Amnesty report ‘critically important’ for Gaza
The report by Amnesty International, accusing Israel of waging genocide in Gaza, carries “important weight” and puts pressure on international institutions to intervene, says Tamer Qarmout, an associate professor in public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
As one of the most prominent civil society groups that stays outside the fray of politics, Amnesty’s voice could play an “important role in bringing justice”, he told Al Jazeera.
While reports such as Amnesty’s have yet to stop the war in Gaza, “it’s important not to lose hope”, Qarmout added.
Civil society should “keep putting pressure on [international systems], especially the United Nations, exposing the hypocrisy and the complicity of the countries that have been enabling this genocide to continue”, he said.
Israel dismisses Amnesty International report alleging genocide as ‘entirely false’
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has issued a statement calling the rights group a “deplorable and fanatical organisation” that has “once again produced a fabricated report”.
Amnesty’s report, as we’ve noted, accuses Israel’s military of carrying out at least three of the five acts banned by the 1948 Genocide Convention. It says Israel is treating Palestinians as subhuman as it blocks their aid supplies and carries out arbitrary detentions.
Amnesty International’s Israel branch also pushed back on the report, saying its findings are “predetermined”.
In a statement carried by The Times of Israel newspaper, Amnesty Israel acknowledged “the scale of the killing and destruction carried out by Israel in Gaza has reached horrific proportions” but questioned the report’s “operative findings”.
It said it does not believe Israel’s actions “meet the definition of genocide as strictly laid out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.
Israel withholding bodies of 46 Palestinians killed in its prisons: Prisoners’ group
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has said that Israel is holding 46 bodies of Palestinians who were killed in Israeli prisons since the Gaza war erupted.
It said in a statement on Telegram that a total of 57 Palestinians were killed in Israeli prisons since October 7 last year and their names were announced by the Israeli authorities.
Palestinian detainee dies in Israeli custody
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) have announced detainee Alaa Marwan Hamza Mahlawi’s death in Israeli custody.
Mahlawi, 42, from Gaza, who had been imprisoned since December 21, 2023, did not suffer from any chronic illnesses before his incarceration, according to his family.
The advocacy groups said in a statement that Mahlawi was held in the Naqab Prison, where other detainees said his health had significantly deteriorated. In November, Mahlawi was transferred to the Israeli Asaf Harofeh Hospital, where he died this morning.
The statement stressed that the number of Palestinian detainees who have mysteriously died in Israeli custody has significantly increased since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Since the war began last year, at least 49 Palestinian detainees have died in custody, 30 of them from Gaza.
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