crime

"The mass killing of civilians in Gaza has been carried out... through permissive... at times deliberate, live fire by Israeli soldiers... Soldiers' testimonies reveal that... Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip defined "kill zones"... with arbitrary boundaries, sometimes unclear even to the soldiers... where permission was given to open fire at anyone... within them."

"After breaking the ceasefire in March 2025, Israel resumed... aggressive... indiscriminate attacks... including... designated humanitarian zones and other areas densely populated by tens of thousands of destitute IDPs. As of 14 July 2025, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported more than 7,450 people killed and over 26,000 wounded since the ceasefire was violated."

"Soldiers and officers... reported... absence of... , or... rules... at the discretion of commanders... or based on arbitrary criteria. Isolated incidents such as the killing of 15 paramedics in April 2025, or the December 2023 shooting of three Israeli hostages who had escaped captivity and were waving a white flag, illustrate that the open-fire regulations were... discarded. These practices were reinforced by statements from commanders... and by... volunteer doctors... including visual evidence of deliberate sniper shootings of children."

"[A]fter ordering residents to leave their homes, Israel repeatedly bombed... "safe corridors" that... s (IDPs) were to use to travel to "humanitarian zones"."

"[C]auses of indirect deaths are injuries, infectious diseases, , maternal and neonatal mortality, and complications from untreated chronic illnesses. All... a... result of... destruction of living conditions... restrictions on the entry of , and... assault on the healthcare system that has rendered it unable to cope with... casualties. Experts warn... along with the starvation... indirect deaths will rise further."

"Gaza's residents have endured countless traumatic events... with... psychological consequences... [W]ithin a reality of omnipresent death, relentless displacement, and ongoing hunger and disease, many are suffering psychological distress after witnessing horrific events, including the violent deaths of... loved ones."

"In... October 2024... 100 American medical professionals who had volunteered in the Gaza Strip published a letter stating that almost every person they encountered... was ... sick or wounded, and... nearly every child under... five was suffering from ing and . ...[M]any of the surgeries ...resulted in s due to ..., poor sanitary conditions, and ...lack of . They ...stated that malnutrition and ...shortage of clean ...led to widespread ...low and post-partum women unable to breastfeed, often resulting in the infants' deaths. ...[P]regnant women and fetuses ...had died as a result of the decimation of the healthcare system."

"[I]ncidence of mental health problems has increased significantly, particularly trauma-related disorders, depression, and anxiety, in a population already exhibiting high rates of mental illness due to prolonged exposure to occupation, blockade, and recurring military violence."

"In September 2024, 15 aid organizations published an analysis showing that Israel had blocked 83% of food assistance to the Strip."

"[B]efore the... offensive... 64%... in the Gaza Strip were classified as food insecure, and... 80% relied on... humanitarian aid. Immediately after launching its assault... Israel declared a complete blockade... which quickly led to... shortages of food..."

"Israel attacked convoys... distributing humanitarian aid, as well as the Palestinian police officers tasked... with securing them. The [food] shortage... led to sharp price hikes... further limiting access... for most of the population."

"[S]ince October 2023, the Israeli regime has been responsible for carrying out genocide..."

""[H]umanitarian zones"... meant to provide IDPs safety, offered unlivable conditions and were... systematically bombed."

"Until 14 July 2025... 138,520 people were injured... Approximately 25%... life-altering injuries that require... rehabilitative care, including limb amputations, spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and severe burns. ...[R]ecords ...refer only to ...treatment at an official medical facility. ... As with the death toll, it appears... official figures... understate... the... number."

"[T]he UN warned that people with disabilities... are "at higher risks of dying, becoming injured and acquiring further impairments" as a result of the ongoing Israeli offensive."

"A study... estimated that during the first 12 months of the Israeli assault, the life expectancy of men in Gaza dropped by 51.6%, to 40.5 years, a loss of 34.9 years compared to prewar... For women... 38.6%, to... 47.5 years, a loss of 29.9 years."

"[T]he Ministry of Health in Gaza.... [fatalities] breakdown released in July 2025 shows 15%... women, 29%... minors and 7% are elderly."

"Several studies... suggest... casualties... much higher. The duration... the... scale of infrastructure destruction, and... restriction of humanitarian and rescue organizations' access... are... some... factors..."

