This is Genocide

For decades Israel has acted with impunity towards the Palestinian people – through ethnic cleansing, an unlawful occupation, its system of apartheid, illegal blockade of Gaza, and repeated military attacks. We now conclude that Israel’s actions meet the legal definition of genocide. This is in line with the findings of Palestinian human rights organisations; South Africa’s legal team, and more than 60 countries supporting it1; the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories2; dozens of human rights experts of the UN Special Procedures3, and numerous global human rights scholars4; as well as the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention5.  

Additionally, the UN Commission of Inquiry (an independent body set up by the UN in 2021 to investigate violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel) has found that Israel is committing the crime of extermination of Palestinians6. 

The definition of genocide

As laid out in the Genocide Convention (1948), genocide is any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: 

(a) Killing members of the group; 

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

The Genocide Convention places a legal duty on countries to take action to prevent and to punish genocide. 

Why we are calling Israel’s actions genocide 

In December 2023, South Africa, whose people have themselves experienced colonialism and apartheid, presented a robust legal case to the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)7, detailing how Israel is committing genocide8 against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The ICJ determined, in January 20249, that there was sufficient evidence to find that Israel was plausibly committing genocide. 

The evidence that Israel is committing genocide has grown even more compelling since then. As of November 2024, more than 43,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip10 – including at least 16,000 children – have been killed by Israel, and a further 100,000 Palestinians seriously injured. 

Civilian and life-sustaining infrastructure across the Gaza Strip – including essential medical and water facilities – have been repeatedly targeted by Israel. Hospitals, medical centres, health workers, humanitarian workers, UN aid convoys, homes, shelters, bakeries and food warehouses have been targeted and bombed. Israel has repeatedly blocked food, water and essential humanitarian and hygienic supplies from entering Gaza. Famine has spread among Palestinians in Gaza at a globally unprecedented rate11. All of Gaza’s universities, many of its mosques, churches and cultural facilities have been destroyed. Almost half of Gaza’s agricultural land and trees have been destroyed or severely damaged. 

On 1 October 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, stated in her report that: “As the world watches the first live-streamed settler-colonial genocide, only justice can heal the wounds that political expedience has allowed to fester.12” The Gaza Strip is now entirely unsuitable for sustaining human life13. The UN’s leading humanitarian agencies describe the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic14”. 

Israel’s political leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have been clear in their vocal and public intent to commit genocidal policies against Palestinians15, 16 . Israel has then committed atrocities against Palestinians up and down the Gaza Strip. 

The evidence is clear that Israel is committing the act of genocide as set out in the Genocide Convention17. Now more than ever, the UK and other governments must cease their military, diplomatic, economic and political support for Israel and take concrete steps to end Israel’s genocide, war crimes and other grave breaches of international law.  

Occupation and apartheid intensified 

For over 70 years, Israel has subjected Palestinians to systematic human rights abuses, severe discrimination, and deadly military force. 

In July 2024, the ICJ issued a historic advisory opinion (a legal opinion) that Israel’s decades long occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory is unlawful because it violates fundamental aspects of international law and denies Palestinians their rights. The ICJ also said that Israel is committing apartheid against the Palestinians under its occupation18. 

Palestinians have long struggled for their rights and for justice. During the 1947-8 ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine – the Nakba (Arabic for ‘catastrophe’) – around 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and lands by armed groups, to live under Israel’s system of apartheid. 

The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defines apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial groups of persons and systematically oppressing them19”.  

Israel has carried out its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, unlawful occupation, apartheid and blockade of Gaza – the ongoing Nakba – with impunity and has now escalated its actions into genocide. 

Importance of Language

War on Want was one of the first human rights organisations to call Israel’s discriminatory policies against the Palestinians a system of apartheid. Language frames our understanding of the world. It is crucial in accurately defining, under international law, how peoples’ human rights are being denied, and how countries are responsible for respecting and upholding those rights. 

Evidence points to Israel’s actions meeting the definition of genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention places obligations on all states to use all measures available to act to prevent and punish it. 

What happens next?

As of November 2024, the highest international courts – the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC) – are considering evidence of Israel’s serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law, including identifying perpetrators and seeking accountability and justice. 

We must stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people to amplify and expose the crimes that are being committed against them by Israel. All people of conscience must hold governments to account for their duties to protect civilians and to prevent acts that amount to war crimes – including the crime of genocide.

The UK has officially recognised that genocide was committed in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war in 1995, when more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed, and recognised the genocidal killing of over 5,000 Yazidis by the Islamic State group between 2014-2017. Yet despite mounting evidence of Israel’s war crimes, the ICJ’s ruling of plausible genocide, and countless UN statements; the UK government continues to supply Israel with arms and military technology, which Israel uses to continue committing genocidal acts. The UK government is complicit in the mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. 

The UK must stop aiding Israel and uphold its duty to prevent genocide and other violations of international law committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. In this ongoing genocide, there is no time to waste. The world must stand with the Palestinian people, recognise what is happening, and act accordingly.