There’s been no evidence of genocide. I have plenty of criticisms of the Israeli government, and if you were arguing it’s indiscriminate you’d have a point. But genocide? No. We don’t call Hiroshima a genocide and that was far worse than what’s happening in Gaza. We don’t call Dresden a genocide. We don’t call shock and awe in Iraq a genocide.
Words have meaning.
There is overwhelming evidence of genocide, Apartheid, and disregard of civilian lives.
Genocide
Holocaust scholar to discuss his conclusion that Gaza campaign constitutes genocide
UN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank
“A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza
800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza
Human Shields
Hamas:
Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.
Israel:
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:
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Including Children (2013 Report)
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Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds 2024
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Breaking The Silence - Testimonies from IDF Veterans
Deliberate Attacks on Civilians
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:
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The Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force
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‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
Starvation
Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and over 80 percent were reliant on humanitarian aid. Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including over the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, as well as the registry of the population. This leaves Gaza’s population, which Israel has subjected to an unlawful closure for 16 years, almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to fuel, electricity, medicine, food, and other essential commodities.
After the imposition of a “total blockade” on Gaza on October 9, Israeli authorities resumed piping water to some parts of southern Gaza on October 15 and, as of October 21, allowed limited humanitarian aid to arrive through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 18 that Israel would not allow humanitarian assistance “in the form of food and medicines” into Gaza through its crossings “as long as our hostages are not returned.”
Rights expert finds ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide is being committed in Gaza: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
Human Rights Watch founder accuses Israel of genocide: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0j1rk0c
A top U.N. court says Gaza genocide is ‘plausible’ but does not order cease-fire: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocide-gaza-palestinians-south-africa
The rate of bombing in Gaza has drastically slowed compared to the opening stages of the war. Israel can be accused of being too blase about civilian death, but there is no evidence of systematic attempts to eradicate the Arab population entirely. I have yet to see any credible evidence of anything but Israel having a disturbing willingness to kill 10 to get 1, if you get me. That’s horrific enough, you don’t need to exaggerate it by calling it genocide. There’s plenty of legitimate enough concerns about Israel’s bombing campaign without resorting to sensationalism.
Huge, huge, difference between not caring if you hit the next building by accident in an otherwise precise airstrike, and rounding up and killing them all. You should account for the inherent destructiveness of modern urban warfare also. Go on google earth and look at what the Russians did to cities in East Ukraine. Just because something is horrible, tragic, awful, doesn’t make it a genocide. It is impossible to fight a war against an entity like Hamas and not have innocent people hit in the crossfire. Israel is in an unwinnable position in that sense. It either lets hamas terrorize it’s population, or it fires back and risks killing innocent people.
It’s a complex situation is what I’m getting it. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else to suit some juvenile good/bad narrative
but there is no evidence of systematic attempts to eradicate the Arab population entirely.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