"A... legal examination... appears in Amnesty International's December 2024... "You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza"; in the work of , currently being published; in the submissions by South Africa's legal team... filed with the International Court of Justice (ICJ); and in reports by United Nations experts."

"Israel's... open-fire policy... systematically violates fundamental principles of international law, such as distinction and proportionality. Israel... policy... permits unprecedented levels of harm to uninvolved civilians when striking at what it considers military targets. ...These practices enable... increase... frequency of strikes and [to] reduce risk to soldiers at the expense of precautions... to reduce injury to innocents."

"According to data provided by the Ministry of Health in Gaza to (PHRI), more than 4,700... have undergone amputations since October 2023, including over 940 children and... 370 women. ...[W]here basic medications ...as s were unavailable, doctors were forced to amputate ...though under normal circumstances ... not ...necessary. ...Tens of thousands of wounded ...and amputees were left without adequate care."

"[E]stimates range from thousands to tens of thousands of deaths, in addition to the direct fatalities caused by the Israeli assault. ...[R]esearchers broadly agree that... figures released by the Ministry of Health in Gaza significantly understate... victims."

"Genocide... is an assault on humanity... on the fundamental belief that every life is precious, and the core principle that every human being is entitled to basic rights affording protection from arbitrary violence. ...[A]ttempting to eradicate a group of human beings is a crime... that every person has the duty to oppose and act to stop immediately. This is a moral, legal, and human imperative: to acknowledge the facts... stand with the victims, and demand an end to destruction and extermination..."

"The routine killing and destruction in the Gaza Strip and the forced displacement of tens of thousands in the would not have been possible without international inaction in the face of the unfathomable scale and severity of these crimes."

"This reality... cannot be justified or explained as an attempt to destroy the rule of Hamas or its military capabilities in Gaza."

"With regard to the number of Palestinians killed and injured in the Gaza Strip, this report relies on figures published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. These figures are widely considered reliable... Moreover, they are generally regarded as conservative..."

"Statements by senior Israeli decision-makers... have expressed genocidal intent throughout."

"[T]he international community either remains passive or actively supports Israel's crimes."

"[T]he centrality of intent to destroy... is often framed in terms of ' — the mental... intent to destroy the group in whole or in part — and ' — the physical acts... as... in the Convention. Genocide requires a specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy the group in whole or in part..."

"This report relies on the legal definition of genocide as outlined in the UN Convention, but adopts a broader analytical framework, drawing on 's original conception as well as historical and sociological research..."

"Genocidal intent was also expressed in numerous statements made by Israeli military officers... soldiers... military and security experts, and... Israeli media and cultural figures. These voices articulated a worldview... according to which... most... Gaza[ns] are... responsible for [October 7] crimes... or... support them."

"Israel is intensifying its brutal, merciless assault... [I]t is our duty to bear witness to... [what] we and many others have documented and investigated. It is our duty to name the reality... to recount it, and to stand with... victims."

"At , Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians... work side by side, guided by... defending human rights... [as] a basic human and moral obligation. ...[A] discriminatory apartheid regime ...classifies some ...as privileged ...because we are Jewish, and others as undeserving of ...protection ...because we are Palestinian. Together, we fight for the right we all have to live... without discrimination, violent repression and annihilation."

"We call on the Israeli public and... the international community to... to put an immediate stop to Israel's assault on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and across all areas under Israeli control, using every means available under international law."

"As a human rights organization... our duty [is] to analyze human rights violations... in context, taking into account the regime... and its guiding political logic."

"[T]he core objective... The... Israeli system — political, military, public, and legal — is structured to uphold Jewish supremacy, relying on a false pretense of... rule of law while... rights of... Palestinian subjects are... unprotected."

"[R]ecognizing that genocide is taking place against part of a group or in a specific location is... a grave warning: it signals the potential expansion of similar patterns of violence to other segments of the group or... other areas."

"The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (which came into force in 1951) defines... acts... considered genocidal if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group: killing members... causing serious bodily or mental harm... deliberately inflicting conditions... calculated to bring about the group's... destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births... and forcibly transferring children... to another group. ...[I]nternational tribunals that adjudicated... Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia... included acts of widespread sexual and gender-based violence. Thus... the intentional destruction... may, and... tends to occur through multiple forms of action, with direct killing being only one..."

