate. Without an immediate ceasefire the death toll will only continue to mount, especially among young children.
^Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water (Report). Human Rights Watch. 19 December 2024. Archived from the original on 9 February 2025. Retrieved 20 January 2025. Israeli authorities' and forces' actions to deprive the population of Gaza of access to water amount to acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Specifically, their actions amount to deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza. Genocidal intent may also be inferred from Israeli authorities' and forces' continued actions to deprive Palestinians in Gaza of water, despite clear data and warnings from the United Nations since October and orders from the International Court of Justice calling for the provision of water since January, alongside Israeli authorities' statements, and therefore these acts may amount to the crime of genocide.
^"Public Statement: Scholars Warn" 2023 ("Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared on 9 October that 'we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly'. He subsequently announced that Israel was moving to 'a full-scale response' and that he had 'removed every restriction' on Israeli force.").
^Karsenti, Bruno; Ehrenfreund, Jacques; Christ, Julia; Heurtin, Jean-Philippe; Boltanski, Luc; Trom, Danny (12 November 2023). "Un génocide à Gaza? Une réponse à Didier Fassin" [A genocide in Gaza? A response to Didier Fassin]. AOC media (in French). Archived from the original on 13 November 2023. Retrieved 16 December 2024.
^Fassin 2024, p. 4. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFassin2024 (help)
^Fassin 2024, pp. 4–5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFassin2024 (help)
^Fassin 2024, p. 5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFassin2024 (help)
^Levene 2024, pp. 5–7. sfn error: no target: CITEREFLevene2024 (help)
^Bloxham 2025, pp. 3–4, 15–16. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBloxham2025 (help)
Taub 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTaub2024 (help)
Wintour 2024 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWintour2024 (help): "a directive widely seen to have instructed Israel to completely stop its military offensive"
Clayton 2024a harvnb error: no target: CITEREFClayton2024a (help): "It was widely viewed as an unambiguous statement: The top United Nations court ordered Israel to immediately halt its military assault on Rafah — a dramatic intervention that left the nation and its chief ally, the U.S., increasingly isolated on the world stage."
Haque 2024a harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHaque2024a (help)
^Cohen, Amichai; Shani, Yuval (16 December 2024). "A "Cramped Interpretation of International Jurisprudence"? Some Critical Observations on the Amnesty International Genocide Report on Gaza". Just Security. Archived from the original on 17 December 2024. Retrieved 16 December 2024. In this contribution, we explain why, in our view, Amnesty International has been unable to meet these high evidentiary standards; why its attempt to move the normative goalposts regarding these evidentiary standards undermines the utility of the report as a pronouncement on the application of lex lata (the law as it exists); and why even under the more relaxed standards that the report utilizes, some of its key conclusions are questionable.
^Médecins Sans Frontières 2024c, p. 5: "Our firsthand observations of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe inflicted on Gaza are consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza. While we don't have legal authority to establish intentionality, the signs of ethnic cleansing and the ongoing devastation—including mass killings, severe physical and mental health injuries, forced displacement, and impossible conditions of life for Palestinians under siege and bombardment—are undeniable."
Geneva Declaration Secretariat (2008). Global Burden of Armed Violence(PDF) (Report). Geneva Declaration Secretariat. Archived(PDF) from the original on 7 December 2024. Retrieved 11 December 2024.
Guillot, Michel; Draidi, Mohammed; Cetorelli, Valeria; Monteiro Da Silva, José H. C.; Lubbad, Ismail (February 2025). "Life expectancy losses in the Gaza Strip during the period October, 2023, to September, 2024". The Lancet. 405 (10477): 478–485. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02810-1. PMID39864444.
Huynh, Benjamin Q.; Chin, Elizabeth T.; Spiegel, Paul B. (6 December 2023). "No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health". The Lancet. 403 (10421): 23–24. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02713-7. PMID38070526.
——— (17 July 2024). "Gazafication and Genocide by Attrition in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and the Occupied Palestinian Territories". Journal of Genocide Research (Forum: Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh: Famine, Memory, Security, and the Question of Genocide): 1–22. doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2377871.
Swart, Mia (5 August 2025). "South Africa v Israel: South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice". The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies: 1–3. doi:10.1080/00358533.2025.2542794.
Tanielian, Melanie S. (5 February 2024). "The Silent Slow Killer of Famine: Humanitarian Management and Permanent Security". Journal of Genocide Research (Forum: Israel–Palestine: Atrocity Crimes and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies): 1–9. doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2310866.
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