Amnesty Israel rejects Amnesty International's report accusing Israel of genocide

Amnesty International's Israel section rejected the findings of the global body's Thursday report accusing the State of Israel of committing genocide during the war against Hamas in Gaza.

In a Thursday statement, the independently registered Israeli association Israel said that it was not involved in any way with the report and argued that the allegation of genocide had not been "sufficiently substantiated."

While Amnesty Israel believes that there is a high death toll of civilians in the Gaza Strip and that the Israeli response roused suspicions of possible widespread international law violations, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, it did not believe that the threshold of proof for the crime of genocide had been met.

The crime of genocide requires evidence of specific intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group in whole or in part, said Amnesty Israel.

"Based on our analysis, put together in consultation with external experts, many of us have doubts regarding the possibility of proving unequivocally, and beyond any reasonable alternative explanation, the element of intent," said Amnesty Israel.

Israel's violations?

Amnesty Israel said that Israel had, however, violated an article in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by failing to properly act against public incitement against genocide.

This included remarks by public figures calling for revenge on Gaza's civilians as a whole for the October 7 Massacre.

A minority of the Amnesty Israel team did believe, the group noted, that there was indeed enough information to establish that the state had committed genocide in Gaza.

Amnesty Israel also believes Israel to be engaged in apartheid and occupation of territory outside its internationally recognized borders and that this system had to be dismantled.

As it did not support the conclusions of the report 'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman': Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, it also did not accept the "operational calls" of Amnesty International. 

Amnesty had called for the cessation of arms trade with Israel and for the UN Security Council to level sanctions against Israeli and Hamas officials. 

It also called for states to respect the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant and urged the court to add the crime of genocide to the warrant.

Amnesty Israel issued its own calls for action, which included increased pressure and efforts for a ceasefire, the return of all Israeli hostages, and the release of Palestinians detained without due process. 

The group called for the protection of civilians from the actions of both sides and comprehensive investigations of war crimes by all sides, as well as increased humanitarian aid, utilities, and services for Gaza residents.

The root of the violence had to be solved, according to Amnesty Israel, which meant the end of supposed Israeli apartheid in the disputed territories and the end of the involvement of armed actors such as Iran and Hezbollah in the region.

Amnesty Israel noted that Hamas had also been accused of genocide and that it was necessary to investigate these claims and ensure that the proof threshold for genocidal intent was applied universally and consistently. 

Amnesty International is set to produce a report on Hamas crimes during the October 7 massacre.

A report 'based on lies'

The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded to Amnesty International's report on Thursday morning, dismissing it as a "fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies."

"The genocidal massacre on October 7, 2023, was carried out by the Hamas terrorist organization against Israeli citizens. Since then, Israeli citizens have been subjected to daily attacks from seven different fronts," the MFA said on social media. "Israel is defending itself against these attacks acting fully in accordance with international law."