"There is an inherent gap between the legal and the historical analysis of genocide. The legal definition is narrow... shaped in large part by... interests of the states whose representatives drafted it. From a historical perspective, violent destruction of groups... has occurred... many of which do not align with the stringent legal definition. The high threshold... and... dominant interpretations... by international tribunals have led to... genocide... typically recognized only after a significant portion of the... group has... been destroyed and... suffered irreparable harm."

"[W]hile the legal debate over whether Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip is... important and necessary, there is a critical gap between the amount of time it will take the formal legal institutions deliberating... chiefly the International Court of Justice, to issue binding decisions, and the reality of society in Gaza being destroyed before our eyes."

"...Israel has imposed unprecedented restrictions on access to Gaza by organizations and media outlets, deepening its isolation from the world. B'Tselem's field researchers in the Gaza Strip, who managed to escape... continued collecting testimonies from hundreds of residents... despite the ongoing challenge..."

"[D]ata... not directly investigated and verified by B'Tselem was drawn from... publications and reports by human rights organizations, humanitarian agencies, UN offices and bodies, investigations and reports by reputable media outlets committed to journalistic ethics and data verification standards, expert... internationally recognized professionals, and primary sources... as testimonies and verified documentation from the field. In addition, we drew on... scholarly literature that has examined... genocide... throughout history.., as well as... researchers who have documented widespread practices... in the... war in Gaza and published... in recognized academic journals."

"[T]his section reflects only a partial picture of the scale of harm to... Palestinian life... under Israeli control. We estimate that years of documentation and research will be required to fully assess the scope of destruction that continues... and the long-term consequences... Palestinians... are expected to face in the future."

"Nearly two years of... onslaught has left most of the Gaza Strip in ruins. As of mid-July 2025, estimated... 58,026 fatalities, the overwhelming majority... civilians... not participating in... hostilities. The... wounded... approximately 138,520. All hospitals... destroyed or... partially functioning... the same is true of the vast majority of civilian infrastructure. ...Since ...early March 2025, hundreds ...have been killed or wounded every day: from airstrikes, shooting and shelling... malnutrition or a lethal combination of hunger, diseases.., contaminated water and a devastated healthcare system."

"Israel's conduct... in the Gaza Strip... has included... massive, indiscriminate bombardment of population centers; starvation of more than two million... as a method of warfare; attempts at ethnic cleansing and formally including the ethnic cleansing... in the war aims; systematic destruction of hospitals and other medical facilities... entitled to... protection under international law... [and] the vast majority of civilian infrastructure... unprecedented killing of medical personnel, aid workers, persons in charge of... public order, and journalists. Israel's claim that Hamas fighters or members of... armed Palestinian groups were... in medical or civilian facilities, often... without... evidence, cannot justify or explain such widespread, systematic destruction."

"Israel's genocide against the Palestinians... in the Gaza Strip... cannot be separated from the sharp escalation of Israel's violence against Palestinians... in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and within Israel... [E]scalation of Israeli violence in Gaza is gradually extending to other areas... [A]... society that legitimizes genocide in Gaza — through participation, support, denial, or indifference—naturally legitimizes increasing violence against Palestinians as a whole."

"[T]his policy has been supported, legitimized and normalized by most of Jewish-Israeli and its institutions, including the Israeli legal system."

"The... intent... component in the definition of genocide, emerges unequivocally in... Israeli leadership's awareness of the... consequences of its open-fire and starvation policies; ...systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure..; the decision to continue, and... escalate, the assault despite... its impact on the civilian population..; and numerous statements by policymakers... indicating... Israel is targeting the entire population..."

"The sections below... focus on... killings, physical destruction, forcible displacement, and the destruction of political, cultural, and social life... address how Israel's genocide... targets Palestinian identity, particularly through attacks on refugees... [and] analyze key expressions of dehumanization and incitement against Palestinians..."

"[S]ince October 2023... we have gathered eyewitness testimonies and documented hundreds of incidents involving unprecedented and extreme violence... throughout the territory Israel controls, while key politicians and... commanders... openly declared the policies... Countless evidence... reflects the horrifying transformation of the... Israeli system in its treatment of Palestinians."