Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.
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In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide”.
Israel has rejected accusations of “genocide” from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.
The conflict erupted after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
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Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of Gaza and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.
“Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.