Amnesty report says Israel has committed genocide in Gaza

Israel's Foreign Ministry slams human rights group's allegation, says it fabricated report

THE HAGUE - Amnesty International accused the state of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a report published on Dec 5, an allegation Israel angrily denied.

The London-based human rights group said it reached the conclusion after months of analysing incidents and statements of Israeli officials. Amnesty said the legal threshold for the crime had been met, in its first such determination during an active armed conflict.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Israel has consistently rejected any accusation of genocide, saying it has respected international law and has a right to defend itself after the cross-border Hamas attack from Gaza on Oct 7, 2023, that precipitated the war.

"The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies," Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote on X.