genocides

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

"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..."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"[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."

"[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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The total dehumanization of Gaza's residents has led to a perception, still widely held among Jewish-Israelis, that their lives are of negligible value compared to Israel's national goals, if not worthless altogether."

"Accordingly, for many... the aspiration to destroy... Hamas and... to prevent future attacks... were translated into targeting the entire population of the Gaza Strip."

"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."

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

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

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

"6% of children in Gaza felt... death was imminent, and nearly half expressed a desire to die as a result of... trauma..."

"Israel's decision to continue.... despite countless warnings and... evidence of its deadly consequences... with repeated public clarifications by... policymakers that the target is the entire population of Gaza, demonstrate the intent of... leadership to... destroy Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip."

"[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..."

"Genocide can rarely be carried out without consent, support, and legitimization from within the perpetrating group. Yet... societies that perpetrate genocide often do not recognize themselves as such."

"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."

"Usually, the genocidal campaign is perceived by its direct perpetrators, and understood by the broader public, as a legitimate act of self-defense in response to... existential threat."

"...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..."

"means "in the image [of God]"... from... "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him" (Genesis 1:27). It reflects the principle of the inherent value of all human life. This moral foundation has guided the organization's work..."

"In 2021, joined many others, first and foremost Palestinian organizations and activists, who for decades... identified the Israeli regime as... apartheid... We wrote: ...the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group — Jews — over another — Palestinians. A key method... is engineering space differently for each group."

"[T]roops are operating... in the other areas, under the same commanders and political leadership. The practices... often reflect the... logic applied in Gaza: total disregard for human life, severe harm to innocents, widespread destruction of residential areas and living conditions, ... flouting... moral obligations and international law. ...[M]any senior military and political figures are threatening... the level of force... used in Gaza against Palestinians in other areas. In these areas..., lethal crimes are... committed... with no accountability... The violence and destruction... is intensifying... with no effective domestic or international mechanism acting to halt them. As a result... crimes are becoming normalized in the eyes of soldiers, commanders, politicians, media figures and Israelis..."

"The Israeli genocide... in the Gaza Strip... [is] violence... implemented in its most extreme and lethal form. Yet the assault... cannot be separated from... escalating violence... inflicted... on Palestinians in the , including , and within Israel."

"Given the... escalation in... violence against Palestinians in all these areas — which... includes... grave crimes — we must call for an immediate end to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and warn of clear and imminent danger that... genocide will not remain confined to Gaza."

"Based on the information we collect and the resulting conclusions, we are committed to presenting unequivocal positions and demands regarding the state of human rights violations and the actions required to protect these rights."

"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."

"[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."

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"[W]hen the State of Israel was established... [i]t... had a clear objective... to cement the supremacy of the Jewish group across... territory under Israeli control. The main tool... the establishment of an apartheid regime (one that, unlike... South Africa, has never been formally declared as such and... has been consistently denied...) This regime is designed to cement... supremacy... through demographic engineering, separation, shaping public discourse, indoctrination, militarism, and... use of force and violence."

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

"[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."

"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."

"These foundations... made it possible to launch a genocidal attack on the Palestinians... after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023."