Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians during its war against Hamas in Gaza.
The human rights group said Israel sought to deliberately destroy Palestinians by launching deadly attacks, demolishing vital infrastructure and preventing the delivery of food, medicine and other aid.
It said such actions met the legal threshold for the crime of genocide. It is the first time it has made such a determination during an active armed conflict.
In a report, Amnesty said Israel’s actions could not be justified by Hamas’ attack into Israel on 7 October last year which ignited the war, or on the presence of militants in civilian areas.
Amnesty said the US and other Israeli allies could be complicit in genocide and called on them to halt arms shipments.
“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said in the report.
Israel has consistently rejected any allegations of genocide.
It is challenging such allegations at the International Court of Justice and has rejected the International Criminal Court’s accusations Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister committed war crimes in Gaza.
“The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Israel accused Hamas of carrying out a genocidal massacre in the attack that triggered the war and said it is defending itself in accordance with international law.
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Israel ‘has intended to commit genocide’
Amnesty accused Israel and the Israeli military of committing at least three of the five acts banned by the 1948 Geneva Convention, including killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a protected group.
The acts were done with the intent required by the convention, according to Amnesty, which said it had reviewed over 100 statements from Israeli officials.
Ms Callamard said while Amnesty had not set out to prove genocide, after reviewing the evidence and statements collectively the only conclusion was “Israel is intending and has intended to commit genocide”.
She added: “The assertion that Israel’s war in Gaza aims solely to dismantle Hamas and not to physically destroy Palestinians as a national and ethnic group, that assertion simply does not stand up to scrutiny.”
Amnesty urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate the alleged genocide.