Accusations that are based on meticulously researched reports will forever follow Israel around. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
On December 19, Human Rights Watch released a 179-page report that accused Israel of committing acts of Genocide in Gaza. While the report’s conclusions alone may not present a significant challenge to the Israeli government, it does when viewed in conjunction with the litany of other stances adopted about the nature of Israel as a state.
Towards the end of December 2023, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Israeli government of committing Genocide against the people of Gaza.
While Western governments allied with Israel jumped to deny the case’s validity, as corporate media pundits scoffed at the use of the phrase, the case was made in such an irrefutable way that the ICJ’s judges would unanimously rule that Israel was plausibly committing genocide.
Fast-forward to December of 2024. The death toll in the Gaza Strip is officially recorded to be at least 45,000 – with over 10,000 others reported missing – although the higher estimates that have been provided for the true toll of the slaughter put it all the way up to 300,000.
Regardless of the figure, what is indisputable is the sheer level of death and destruction that has taken place.
Undeniable is that what Israel has done to Gaza is a unique crime in human history.
There has never been anything quite like this and it is a standalone atrocity that will be placed alongside the worst events in recorded memory. For most of the global public, this much is evident and has been witnessed, due to our easy access to it on a near minute-to-minute basis, on social media.
However, what the world’s most trusted NGOs, international bodies, and legal organs conclude is what will truly indent the atrocities in Gaza onto the pages of history.
At the beginning of this December, Amnesty International released its own report accusing Israel of committing Genocide against the people of Gaza.
While the 293-page report was scrupulous with its definitions and how it applied them legally, it chose to take the approach of not only pointing to how the convergence of Israeli policies had created “the cumulative impact of Israel’s damage to and destruction of critical infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population in Gaza, the mass repeated forced displacement of Palestinians in unsafe and inhumane conditions, and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services and life-saving supplies into and within Gaza.”
Key to Amnesty International’s report, entitled “You feel like you are subhuman: Israel’s Genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”, is its focus on the question of intent.
This segment of the report spans from page 202 to 282, looking at everything from patterns of conduct to public statements and even directly addresses the Israeli public relations narrative that seeks to explain its actions.
The newly released Human Rights Watch report comes at the issue from a slightly different angle and pursues the issue of water deprivation to the civilian population.
The report is entitled “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water”, hitting on an often overlooked aspect of Israel’s ongoing Genocide and certainly one aspect that solidifies the case against Tel Aviv.
Although Israel’s top rights group has not yet released its own extensive report that explicitly uses the term Genocide, it has released two reports that worked to greatly expose Israeli conduct during this period.
They are entitled “Manufacturing Famine: Israel is Committing the War Crime of Starvation in the Gaza Strip” and “Welcome To Hell: The Israeli prison system as a network of torture camps”.
B’Tselem has, however, explicitly accused Israel of operating an Apartheid regime of Jewish Supremacy from the river to the sea, while Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both released their own lengthy reports concluding that Israel is guilty of committing Apartheid.
Israel is currently on trial for Genocide in Gaza at the ICJ, has been found to be illegally occupying the territories it seized by force in June of 1967 and its Prime Minister has an active arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
To be accused of Genocide and Apartheid by UN officials, bodies and human rights groups is a huge blow to Israeli legitimacy. On top of this, the Israeli military is currently choosing to remain inside both Syrian and Lebanese lands, in contravention of international law.
Just about every single crime that is conceivable, committed in just about every way and to all protected categories, has been committed during this Genocide against Gaza.
Although Israel can today sustain its existence due to US and European support that props it up, the damning accusations that are based on meticulously researched reports will forever follow it around. | via The Palestine Chronicle
This article Genocide and Apartheid Reports – Israel’s Legitimacy is Gone was originally published in The Palestine Chronicle
