From Ian Sinclair Journalism:

List of experts and organisations describing Israel’s attack on Gaza as genocide, or warning there is a serious risk of genocide
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List of experts and organisations describing Israel’s attack on Gaza as genocide, or warning there is a serious risk of genocide
by Ian Sinclair
21 December 2023 (since updated)

“…the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians” – Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide, 13 October 2023.

“As scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies, we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” – 790 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies, 15 October 2023.

‘There is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in the occupied Gaza Strip. In their public statements and speeches, Israeli officials have used dehumanizing language, describing Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals.” They have also been unequivocal in the goal of maximum harm, stating that the “emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” using “fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known”’ – US-based Center for Constitutional Rights, 18 October 2023.

“We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza. Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestine people” – United Nations Experts (seven Special Rapporteurs), 19 October 2023.

“A text-book case of genocide” – Craig Mokhiber, Director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 28 October 2023.

“It is worth noting that these two major military powers [the United States and Israel] are committing genocide in Gaza” – Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, 28 October 2023.

“As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening… in justifying the assault, Israeli leaders and generals have made terrifying pronouncements that indicate a genocidal intent… My greatest concern watching the Israel-Gaza war unfold is that there is genocidal intent, which can easily tip into genocidal action” – Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, 10 November 2023.

“Given the high threshold to establish a case of genocide under the UN convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (December 1948), particularly because of the requirement to prove an ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,’ it is remarkable… that much evidence points to the crime of genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza after October 7, 2023” – Dr John Cox, Director of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies, UNC Charlotte, Dr Victoria Sanford, Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, and Dr Barry Trachtenberg, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University, 13 November 2023.

“Many of us already raised the alarm about the risk of genocide in Gaza. We are deeply disturbed by the failure of governments to heed our call and to achieve an immediate ceasefire. We are also profoundly concerned about the support of certain governments for Israel’s strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide” – 41 United Nations Experts, 16 November 2023.

“I’ve warned three times [about] the risk that Israel might be committing the crime of genocide in Gaza… there has been calls to flatten Gaza, to erase Gaza from Earth, and to kill the Gazans because they are ‘also responsible for what Hamas has done’ and there is no distinction here between civilians and militants” – Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, 20 November 2023.

‘Slaughter of civilians on such an industrial scale may well have taken Israel to the verge of committing genocide, “the crime of all crimes”.’ – Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, 6 December 2023.

“We, scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, feel compelled to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza” – 60 scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, 9 December 2023.

“The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) recognises that Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people constitute an unfolding genocide. States and individuals who provide assistance to Israel are hereby rendering themselves complicit.” – International Federation for Human Rights, 12 December 2023.

“As public health and humanitarian professionals, we the authors state emphatically that the grave risk of genocide against the Palestinian people warrants immediate—and now overdue—action” – six public health and humanitarian professionals, 18 December 2023.

“Genocidal intent is assumed to be the most difficult element to prove, but Israelis in charge of prosecuting this conflict have made a plethora of statements that easily prove the requisite intent to ‘destroy in whole or in part’ the Palestinian population in Gaza” – Susan Akram, Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University, 29 December 2023.

“The UN’s top court has ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of telling it to halt the war… South Africa had asked the court to order Israel to stop military action straight away pending a decision on whether Israel has committed genocide… The ICJ found it did have jurisdiction on the matter, and decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention, and that the Palestinian population in Gaza was at real risk of irreparable damage.” – International Court of Justice, 26 January 2024.

“The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza” – Lee Mordechai, Professor of History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 16 March 2024.

““There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met” – Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, 26 March 2024.

“Yes, it is genocide. Although it is so difficult and painful to admit this and despite all efforts to think otherwise, at the end of six months of a brutal war it is no longer possible to escape this conclusion.” – Amos Goldberg, Professor of Holocaust History at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 9 May 2024.

“After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention. Specifically, Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people.” – the University Network for Human Rights, the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School, the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School, 15 May 2024.

“… I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions.” – Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, 13 August 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” – United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, 14 November 2024.

“In December, he filed a 170-page report with the ICC prosecutor’s office. Submitted on behalf of a French-Palestinian victim whose identity is being withheld for security reasons, it alleged that eight prominent Israeli officials and public figures are responsible for incitement to genocide. The report mentions Netanyahu, Gallant, President Isaac Herzog, current Defense Minister Israel Katz, retired army general Giora Eiland, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and journalist Zvi Yehezkeli” – Omer Shatz, a lecturer in international law at Sciences Po Paris and international criminal court counsel, 24 January 2025.

“Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip” – Amnesty International, 5 December 2024.

“In recent months, ECCHR [the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights] has been conducting independent research and analysis on the topic of genocide, and analyzing this against the available information and evidence relating to Israel’s actions in Gaza. This process has led us to the conclusion that there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza” – European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, 10 December 2024.

“Israeli authorities have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths. In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide. The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.” – Human Rights Watch, 19 December 2024.

“The recent military offensive in the north is a stark illustration of the brutal war the Israeli forces are waging on Gaza, and we are seeing clear signs of ethnic cleansing as Palestinians are forcibly displaced, trapped, and bombed. 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 organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.” – Christopher Lockyear, Secretary-General, Médecins Sans Frontières, 19 December 2024.

“Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza.” – Professor Daniel Blatman and Professor Amos Goldberg, historians of the Holocaust and genocide studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 30 January 2025.

“I thought – and I still think – that the conduct of Israel in Gaza is grossly disproportionate and there’s at least an arguable case that it’s genocidal. One can’t put it higher than that because genocide depends on intent. That’s quite a difficult thing to establish but I read the provisional decision of the international court (of justice) (ICJ) and it seemed to me that they were saying that that was an arguable proposition.” – Lord Sumption, former UK supreme court judge, 10 February 2025.

“With a lot of the genocide studies, people are (now) quite open about describing what’s happening in Palestine as genocide… when I visited Rwanda in early 1993, about 15 months before the full-blown genocide (as part of a fact-finding mission) we warned the UN of genocide because there were very visible statements calling for the destruction of a group, married with actual massacres being committed with blessings from of the highest authorities in the country. It was a combination of those factors, and I see the same thing at work in Gaza. Just take the infamous statement by Yoav Gallant about Israel denying water, food, electricity and fuel to Gaza – this is just one example. But calling out genocide is not a simple formula on your phone. We’re interpreting the UN Genocide Convention in light of the way it’s been interpreted in the past. The intent of the leaders of Israel appears to be to destroy the Palestinian people, certainly the people in Gaza.” – William Schabas, Professor of International Law at Middlesex University and Professor of International Human Rights at Leiden University, 11 March 2025.

‘Israel’s systemic attacks on women’s healthcare in Gaza amount to ‘genocidal acts’, and Israeli security forces have used sexual violence as a weapon of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people”, a UN report states. The 49-page report on sexual and gender-based violence was drawn up by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and presented to the UN human rights council… Israel’s actions amounted to “two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome statute and the genocide convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births”, the human rights council said in a press release about the report.’ – UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 13 March 2025.

“Not only is delivering humanitarian aid one of Israel’s most critical obligations as the occupying power, but its deliberate depletion of essential necessities, destroying of natural resources and calculated push to drive Gaza to the brink of collapse further corroborates its criminal responsibility. These acts, beyond constituting grave international crimes, follow alarming, documented patterns of genocidal conduct.” – 39 UN experts, 7 May 2025.

“We all know what’s going on there, and we’ve all heard the objectives stated by Netanyau’s ministers​, which are clear declarations of genocidal intent. Seldom have I heard the leader of a state so clearly outline a plan that fits the legal definition of genocide.” – former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, 9 May 2025.

“Listen, by any account, the destruction is massive. The number of people who have been killed is huge and certainly underestimated. We have seen the systematic destruction also of a school, of a health centre. People have been constant pinballs within Gaza, moving all the time. So there is absolutely no doubt that we are talking about massive atrocities… It could end up to genocide. There are many elements which could go in this direction.” – Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of Unrwa, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, 13 May 2025.

“Israel is deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. For more than 10 weeks, nothing has entered Gaza – no food, medicine, water or tents. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have, again, been forcibly displaced and confined into ever-shrinking spaces, as 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory is either within Israeli-militarized zones or under displacement orders. As my colleague from the FAO will explain, every single one of the 2.1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face the risk of famine. One in five face starvation… So, for those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now? Will you act – decisively – to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?” – Tom Fletcher, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefing to the UN Security Council, 13 May 2025.

“Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that Israel’s deliberate denial of food, water, shelter and sanitation was the key factor in her determination that the military campaign was a genocide.” 17 May 2025.

“… genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide occurring.” – 800 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges, including two former supreme court justices and 84 KCs, in open letter to UK Prime Minister, 26 May 2025.

“I have now moved to a position where I believe that we’re now witnessing a genocide taking place before our eyes. I was very reluctant to go there because the threshold has to be very high. There has to be specific intent for genocide. But what we’re now seeing is genocidal behaviour.” – Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Director of the International Bar Association’s Institute of Human Rights, 9 July 2025.

“Today, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel is releasing a position paper that documents this assault for what it is: a deliberate, cumulative dismantling of Gaza’s health system, and with it, its people’s ability to survive. This amounts to genocide” – Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, 28 July 2025.

“An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” – B’Teslem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 28 July 2025.

“Israel is starving Gaza. It’s genocide. It’s a crime against humanity. It’s a war crime. I have been repeating it and repeating it and repeating it, I feel like Cassandra” – Michael Fakhri, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, 4 August 2025.

‘Regarding genocide, some of us have questioned the existence of a specific intention to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians of Gaza. But today, we agree at the very least that the genocidal intent of the Israeli government has crystallized in the “humanitarian city” project, which follows the blocking of aid to Gaza and the establishment of a so-called alternative mechanism through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ – 160 French-speaking international law experts, 8 August 2025.

‘Hundreds of employees of the United Nations’ leading human rights agency have backed an internal letter telling its leadership to declare Israel’s offensive in Gaza a genocide and to call on UN member states to suspend arms sales to Israel. The 1,100-word letter, signed by about a quarter of the 2,000 staff of the Geneva- and New York-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), says the Israeli offensive in Gaza meets the legal threshold of genocide’ – 29 August 2025.

‘The world’s biggest academic association of genocide scholars has passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday. Eighty-six percent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution declaring Israel’s “policies and actions in Gaza” had met the legal definition set out in Article II of the 1948 UN convention on genocide.’ – 1 September 2025.