Main points on December 4th
- Israeli forces attacked Gaza City, killing at least 10 people, and bombed the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more. Many children were among the casualties, rescuers say.
- Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military also bombed an aid distribution point in the central Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least five children, and renewed its attacks on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
- Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli military has recovered the body of Itay Svirsky from Gaza. He said Svirsky was taken captive during the October 7 attacks and “murdered” by Hamas in January.
- Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani says Doha is cautiously optimistic about renewed efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza and that US President-elect Donald Trump wants an agreement before he takes office.
- Israeli special forces stormed a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus and detained a patient there. They also beat an elderly man to death in the town of Aqraba, near Nablus, according to the Wafa news agency.
- Israeli forces also continued air raids on southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah, claiming an attack on what it called a launchpad in the Majdal Zoun area.
Amnesty accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza
The human rights group concluded that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal threshold for genocide in a damning report published on Thursday.
The report, titled, “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, was the culmination of months of research, which included extensive witness interviews, analysis of “visual and digital evidence”, and statements made by Israeli officials.
Amnesty said the Israeli military had committed at least three of the five acts banned by the 1948 Genocide Convention – killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about a group’s physical destruction.
“[There is] sufficient evidence to believe that Israel’s conduct in Gaza following 7 October 2023 amounts to genocide,” the report states.
It added the “unlawful acts inflicted on Palestinians simultaneously, for months without respite, have had a profound, cumulative impact on the mental and physical health of Gaza’s entire population”.
Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said the conclusion – the group’s first such determination during an active armed conflict – had not been made “lightly, politically, or preferentially”.
Israeli authorities are yet to respond to the report. They have previously rejected allegations of committing genocide, claiming they are acting in self-defence following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks.
Essay Pro