Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘livestreamed genocide’ against Gaza Palestinians
Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing a “livestreamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.
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.
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”, it added.
For the full report, read here.
A Palestinian boy stands amid the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on April 27
Creators of global rules-based order ‘vandalising’ international law: Amnesty chief
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Callamard said this year will be remembered not just for the devastating human toll in Gaza but also for the way powerful states enabled the destruction of international norms.
She said: “Those countries who exactly 80 years ago have come together to champion creation of a new system, a new era, are now vandalising everything that they constructed over the last 80 years, with the United States leading that process.
“That vandalisation, that destruction is on the bodies of the Palestinians and the battleground is Gaza – but also international justice.”
Amnesty’s latest report accuses Israel and its allies of acting as though international law does not apply to them amid growing calls for accountability over its conduct in the war.
“The situation has never been more serious for Gaza, Palestinians, Israelis and the world. We are on the edge of an abyss,” Callamard said.
