Key Reports on Gaza Genocide from International Human Rights Organisations
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March 24, 2024
After five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 13,000 children. Over 12,000 are presumed dead and 71,000 injured, many with life-changing mutilations. Seventy percent of residential areas have been destroyed. Eighty percent of the whole population has been forcibly displaced. Thousands of families have lost loved ones or have been wiped out. Many could not bury and mourn their relatives, forced instead to leave their bodies decomposing in homes, in the street or under the rubble. Thousands have been detained and systematically subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. The incalculable collective trauma will be experienced for generations to come.By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.
Read the full report here.
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5 December 2024
This report documents Israel’s actions during its offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip from 7 October 2023. It examines the killing of civilians, damage to and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcible displacement, the obstruction or denial of life-saving goods and humanitarian aid, and the restriction of power supplies. It analyses Israel’s intent through this pattern of conduct and statements by Israeli decision-makers. It concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.Read the full report here.
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14 November 2024
Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there, the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices* said in a new report released today.“Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel,” the Committee said. “These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.”
Covering the period from October 2023 to July 2024, the report examines developments across the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan but focuses on the catastrophic impact of the current war in Gaza on the rights of Palestinians.
“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the Committee said.
The report documents how Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza has decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe that will have lasting health impacts. By early 2024, over 25,000 tons of explosives—equivalent to two nuclear bombs—had been dropped on Gaza, causing massive destruction and the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation, and toxic pollution.
Read the report here.
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December 19, 2024
Gaza death trap: MSF report exposes Israel’s campaign of total destruction. Amid continued attacks, siege, and blockade, Israel is destroying conditions of life in Gaza. Repeated Israeli military attacks on Palestinian civilians over the last 14 months, the dismantling of the health care system and other essential infrastructure, the suffocating siege, and the systematic denial of humanitarian assistance are destroying the conditions of life in Gaza, according to a new Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report, "Gaza: Life in a Death Trap."The international medical humanitarian organization is urgently calling on all parties, once again, for an immediate ceasefire to save lives and enable the flow of humanitarian aid. Israel must stop its targeted and indiscriminate attacks against civilians, and its allies must act without delay to protect the lives of Palestinians and uphold the rules of war.
"People in Gaza are struggling to survive apocalyptic conditions, but nowhere is safe, no one is spared, and there is no exit from this shattered enclave," said Christopher Lockyear, MSF secretary general, who visited Gaza earlier this year.
“What our medical teams have witnessed on the ground throughout this conflict is consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organizations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”
Read the full report here. -
19 December 2024
Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.In the 179-page report, “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water,” Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival. Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies.
Read the full report here.
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13 March 2025
Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, according to a new report issued today by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.The release of the report was accompanied by two days of public hearings held in Geneva on 11-12 March, during which the Commission heard from victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as representatives from civil society, academics, lawyers and medical experts.
Read the full report here.
Recommended Reading to Decolonise Your Mind.
What do we mean when we talk about decolonising one’s mind?
It means pulling apart and critically examining the thoughts, preferences and values that derive from a colonial way of thinking and which have been presented as the norm.
Here are some of our recommended readings to kick-start that process.
Click the titles for links to where you can purchase a copy online, or request these titles from your local library.
Recommended Viewing to Decolonise Your Mind.
How do you start to decolonise your mind?
Learning, Conversations and Self-Reflection.
Here are some important viewing suggestions to assist your journey.
Recommended Films
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Where Olive Trees Weep offers a searing window into the struggles and resilience of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation. It explores themes of loss, trauma, and the quest for justice.
We follow, among others, Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish, grassroots activist Ahed Tamimi, and Israeli journalist Amira Hass. We also witness Dr. Gabor Maté offer trauma-healing work to a group of women who were tortured in Israeli prisons.
Ancient landscapes bear deep scars, having witnessed the brutal reality of ancestral land confiscation, expulsions, imprisonment, home demolitions, water deprivation, and denial of basic human rights. Yet, through the veil of oppression, we catch a glimpse of resilience—deep roots that have carried the Palestinian people through decades of darkness and shattered lives.
This emotional journey bares the humanity of the oppressed while grappling with the question: what makes the oppressor so ruthlessly blind to its own cruelty?
Watch it here -
When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the brutal way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns.
They join a movement of young American Jews battling the old guard to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.Watch it in our Recommended Viewings section above, or here.
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Hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in 1948. To Israelis, it was the War of Independence, to Palestinians it was 'Al Nakba' - the Catastrophe. Director Alon Schwarz revisits former Israeli soldiers as well as Palestinian residents in an effort to re-examine what happened in Tantura, the location of an alleged, Israeli-perpetrated massacre, and find out why 'Al Nakba' is still a taboo in Israeli society.
Watch it here. -
As violence breaks out in 1948 Palestine, a father hides his 14-year-old daughter inside a locked pantry and promises to return.
Watch the film here. -
You can watch the full documentary now for free on YouTube here.
Recommended Podcasts
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Discover the BDS Movement
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.
Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.
BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements across the world. Since its launch in 2005, BDS has had a significant impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.