Experts: Mass Slaughter of Palestinians
in Gaza Constitutes Genocide
highlight: The Palestinian journalists’ syndicate
From October 7, 2023, through 5 March 2024, Israel had killed over 30,631 Palestinians in Gaza, 70% of them women and children. Over 1.7 million people (75% of the population of Gaza) have been displaced by Israeli violence. Due to Israel’s siege on the Gaza strip, 2.2 million Palestinians are at imminent risk of famine and over 1.3 million are facing emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity. UN human rights experts warn that Gazans make up “80% of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege.” Hospitals and schools, sheltering large numbers of civilians, are under heavy strikes from Israeli forces. 625,000 students, or 100% of students in Gaza, have no access to education and 90% of all school buildings in Gaza have been significantly damaged by Israeli forces.
As of February 6, 2024, Israel had killed over over one percent of Gaza’s total population. The proportion of journalists and media workers killed is even more staggering. Of the 1,200 Palestinian journalists and media workers based in Gaza at the start of the genocide, at least 115—or nearly ten percent—had been killed as of January 28, 2024.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS) is the only trade union representing Palestinian journalists across the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), including the approximately 1,200 journalists who were based in Gaza at the start of the genocide. In December 2023, PJS and the University Network filed an amicus brief in U.S. federal court to document Israel’s systematic targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
To learn more about Israel’s lethal attacks on journalists, listen to PJS member Anan Quzmar on Democracy Now! and the Useful Idiots podcast.
Following Israel’s ongoing violence against Palestinians in Gaza, respected and authoritative sources have classified the conduct of Israeli forces in Gaza as meeting the international definition of genocide. These include:
The International Court of Justice (determining that Israel’s conduct in Gaza could plausibly amount to genocide.)
Raz Segal, Israeli genocide scholar (who, on October 13th, stated that Israel’s campaign is a “textbook case of genocide.”)
The Center for Constitutional Rights (which filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration for failure to prevent and complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.)
A U.S. federal court (finding that “the current treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law…”)
William A. Schabas, the world’s leading legal expert in genocide (stating that there is “much direct evidence” that Israel’s actions and statements meet the international legal definition of genocide.)
Seventy seven human rights organizations from around the world including the American Association of Jurists, the Movement for Black Lives, and the National Lawyers Guild (concluding that “a genocide, or at the very least, a serious risk of genocide, of Palestinians in Gaza is unfolding.”)
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Council of American-Islamic Relations, California, and Arab-American Civil Rights League (supporting the CCR case against U.S. complicity in Israel’s genocide by stating, “There is no greater public interest than preventing or stopping a genocide.”)
Three leading Holocaust and genocide scholars John Cox, Victoria Sanford, and Barry Trachtenberg (finding that “much evidence points to the crime of genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza after October 7, 2023.”)
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine (stating that genocide is unfolding and noting that the figures on the ground are unparalleled and unmatched.)
1,046 scholars and practitioners of international law, genocide studies, and international studies (supporting South Africa’s application to the ICJ and calling for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.)
The International Federation for Human Rights (recognizing that “Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people constitute an unfolding genocide.”)
Craig Mokhiber, former top United Nations official (resigned due to the UN’s failure to address the “text-book case of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.)
OPEN LETTERS SIGNED BY THE UNIVERSITY NETWORK (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER):
Open Letter of support to the Honorable President of the Republic, Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and to the Honorable Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Mauro Vieira: Support for Brazil's Backing of South Africa's ICJ Petition (17 January 2024)
"We Support South Africa's Genocide Convention Case Against Israel": We join over 1,000 popular movements, unions, and other organizations call on states around the world to support South Africa's genocide case against Israel. (8 January 2024)
Joint Letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Opposing 155mm Artillery Shell Transfer to Israel (13 November 2023)
Hundreds of Legal Community Members Demand Action To Stop Racist Targeting of Palestine Advocates and Safeguard Fundamental Rights (19 October 2023)
Open Call by for an Immediate Ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Israel to Prevent a Humanitarian Catastrophe and Further Loss of Innocent Lives (18 October 2023)
Human Rights and other Civil Society Groups Urge United Nations to Respect Human Rights in the Fight Against Antisemitism: Joint Letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Under Secretary-General Miguel Ángel Moratinos (4 April 2023)
Open Letter to Secretary Blinken Re: U.S. State Department withdrawal of leading human rights expert’s candidacy to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (22 February 2023)
Joint Statement: Over 150 Organizations Demand International Community Stand Against Raids and Closures of 7 Palestinian Organizations (22 August 2022)
290 Organizations Call on Joe Biden to Stop Israeli Government’s Attacks on Palestinian Civil Society (22 August 2022)
Letter to Prosecutor Bensouda Re: Situation in Palestine: Sheikh Jarrah – Communication from Legal Scholars & Advocates (23 May 2021)
Media:
Former ministers and intellectuals defend Lula for supporting genocide charges against Israel (Portuguese) (16 January 2024)
Silencing Critics of Israel: Biden Pulls Nomination of Human Rights Lawyer for Decrying Apartheid (17 February 2023)
Silencing Human Rights and Speaking Back: Interview with Jim Cavallaro and Omar Shakir. Speaking Out of Place. Podcast. (February 2023)
University network Statement published October 2023
The world is witnessing the Israeli government and military commit population transfer, forced displacement, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing—actions that together constitute genocide in Gaza, according to scholars and legal experts.
Since Hamas’s recent attacks against Israeli civilians, Israel has leveled residential neighborhoods, deployed white phosphorus bombs in densely populated areas, damaged critical civilian infrastructure, and blocked water, food, electricity, medical supplies, and aid from entering the region, exacerbating an already severe humanitarian crisis. After ordering a 24-hour population transfer of 1.1 million Palestinians from North Gaza, Israel has bombed those evacuating; air strikes continue to kill others in the south. This is all while Israeli leaders call Gazans “human animals” and openly signal their intent to commit mass atrocities, U.S. leaders cheer on the devastation and pledge unconditional support for Israel’s actions, and members of the global media report as fact unsubstantiated allegations that fan the flames of war.
This catastrophe follows a year of intensifying violence, a sixteen-year blockade of the people of Gaza, and decades of Israeli occupation and apartheid. A majority of the population of Gaza are themselves or are descendants of people who were forcibly expelled from their homes in present-day Israel in 1948 and who have been denied their legally protected right to return. Many Palestinians in Gaza now fear that they are reliving the catastrophic events of 1948.
We call upon the international community to withhold all aid from Israel while it commits grave breaches of the most basic laws of war. We urge a lifting of the blockade and an immediate ceasefire—at the very least, a 48-hour humanitarian ceasefire—and we condemn the refusal of the United States to work toward de-escalation.
We demand that the United States and other powerful nations exercise the full extent of their influence to stop this devastation. History will judge those enabling genocide in Gaza.