How Amnesty International concluded that Israel has genocidal intent in Gaza

Amnesty International established in its report on Thursday that Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians, a necessary threshold that led the world’s leading human rights group to conclude that Israel is guilty of genocide.

Proving a special intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group is what distinguishes genocide from other international crimes, such as crimes against humanity or war crimes.

The legal framework for the definition and interpretation of the crime of genocide is derived from the 1948 Genocide Convention, as well as the international criminal law jurisprudence that followed, particularly cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) and the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Determining the existence of genocidal intent is crucial for establishing the resulting individual criminal responsibility and state responsibility for the crime.

In order to come up with a conclusion that genocide has been committed, Amnesty’s methodology involved three steps.

First, it determined that Palestinians in Gaza constitute part of a protected group under the Genocide Convention, namely a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. 

Second, it established that three out of the five underlying acts of genocide as stipulated in Article II of the Convention have been committed.

The acts are: “Killing members of the group”; “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”; and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. 

The third and final step is to examine whether Israel has committed the acts with a specific intent to destroy Palestinians as a protected group.

“This is a difficult threshold, and it has taken many months of research and investigation to reach the conclusion that, indeed, Israel had genocidal intent,” Amnesty’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard told Middle East Eye following the release of the report.

Amnesty followed the holistic methodology traditionally used by the ICJ, ICTY and ICTR in inferring genocidal intent directly and indirectly.

Indirect evidence

Concerning indirect evidence, Amnesty researchers inferred genocidal intent from circumstantial evidence. This includes “the general context in which prohibited acts were committed; the existence of a pattern of conduct; the scale and allegedly systematic nature of the prohibited acts; and the scale, nature, extent and degree of casualties and harm against the protected group.”

The report took into account the historical context of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967, and Israel’s apartheid system that subjugates Palestinians to Israeli institutionalised domination, along with the 17 years of the blockade on Gaza.

It also examined the political context of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government relying on the support of religious Zionists and anti-Palestinian parties, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who are both leaders of the far-right settler movement.

Given the historic and political contexts, Amnesty then analysed Israel’s overall pattern of conduct in Gaza, including deadly and destructive attacks, the scale of killings and injuries inflicted upon Palestinians as a result, the destruction of objects indispensable to the survival of Palestinian civilians, and the Israeli government’s imposition of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.

The analysis also took into account Israel’s destruction of Palestinian cultural and religious sites in Gaza, as well as other human rights violations targeting Palestinians hailing from Gaza, such as torture and incommunicado detention. 

Direct evidence

Secondly, in terms of direct evidence of genocidal intent, Amnesty looked at “dehumanising, racist and derogatory rhetoric” used by Israeli officials before 7 October 2023 and how it escalated afterwards.

The verbal evidence included 102 statements by Israeli members of the war cabinet and other senior officials, who are directly responsible for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The group also found evidence of Israeli soldiers reiterating the same dehumanising language by Israeli officials, based on analysis of 62 videos, audio recordings and photos posted online.

In assessing evidence of genocidal intent, Amnesty also looked at Israel’s failure to investigate or punish genocidal acts or statements. 

Additionally, Amnesty examined the alternative hypothesis that Israel’s acts were part of a military campaign that breached international humanitarian law in causing incidental deaths and destruction but did not specifically intend to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. The organisation rejected this hypothesis. 

“Israel is arguing that it is pursuing a legitimate military objective, which is to get rid of Hamas… What we have argued on the basis of our evidence and on the basis of legal cases around the world, is that in the context of an armed conflict, it is logical to find that Israel has military objectives, including to get rid of Hamas,” said Callamard.

“However, those military objectives do not justify or excuse genocidal intent,” she told MEE. 

“Genocidal intent can coexist with military objectives,” she added.

‘Only reasonable inference’

Part of Amnesty’s methodology is to examine whether genocidal intent is “the only reasonable inference” to be made from the analysis. 

“Critically, genocide need not be the only goal pursued; instead, it must be clear – it must be the only reasonable inference emerging from the pattern of conduct – that the destruction of the targeted group, in whole or in part, as such is one of the goals pursued,” the report said.

“In any armed conflict, there will be military goals. These military goals may operate in tandem with genocidal intent, or genocide could be the means by which the military goals are achieved.

“To construe the law otherwise would make the prohibition of genocide meaningless in armed conflicts, where there will almost always be military goals at play as well.”

Amnesty’s analysis concluded that genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference to be drawn from Israel’s military conduct in Gaza. 

“Sufficient evidence exists to find that Israel’s purpose and goal in Gaza is the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, and there is no reasonable alternative explanation,” it added.

It explained that Israel’s military objectives “are insufficient to explain the scale and scope of Israel’s ongoing unlawful actions. Only an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza does so.”