Israel is perpetrating a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza, committing illegal acts with the “specific intent” of wiping out Palestinians, Amnesty International has said.
Israeli forces in Gaza have violated the United Nations Genocide Convention with acts that include “causing serious bodily or mental harm to civilians” and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”, the human rights organisation said in its annual report released on Monday.
Israel has repeatedly “denied, obstructed and failed to allow and facilitate” humanitarian access to Gaza, and invaded the southern city of Rafah, despite warnings by the international community and the International Court of Justice about the “devastating effect it would have on the civilian population”, Amnesty said.
Israeli air strikes have also frequently hit civilians who were following evacuation orders, while its forces continued to “arbitrarily detain and, in some cases, forcibly disappear Palestinians”, the rights group said.
“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.
“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools.”
Israel and “its powerful allies, first among them the USA, claimed that or acted as if international law did not apply to them”, Callamard said.
Israel has strongly denied committing genocide, insisting that it is acting in self-defence against Hamas and that it takes extraordinary measures to protect civilians.
More than 51,300 people, including at least 17,400 children, have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities.
About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
In its report, Amnesty also raised alarm about “unprecedented forces”, including the administration of United States President Donald Trump, that it said posed a threat to human rights globally.
“A multiplicity of assaults – against human rights accountability, against international law, and against the UN – have been but some of the hallmarks of the first 100 days of US President Donald Trump’s ‘reign’ in 2025,” Callamard said.
“But those reckless and punishing offensives, against efforts to end global poverty and undo long standing racial and gender-based discrimination and violence, did not start this year. Red lines don’t turn green overnight.”
Amnesty also expressed concern about alleged human rights violations committed by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine and attacks on gender equality in Afghanistan and Iran.
“The Taliban government criminalized the public existence of women and girls, passing so-called vice and virtue laws, denying their rights to work and education. Dozens of women protesters were forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained,” Callamard said.
“In Iran, new compulsory veiling laws intensified oppression of women and girls, imposing flogging, exorbitant fines and harsh prison sentences, while officials and vigilantes who violently attack women and girls for defying the law continued with impunity.”
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